Christian workbook gives instruction for how to explain to homeschool students why God would allow a child to be molested.

Courtesy of the Friendly Atheist:  

The folks at Homeschoolers Anonymous recently got their hands on some old workbook pages used at the Institute of Basic Life Principles. That would be the Christian ministry founded by Bill Gothard, a man who resigned as President a couple of years ago after 34 women accused him of sexual harassment. 

In these workbook pages, which are approximately 20 years old but still aligned with the ministry’s current teachings, students are presented with a question: “Why did God let a four year old boy be molested by a fifteen year old neighbor?” 

Besides the odd phrasing that suggests the four-year-old did something to get molested instead of focusing on the teenager who committed the crime, it’s also a really weird way to talk about why God allows bad things to happen…

Well just threw up in my mouth a little. 

As somebody who has dealt with kids who have been sexually abuses and molested I am horrified that ANYBODY would use this to "educate" an impressionable child.

In fact it reads like a manual for how to prepare children to be victimized.

Republicans add using Bibles as textbooks in our public schools to their party platform.

Courtesy of The Frisky:

As if this year’s Republican convention couldn’t get any worse, it has somehow managed to top itself already, which, frankly, is saying a lot when you consider the fact that they’re literally nominating Donald-fucking-Trump. The GOP platform committee passed an amendment mandating that the Bible be allowed to be taught in schools as a historical document, according to NBC and Reuters reporters in Cleveland Monday. NBC’s Ginger Gibson tweeted, “Teaching the Bible in public schools remains in Republican platform.” 

This addition to the party platform ignores the whole “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state” laws conservatives bring up when it comes to having the freedom to discriminate against gay people, and then conveniently forget when it comes to letting gay people marry or women choose to not be mothers. Additionally, it could burden sensible teachers in public, secular schools who would paradoxically have to teach our Constitutional rights regarding religion, but simultaneously teach Judeo-Christian-centric curriculum to impressionable youth who have the right to come to their own intellectual conclusions about religion.

Personally I don't need another reason to vote against every Republican running for office this year, but if you are even a remotely intelligent person and nee one.....well this should be more than enough.

Portland school board bans textbooks that question climate change.

Courtesy of Oregon Live:

The Portland Public Schools Board on Tuesday decided to ban any classroom materials that cast doubt on climate change. The resolution passed unanimously and requires that textbooks and other material purchased by the district present climate change as a fact rather than theory. 

Material will also need to present human activity as one of the phenomenon's causes. 

In testimony to the board, Bill Bigelow, a former Portland teacher, told district officials that "we don't want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry." 

Bigelow said that material that treats climate change as anything other than fact is published by companies making concessions for fossil fuel companies. He pointed to words such as "might," "may" and "could" in educational materials.

Gee textbooks that contain actual facts and to do not promote misinformation. What a truly novel concept.

My understanding is that Portland is the first school board to take such an aggressive stance to protect their students from fossil fuel company propaganda.

Let's hope they are not the last.

Federal court rejects case brought by group claiming that taking religion out of Kansas science textbooks was in fact establishing a state sponsored religion. WTF?

Courtesy of ARS Technica:

A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s decision to dismiss a case brought in Kansas by a religiously-minded group of parents and students. The plaintiffs were concerned about their home state’s adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). 

As Ars reported back in 2013 when the case was first filed, the NGSS standards are a nationwide attempt to improve science education in the US. They have been backed by organizations such as the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

This case, COPE v. Kansas Board of Education, is a notable victory for science—and a blow to the creationist crowd and its progeny. 

The Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) has lead the charge against the NGSS in Kansas, and claims that these new standards are actually a form of religious indoctrination. (The NGSS have been adopted by 18 states, including Kansas.) How could COPE come to that conclusion? Because, it argues, the NGSS do not include any religious explanation for the origins of life and the universe. Therefore, according to the group, the NGSS in Kansas violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which forbids the government's ability to "establish" a state-sanctioned religion.

So let me see if I have this straight. By removing all reference to any religious mythology about the origins of life and the universe, these textbooks are essentially establishing a state sanctioned religion in its place.

Damn that is a truckload of stupid.

You know trying to understand that just killed so many of my brain cells that it's almost like I was educated in a Kansas public school.

State board of education in Alabama votes to keep Evolution disclaimer in biology books. You know, because religion.

Courtesy of WKRG:

Last week, state board of education voted to keep the disclaimer in textbooks. 

