Here are some practical suggestions students and their parents can use to fight evolution in the classroom. It certainly is unfair to use tax dollars to promote the religion of evolution and, at the same time, destroy the faith of Christian children in school.
- Transfer your child from public school to private or home school. Public schools lose funding when enrollment drops (www.exodusmandate.org).
- As a taxpayer, you have a right to help control your local schools, even if your children do not attend. Go to school board meetings. Be polite and friendly. Get involved with the election process.
- Get educated. Research the educational structure, educational standards, and annual textbook selection process of your state. Use the internet and your phone book. State and local officials will be impressed and more ready to cooperate when they see you have done your homework.
- Write to textbook publishers to express your opinion.
- Run for school board or get on your textbook selection committee and demand that books be accurate. Most states already have laws requiring this. Getting false information out of the books will remove many items currently used to support evolution. Textbooks are selected by either state textbook-selection committees, county or district committees, or individual teachers. States with state textbook-selection committees normally select several books from the textbooks submitted by publishers. These books are considered state approved and districts must choose from those books if they want the state to pay for them. Publishers want to sell books so they produce accordingly. Check with the Educational Research Analysts for great help in helping formulate a good state standard as well as the process of textbook selection.
- Encourage students to do papers showing the religious nature of evolutionary theory in science class. Your school board may be persuaded to buy some material for the sake of equal time. If not, get and distribute books and videos as a mission project through your church.
- Donate creation science material to your child’s science teacher or school library.
- Inform teachers of their right to teach creation in public school. Many are fooled by the propaganda from groups like the ACLU into thinking they are not allowed to talk about creation when they really are.1
- Keep informed of trends in education and bills being introduced by getting in “the loop.”
- Earn good grades; behave well; be on time; be respectful.
- Pray for your teacher.
- Talk to your teacher about evolution and creation issues privately, after class. Try to not confront them in class, if possible.
- Offer your teacher creation science material to read or watch. A video is a great non-offensive way to convert teachers to the truths of creation. (Creation Seminar Part #1 or #4 would be good.)
- Have your parents request that you be exempted from the evolutionary portions of class as they are contrary to your religion.2
CANs and CAN’Ts of teaching origins in public school science classes:
On public school science course content standards, keep in mind the distinction between what teachers must teach, and what they may teach.
States can legally require teachers to discuss evolution in science classes. They cannot require them to discuss creation. Teachers may discuss creation in science classes if they wish.
- REMEMBER the prevailing notion that evolution is scientific and that creation is religious! This is why courts always overturn mandates to discuss creation in science classes. But satisfactory public school science course content standards on evolution are possible within this constraint.
- CONSIDER the distinction between scientific weaknesses in evolutionary theory and scientific evidence for creation. Courts allow requiring the former, but not the latter in public school science courses, because they (wrongly) assume that evolution is scientific but creation is religious.
- IDENTIFY the distinction between requiring discussion of weaknesses of all scientific theories and “singling out” evolu- tion. To avoid legal challenges alleging a “non-secular purpose” in public school science courses, formulate general curriculum standards on this topic that do not mention evolution.
Texas has met those criteria over the years with these variant wordings of its public school science course standards:
- “Examining alternative scientific evidence and ideas to test, modify, verify, or refute scientific theories.”
- “The student shall be provided content necessary to formulate, discuss, critique, and review hypotheses, theories, laws, and principles and their strengths and weaknesses.”
- “The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information.”