Official Leaves Post as Texas Prepares to Debate Science Education Standards

Here's a nice summary of all the controversy over what has happened recently in Texas. I blogged about this a few days ago and offered several links to different blogs about the story. The NY Times piece does a good job of pulling it all together including something I had not read yet.

The standards, adopted in 1998, are due for a 10-year review and possible revision after the 15-member elected State Board of Education meets in February, with particular ramifications for the multibillion-dollar textbook industry. The chairman of the panel, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist and Sunday School teacher at Grace Bible Church in College Station, has lectured favorably in the past about intelligent design.

So when they come up for review next year a bible thumping dentist with a creationist agenda is going to be at the helm. This is dangerous. Texas is a huge market for textbooks and anyone who has bought them can tell you they are expensive as hell. It's a huge industry with a lot of money being spent and if they start writing books that are 'Approved for Texas' (assuming McLeroy has his way) then it will have a farther reaching effect on the country. Now would be a good time for school boards and science teachers to sit up and take notice. When approving science books for their class examine them carefully.

Texas should not be allowed to wield this much influence and any publishers who distribute books that would satisfy an id proponent or creationist should quickly be relegated to the fringes of the market place by rational people.

Jump.