It has only been a year since Alabama was mandated to teach evolution at all; there had been a prior requirement that included theory and diversity, but the 2015 change solidified the requirement in the list of standards, which states classes must “analyze scientific evidence (e.g., DNA, fossil records, cladograms, biogeography) to support hypotheses of common ancestry and biological evolution.” 

Minimum state standards are are set but local school districts can make their own decisions.

Here is what the disclaimer says in full:

BIOLOGY TEXTBOOK INSERT A MESSAGE FROM THE ALABAMA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION 

The word “theory” has many meanings. Theories are defined as systematically organized knowledge, abstract reasoning, a speculative idea or plan, or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations. 

 Many scientific theories have been developed over time. The value of scientific work is not only the development of theories but also what is learned from the development process. The Alabama Course of Study: Science includes many theories and studies of scientists’ work. The work of Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein, to name a few, has provided a basis of our knowledge of the world today. 

The theory of evolution by natural selection is a controversial theory that is included in this textbook. It is controversial because it states that natural selection provides the basis for the modern scientific explanation for the diversity of living things. Since natural selection has been observed to play a role in influencing small changes in a population, it is assumed that it produces large changes, even though this has not been directly observed. Because of its importance and implications, students should understand the nature of evolutionary theories. They should learn to make distinctions between the multiple meanings of evolution, to distinguish between observations and assumptions used to draw conclusions, and to wrestle with the unanswered questions and unresolved problems still faced by evolutionary theory. 

 There are many unanswered questions about the origin of life. With the explosion of new scientific knowledge in biochemical and molecular biology and exciting new fossil discoveries, Alabama students may be among those who use their understanding and skills to contribute to knowledge and to answer many unanswered questions. Instructional material associated with controversy should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Gee if only they encouraged similar skepticism and critical thinking while reading the Bible, or attending church.

By the way there are many unanswered questions and controversies within virtually EVERY scientific discipline. The only reason that Evolution gets singled out all of the time is because it endangers people's ability to embrace the comforting mythologies of religion.

Texas education officials reject allowing academics to check their school textbooks for accuracy.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

Top Texas education officials rejected Wednesday letting university experts fact-check textbooks approved for use in public-school classrooms statewide, instead reaffirming a vetting system that has helped spark years of ideological battles over how potentially thorny lessons in history and science are taught. 

Republican board member Thomas Ratliff had proposed bringing in academics to check textbooks only for factual errors, but his measure failed 8-7 after lengthy discussion.

"I know people are concerned about pointy-headed liberals in the ivory tower making our process different or worse," Ratliff, of Mount Pleasant, said before the vote. "But I hold our institutions of higher education in fairly high regard." 

Texas has 5.2 million public-school students, a large enough textbook market that publishers making modifications to meet its standards can affect material in other states. 

As it mulls books proposed for approval, the board relies on citizen review panels — often teachers, parents, business leaders or other experts — whose members are nominated by board members. Other Texans can also check the books on their own and identify what they see as errors in public testimony during board meetings. 

Ratliff had noted that some conservative board members have long stocked review panels with people more concerned with ideology than subject matter expertise. That gave rise to controversies over how textbooks handle climate change and evolution, or how they describe the influence biblical figures such as Moses had on America's Founding Fathers.

Apparently creating textbooks to dumb down the American people is now a Texas export.

Of course what can you expect from Texas?

After all that is where then Governor George W. Bush first started formulating what would one day be No Child Left Behind.

And literally NOTHING has damaged public education as thoroughly as that did.

Ahh, the joys of Christian private school.

Source

I guess fundamentalists spell input a little differently.

Apparently this comes from a book called Biblical Manhood. (More here.)

I have to tell you that if any man pulled that "glorifies by submission" crap with the women in my family they would have to finish their lecture through a mouthful of broken teeth.

Texas textbook refers to slaves as "workers" in section on immigration in America. Mother posts about it on Facebook, outrage ensues, and publishing company promises to alter passages.

Yes the slaves were just over here on a work program.

A work program that included daily whippings and abuse if they did not work hard enough, and the opportunity to have their loved ones and children sold to other plantation owners so that they would never see them again.

This page was in the a textbook called World Geography published by McGraw-Hill. And it was publicized on Facebook by a Houston mother by the name of Roni Dean-Burren who made this video.

That video went viral, and now, according to Wonkette, McGraw-Hill posted this comment about their racial insensitivity:

We believe we can do better. To communicate these facts more clearly, we will update this caption to describe the arrival of African slaves in the U.S. as a forced migration and emphasize that their work was done as slave labor. These changes will be reflected in the digital version of the program immediately and will be included in the program’s next print run. 

