Teaching Darwin: The Huckabee Factor

This could be bad. Huckabee had hoped to gain ground in Texas by marshalling evangelical voters. However, it looks like McCain will pull out the win and clench the Republican nomination. Honestly, I thought he already had it.

Evangelicals don't like McCain. That's something we can at least agree on although I'm sure we have different reasons. Their boy is Huckabee but he isn't going to be president. That doesn't mean he can't still rally his whackjob supporters. And that could have a serious impact on a crucial issue in Texas.

Next year the Texas State Board of Education will be writing the science curriculum standards for Texas public schoolchildren, and Huckabee may bring enough conservative fundamentalist voters to the polls on March 4 to swing the balance of power on the board to the supporters of creationism. "If Huckabee marshals the religious right in Texas, particularly in North Texas, it has profound implications for the state board," says Kathy Miller, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), an Austin-based advocacy group whose stated goal is to "counter the religious right" in public policy issues, particularly education.

We shouldn't have to go over this again but don't forget what happens when religious conservatives get elected to school boards and start tinkering with science standards. But Texas is different.

Given the Lone Star state's influence as the second largest purchaser of textbooks nationally, any changes likely would have had a ripple effect across the country. Miller says she is concerned that if the social conservatives gain the upper hand they may try to reassert that influence by drawing up a conservative curriculum that would necessarily have to be addressed in textbooks. "One vote, one member, could be the difference between kids getting a 21st century science education or a 19th century education," Miller said.

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