Thoughts in a Haystack

There is more to be learned about the campaign for the Ohio Board of Education that I touched on before. The main focus is on the anticipated match up between one incumbent, Deborah Owens Fink, and Tom Sawyer.

In February, the board voted 11-4 to delete a state standard and corresponding lesson plan that encouraged students to seek evidence for and against evolution. Critics said the lesson echoed arguments from proponents of intelligent design. ...

The board's decision came after a federal judge in December banned a local school board in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes because it would violate the separation of church and state. The judge called intelligent design religion masquerading as science.

"They got what they wanted," said Owens Fink, who voted to keep the standard. "I don't understand why they are even engaged on the topic. Ohio isn't Kansas."

Owens Fink said she supported altering the state standards to require students to critically analyze more aspects of science, such as physics and chemistry, rather than singling out evolution.

Sawyer has been drafted to run by a group called Help Ohio Public Education, whose 13-member board is weighted with scientists primarily from Case Western Reserve University and Ohio State University. One board member is the Rev. George Poyne of the Vatican Observatory in Rome.

I find it odd that (Sawyer) would run at the behest of radical, liberal scientists from Cleveland.

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 11:51 PM