"We believe we can do better." Gee ya think? 

Anyhow I thought this was a good example of the power of social media, and a reminder that even though we might feel that nobody is listening to us, sometimes we can make positive change in this world.

New public school standards in Alabama require students for the first time to understand the theory of Evolution and to address climate change.

Courtesy of AL.com: 

Alabama is updating its decade-old science standards to require that students understand evolution and learn about climate change, topics that can still be controversial in the Bible Belt state. 

Educators say the new rules — part of a major change that includes more experimentation and hands-on instruction and less lecturing — don't require that students believe in evolution or accept the idea that climate is changing globally. 

But public school students will be required for the first time to understand the theory of evolution. And teachers will be required to address climate change, which wasn't a focus the last time the state set science standards in 2005. 

The new standards take effect in 2016 after being unanimously approved by the Republican-controlled Alabama State Board of Education on Thursday.

This may seem like a small step, and indeed it is, but since it is taking place in Alabama it is also noteworthy.

However just in case you thought that the Christian Right had caved in altogether, there is still this: 

Textbooks used in Alabama science classes have carried a disclaimer sticker for years stating that evolution is a "controversial theory," not fact, and the new course of study doesn't change the warnings, which were advocated by Christian conservatives.

Like I said it IS Alabama.

Oh well, baby steps are still steps in the right direction.

WTF Arizona?

Apparently this from a high school in Arizona.

Here is more courtesy of Addicting Info: 

At this time it should be noted again that this is not meant to be used in a sexual education class; this is for students’ biology textbooks. Discussing the scientific reality of things like birth control and STDs are apparently too much. And in fact, this was the conservative school board’s idea of a “compromise.” They had originally wanted to quite literally cut out the pages of the science book that made mention of abortion. 

Last school year, Gilbert’s administrators proposed “editing” the textbook to align it with Arizona’s conservative views on abortion and abstinence. “The cheapest, least disruptive way to solve the problem is to remove the page,” said one board member, apparently unaware that science doesn’t just cease to exist if you hide it. 

Several months later, they had second thoughts. For one thing, slicing out pages of copyrighted textbooks is probably illegal. For another, it would have cost a fortune. Instead, the conservative board members decided to utilize a common creationist tactic: stickers that tell students to ignore their own textbooks because of how dangerous it is.

This is so many shades of fucked up that I don't even know where to begin.

Hell no wonder teachers are leaving the profession in droves.

Texas to teach schoolchildren bad history to hide their racist past.

Courtesy of The Washington Post:  

Five million public school students in Texas will begin using new social studies textbooks this fall based on state academic standards that barely address racial segregation. The state’s guidelines for teaching American history also do not mention the Ku Klux Klan or Jim Crow laws. 

And when it comes to the Civil War, children are supposed to learn that the conflict was caused by “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery” — written deliberately in that order to telegraph slavery’s secondary role in driving the conflict, according to some members of the state board of education. 

Slavery was a “side issue to the Civil War,” said Pat Hardy, a Republican board member, when the board adopted the standards in 2010. “There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.”

You know they say that "History is written by the victors."  But in Texas it is clearly being written by the losers.

Historians acknowledge that disagreements over states’ rights played a role in the Civil War. But the states’ rights issue was inseparable from slavery, they say: The right that states in the South were seeking to protect, after all, was the right to buy and sell people.

Isn't that just like the conservatives? If the facts don't work for your version of reality, ignore them, and if history is not on your side, just rewrite it.

So much for the IQ's in Texas going up in the foreseeable future.

Ever wonder why people in the deep South seem to have a different perspective on history than those in other parts of the country? Well this textbook might help to explain that.

Courtesy of AL.com: 

The men and women of Alabama – from the Greatest Generation to Baby Boomers like me – learned Alabama history from the famous old textbook "Know Alabama." 

It should be called "No Wonder, Alabama." 

It explains a lot. Fourth graders until the '70s learned how living on a plantation was "one of the happiest ways of life." Just imagine yourself, the 1957 edition says, on your family plantation: 

"How's it coming Sam," your father asks one of the old Negroes. 

"'Fine, Marse Tom, 'jes fine. We got 'most more cotton than we can pick.' Then Sam chuckles to himself and goes back to picking as fast as he can. 

"One of the little Negro boys is called 'Jig' He got that name because he dances so well when the Negroes play their banjos.

The book goes on to describe "Jig" volunteering to be an Indian so he can play with the little white boys and allowing himself to be captured.

