Re: [school-discuss] Open Content and open source

["Dave Prentice" <prentice@instruction.com>]

Kyle,
    Good info -- thanks. There's so much hype and deception floating
on this subject. For instance, I keep hearing people say that the
Supreme Court said it's illegal to teach creation. See Aguillard v.
Edwards -- they said nothing of the sort. They said any teacher can
teach anything that enhances science education as long as that's the
primary purpose. Sounds like all Kansas was trying to do was focus on
practical here-and-now science instead of one side's beliefs about the
prehistoric past.
Dave Prentice
prentice@instruction.com
http://www.originsweb.info
-----Original Message-----
From: Kyle Hutson <smyle@rockcreek.k12.ks.us>
To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
<schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net>
Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 6:19 AM
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Open Content and open source


<snip>(When Kansas tried to ban teaching evolution in
>  .schools, the first thought that crossed my mind was literally,
"Ka-ching!
>  .New Science edition! Awright!")

OK, as a native Kansan, a school employee in Kansas, and the husband
of a science teacher in Kansas, I'm constantly fighting this, but
here goes.

They never tried to ban teaching evolution in schools. That was
settled long ago in the Scopes trial. It wasn't even taken out of
the "learning outcomes" (standards) in the science program. All that
was said was that it would no longer be a question on the state
assessment exams.

Neither I nor my wife knew of anybody changing their curriculum to
not teach evolution. (The newspapers carried a story of one school
district that tried to do so, but even that was using a textbook
that was already written, not a new edition of anything.)

In other words, it was WAY overblown. Stuff is added to and taken
away from the testing all the time (including lots of stuff that I
would be willing to bet every person on this list takes for granted
will be taught), but since this is a "hot button" issue, it got a
disproportionate amount of press.