After which I imagine the other boys took his land and infected him with smallpox.

And yes, THAT is in an actual textbook.

Here is how the textbook deals with the Civil War, which they call the "War Between the States": 

"The Southerners had a right under the law to own slaves, and the Southern states had a right under the law to leave the United States. Many Southerners did not want to leave the Union. But when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the South felt that they had to leave the Union to keep their rights."

Those poor patriotic, hard working, southern plantation owners.  Imagine being forced to declare war on your fellow countrymen just so that you could continue keeping human beings as property, like your daddy's daddy did.

And what about the Klu Klux Klan?  

"The loyal white men of Alabama saw they could not depend on the laws or the state government to protect their families. (Does this sounds suspiciously like the Tea Party of today to anybody else?)

They knew they had to do something to bring back law and order, to get the government back in the hands of honest men who knew how to run it. "They (the Klan) held their courts in the dark forests at night; they passed sentence on the criminals and they carried out the sentence. Sometimes the sentence would be to leave the state. 

"After a while the Klan struck fear in the hearts of the "carpetbaggers" and other lawless men who had taken control of the state.... The Negroes who had been fooled by the false promises of the "carpetbaggers" decided to get themselves jobs and settle down to make an honest living. 

"Many of the Negroes in the South remained loyal to the white Southerners. Even though they had lately been freed from slavery, even though they had no education, they knew who their friends were."

Well clearly the folks in those white robes were the friends of the Negroes. That's why they kept inviting them to bonfires and allowed them to "hang around" during cross burnings.

The reporter goes on to say that in the version of this book published in 1970, Martin Luther King Jr. only received one mention and that was to inform the child that he was dead.

Damn I have to say that I found this article pretty enlightening, and not just a little disturbing.

And the real problem is that those politicians who were educated by textbooks like this and others, are working hard to make sure that the children of today leave school just as ignorant  as they were when THEY graduated.

Or as reporter John Archibald puts it:

Education is not a priority in Alabama, and it never has been. The No. 1 priority is and always has been indoctrination.

And you know that if this is what was used to teach Alabama children, that similar "educational" materials were also used to teach impressionable children in every other public school below the Dixie Line. 

Certainly explains a lot. Yes it does.

Science VS Evolution.

From an eighth grade "science" book used in a Christian middle school:

"Since the publication of Charles Darwin's famous book 'Origin of Species' in 1859 a great controversy has raged between evolutionists and people who believe in God as the creator and Sustainer of all things. The controversy has been characterized by many as an argument between science and the Bible, but the opposite is true: the real argument is between science and evolution."

(Say what?)

"Evolution interests almost everyone because of its impact upon spiritual matters. If evolution were true, the Christian concepts of sin, eternity, the atoning work of Jesus Christ, and the truthfulness of the Bible would be open to question. (And we can't have that!) If man is nothing more than a highly developed animal then he is to be congratulated for his struggle upward and is to be excused when he acts like an animal; but if man is the divinely created being the Bible tells us he is, then man is a creature made in the image of God and a sinner in need of divine grace."

Modern Science has a Biblical foundation: Most of the early scientists--great men like Newton, Galileo, Kepler, and Boyle--believed in God. Many wrote about God's infinite wisdom and design in creation. They believed that God created an orderly universe that He governs through laws that men may discover and use. "

And that folks is how evolution is introduced to impressionable young children who are expected to live among their more educated, and less indoctrinated, brethren who have stopped gazing at the shadows on the cave wall and walked toward the truth. (H/T to Plato.) 

(Here is a link to more pages of this pseudo scientific, religiously infused, mumbo jumbo.

When is a science teacher NOT a science teacher? When this is the "science" that they teach.

Larger image.

So essentially the argument used here is that since there have been advances in science which disagree with some of Darwin's hypothesis that the entire discipline should be rejected and a return to biblical explanations for life embraced.

And since when is the "true calling" of scientists to master nature for the benefit of mankind?

I thought their calling was to examine and explore facts in order to better understand the reality in which we live.

As for scientists rejecting Darwin, according to the Smithsonian magazine nothing could be further from the truth:  

Perhaps because of that remarkable success, "evolution," or "Darwinism," can sometimes seem like a done deal, and the man himself something of an alabaster monument to wisdom and the dispassionate pursuit of scientific truth. But Darwin recognized that his work was just the beginning. "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches," he wrote in Origin. 

Since then, even the most unanticipated discoveries in the life sciences have supported or extended Darwin's central ideas—all life is related, species change over time in response to natural selection, and new forms replace those that came before. "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," the pioneering geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky titled a famous essay in 1973. He could not have been more right—evolution is quite simply the way biology works, the central organizing principle of life on earth. 

In the 150 years since Darwin published Origin, those "important researches" have produced results he could never have anticipated. Three fields in particular—geology, genetics and paleoanthropology—illustrate both the gaps in Darwin's own knowledge and the power of his ideas to make sense of what came after him. Darwin would have been amazed, for example, to learn that the continents are in constant, crawling motion. The term "genetics" wasn't even coined until 1905, long after Darwin's death in 1882. And though the first fossil recognized as an ancient human—dubbed Neanderthal Man—was discovered in Germany just before Origin was published, he could not have known about the broad and varied family tree of ancestral humans. Yet his original theory has encompassed all these surprises and more. 

Darwin never claimed to have provided all of the answers but the template that he did provide has helped just about every scientific discipline imaginable make incredible  discoveries that benefit mankind in incalculable ways.

We owe Charles Darwin a huge debt of gratitude for his invaluable assistance with breakthroughs in anthropology, biology, zoology, ichthyology, ornithology, genealogy, medical advancements, you name it and it was probably benefited in some way by the work of Charles Robert Darwin.

And EVERY science class in America should make it a priority to teach that to their students.

A school board director, and Tea party Republican, in Pennsylvania wants textbooks to contain the "true science" refuting Global Warming.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A school director in Pennsylvania is demanding that an environmental science textbook used in high schools be supplemented with a pamphlet about the “true science” of global warming. 

Saucon Valley School Director and Tea Party Republican Bryan Eichfeld claimed “there’s a lot of clear propaganda…based on bad science” in the chapter, the point of which “is to teach our students to fear the future and to hate our modern industrial economy.” 

He urged his fellow school directors to reject the textbook. 

In a letter, Eichfeld claimed that Environmental Science “utterly fails to present the well-founded science of man-made Global warming skeptics,” and urged them to adopt “an attachment to the book that provides students with the excluded scientific evidence and data that challenge the global warming claims made in the book.”

If that reminds you of the attempts by Creationists to promote the "teach both sides of the science" argument in order to insert religious ideas into a public school classroom that is likely not an accident.

In fact climate science deniers have been inserting language attacking the science of global warming in the same published Christian textbooks that also attack evolution.  (As you can see for yourself in this clip from Jesus Camp.)

Essentially once you have convinced people to doubt the findings of the vast number of scientists on one topic it is very simple to extrapolate that to the other scientific findings that you find objectionable.

However while the argument against evolution can be understood as push back from people who do not want their belief system undermined, it is much harder to understand what motivates average Americans to jump on the global warming denial train to stupidity.

Especially considering the consequences. 

This is an actual passage, from an actual "science" book, for an actual high school class.

As you may imagine this is from a Christian publishing company, whose textbooks are sold to home school programs and Christian schools.

This is also the kind of textbook which are sometimes paid for with tax dollars for placement in charter and private school across the country.

And if the Republicans have their way, we will see many more just like it.

We need to stand up and fight for our children's education.

I like a man who tells it like it is.

Easily one of my favorite character actors.

And clearly not a man who gladly entertains fools.

(Source.)

Textbook for private school in Texas. This is what is taught when children are taught outside of the public school system.

Source

To these people public education is a government sponsored attack on their religion.

In their world of black and white, right and wrong, good and evil, they are the persecuted and any who do not share their faith are those who oppress them.

Having failed to insert Creationism into science textbooks, Texas activists now focus on social studies. Oh joy. Update!

Courtesy of TFN Insider:

 Another sign that the social studies textbook adoption in Texas this year is going to be messy: A political activist who helped write new curriculum standards for the state’s public schools in 2009 is insisting that new textbooks under consideration this year should promote his revisionist views on issues such as slavery and the Civil War, the civil rights movement and church-state separation. 

North Texas activist Bill Ames insisted in 2009 that the state’s previous social studies curriculum standards included an “overrepresentation of minorities” and had a leftist bias. He then served throughout the rest of the year on a state panel charged with drafting new curriculum standards for the high school U.S. history course. Don McLeroy, R-College Station, a State Board of Education (SBOE) member at the time, had insisted that the Texas Education Agency place Ames on the curriculum panel. 

Although fellow curriculum panel members appear to have rejected many of Ames’ demands as they drafted the new standards, Ames was pleased when SBOE members heavily revised the draft document. He now praises the state’s social studies standards, but even the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute has called the state’s U.S. history standards a “politicized distortion of history” with “misrepresentations at every turn.” 

In an article published last weekend on the right-wing website FreedomOutpost.com, Ames boasted that new social studies textbooks publishers will submit in April must be based on those deeply flawed standards. His article offers a guide for the kinds of textbook content he and other right-wing activists as well as some SBOE members will be looking for in the textbooks. Some examples: 

• Ames wants textbooks to play down the role of slavery in causing the American Civil War by teaching students that the primary causes of the war were sectionalism and states’ rights. He points approvingly to SBOE member Pat Hardy’s statement in 2010 that “slavery was a side issue.” 
• He gleefully points out that students will learn about “militant thugs and even cop killers” in the Black Panthers and other “militant black civil rights groups” when they get to textbook discussions on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. 
• He insists that the textbooks must tell students about the “unrealistic expectations from civil rights legislation, resulting in the burning and looting of a number of U. S. inner cities.” 
• He wants the textbooks to suggest that Republicans were responsible for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 even though northern congressional Democrats had long championed the measure, a Democratically controlled Congress passed it, and a Democratic president signed it into law. 
• He expresses pleasure over the possibility that textbooks for high school U.S. Government might be forced to imply, despite numerous rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court to the contrary, that separation of church and state isn’t a key constitutional principle. 

These and other issues raised by Ames are largely why the social studies textbook adoption this year will likely be far more controversial than the science textbook adoption — with its disputes over evolution and climate change — in 2013.

You know I am really trying not to hate Texas right now, but I am not being terribly successful.

The dumbing down of our public school textbooks, which have been the direct result of Texas tinkering with the standards, is indefensible and, in my opinion, traitorous. (Hey you attack our educational system you attack our country's future.)

Of course if Texans wants to win my affection (And really why wouldn't they?), then they can vote to make Wendy Davis their new Governor and I will take back every terrible thing I ever said about their state.

Well almost everything.

Update: Goods news, the Texas Board of Education has just imposed stricter guidelines: 

The Texas Board of Education imposed tighter rules Friday on the citizen review panels that scrutinize proposed textbooks, potentially softening fights over evolution, religion's role in U.S. history and other ideological matters that have long seeped into what students learn in school. 

Tension over the issue has been building for years in the country's second most populous state, where the textbook market is so large that changes can affect the industry nationwide. Critics complain that a few activists with religious or political objections have too much power to shape what the state's more than 5 million public school students are taught.

Now see Texas? This is what I was hoping for.

Very positive step. 

Despite attempts to undermine it, Texas science textbooks will provide instruction about Evolution. In the Lone Star state I believe this is considered a sign of the Apocalypse.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

A panel of experts has rejected concerns by religious conservatives in Texas that a high school biology textbook contained factual errors about evolution and a state board approved the book on Wednesday for use in public schools. 

The debate over the Pearson Biology textbook was the latest episode of a lengthy battle by evangelicals in Texas to insert Christian and Biblical teachings into public school textbooks. 

Two years ago, conservatives pushed for changes in history textbooks, including one that would have downplayed Thomas Jefferson's role in American history for his support of the separation of church and state. That effort was unsuccessful. 

The second-most populous U.S. state, Texas influences textbook selections for schools nationwide. 

In the case of the biology book, an unidentified volunteer reviewer complained to the Texas State Board of Education that it presents evolution as scientific fact rather than a theory, which conflicts with the creation story written in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. 

The reviewer concluded that the text, which includes lessons on natural selection and the Earth's cooling process, are errors that needed to be corrected by publisher Pearson Education, one of the nation's largest producers of school textbooks and a unit of Pearson Plc. 

The opinion caused the board to delay approval of the textbook and appoint a three-member panel of science experts to analyze the book's lessons and report any factual mistakes. 

"The professors didn't recommend any changes so the book is now approved," Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said in an email. "Schools can purchase it this spring for use in the fall."

So to be clear this book had to be subjected to scrutiny by three scientists before it could be adopted as a science textbook because there was ONE reviewer who was upset that the science in a SCIENCE book conflicted with the mythology taught in a RELIGIOUS book.

Is anybody else waiting for a white rabbit to come hoping by?

What did this idiot think was going to happen? Did he think that the scientists were suddenly going to slap themselves on the forehead, and say "Hey, this Bible really does contain actual science that conflicts with the centuries of scientific research we have been relying on, and really brings into question the conclusions of hundreds of biologists, anthropologists, and paleontologists?"

Well they do believe in miracles, so maybe.