Florida Citizens for Science

Last weekend the Orlando Sentinel ran an article that’s part of their Schools Without Rules series that investigates private schools that accept public money via various scholarships (aka vouchers): Private schools’ curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. In a previous post I highlighted some reactions to the article, good and bad. Now a few more reactions have appeared.

First, the Orlando Sentinel ran an editorial: End the double standard for Florida schools educating students with public dollars.

The revelations in Sunday’s story underscore the need for legislators to make another, more serious attempt to raise the bar at private schools subsidized with state scholarships. The next round needs to include some standards for instructional materials. Policymakers owe it to students with state scholarships, and to taxpayers footing the bill.

This should not be hard sell — if those policymakers want all students educated with public money to excel.

Then writer Lauren Ritchie took a shot at the private schools: Florida must stop paying $1 billion a year to ‘educate’ children in fringe religious nonsense.

“Tim Dees, director of Downey Christian School in east Orange County, where 90 percent of his 275 students rely on state scholarships to pay tuition, defended his school: ‘We believe our way is correct. We focus on creationism because that’s what we believe.’

“No problem. Do fundamentalists want their kids to learn a bunch of hillbilly science? Handle venomous snakes? Learn that God looks down on Catholics, that America would still have slavery except ’some power-hungry individuals stirred up the people’? Knock yourself out. Just don’t expect anyone else to pay for it, and stop calling it ‘education.’ It’s not. It’s more like a 12-year sentence to some anamorphic Sunday school class from hell with no time off for good behavior.”

Writer Scott Maxwell also jumped aboard: Enough fraud, scandal and excuses. 5 ways to clean up Florida’s voucher-school mess.

But first, let’s talk about how the voucher industry — and it is an industry, funded by nearly $1 billion of your tax dollars and corporate tax credits — has responded.

With whining, deflection and excuses.

…

Claims of faith-bashing. What malarkey. I’m a lifelong Christian, a church elder and former Sunday school teacher. I’m not opposed to Christianity. I’m opposed to ignorance. And child-endangerment. And defrauding taxpayers. People who defend these messes at Christian schools with claims of faith-bashing don’t do their faith any favors.

…

Five things need to happen. (…) 4. Curriculum plans should be filed with the state. Parents deserve to know what is being taught. Taxpayers deserve to know what curriculum they’re funding.

And some breaking news: Scholarship programs at private schools need change, lawmakers say.

Central Florida lawmakers say they’d like to strengthen the rules, including new curriculum standards, for private schools that receive state vouchers after an Orlando Sentinel story showed some schools use textbooks with distorted history and science lessons that are outside mainstream academics.

Will anything actually change? Stay tuned …

A hearing was held on May 9 after several Martin County residents complained about the “one-sided” nature of science textbooks the school board was in the process of adopting. I gave a very detailed account of what happened at the hearing: Martin County textbook hearing: Evolution “is not proven science”. For example:

Joiner objects to Biology because it presents Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in factual manner.
Joan Hoffpauir objects to Elevate Science because it does not address other theories of life in addition to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

The hearing officer has now submitted his summary and recommendation to the school board. And it’s not looking good for the textbook protesters. Here’s the hearing officer’s thorough shredding of their arguments.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
23. Guidance regarding the matter in question is provided by the United States Supreme Court in Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 89 (1968), in which the court struck down Arkansas’s prohibition against the teaching of evolution and Edwards v. Aquillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), which holds that the teaching of creation science violates the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as discussed and explained by the court in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Penn. 2005).

24. Kitzmiller involved issues much like the issues presented by this matter, although the roles were reversed. Suit was filed by plaintiffs challenging the decision of the District School Board permitting instruction of the doctrine of Intelligent Design in addition to the state mandate that required that students learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and ultimately take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

25. The Dover District School Board resolution is as follows:
Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin’s theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design. Note: Origin of life is not taught.

26. The resolution of the District School Board, with one exception, mirrors the substance of the presentations of Joiner and Robinson. The exception is that they did not identify their cumulative objections as creationism, creation science, or intelligent design.

27. As pointed out in Kitzmiller, at page 711, the utilization of scientific sounding language as advocating the teaching of alternative theories of the origin of human life to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution offends the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because the alternatives are religious in nature, e.g. intelligent design or creation science.

28. The Kitzmiller court, at page 765, concluded that although Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is imperfect the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point does not support an alternate theory that is expressed in scientific sounding language as advocated by Robinson and Joiner and that the courts recognize as being contrary to the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

29. In addition, the rule of administrative deference is applicable to this proceeding. The rule provides that an agency’s interpretation of a statute that it is charged with enforcing is entitled to great deference and will be approved… unless it is clearly erroneous. Bellsouth Telecommunications, Inc. v. Johnson, 708 S0.2d 594, 596 (1998)

30. By reason of administrative deference, the Martin County School Board is obligated to adhere to the science standards established by the Florida Department of Education regardless of the text book(s) that it might adopt. In the instant matter it is noted that the School Board adopted two textbooks, Elevate Science by Miller, Padilla,Wysession and Biology by Miller and Levine from the list of Florida Department of Education adopted science textbooks. Pursuant to the rule of deference, the School Board must presume that these textbooks comply with the science standards for seventh grade science and high school biology promulgated by the Florida Department of Education/State Board of Education.

IV
RECOMMENDATION
Based on the foregoing Discussion of Presentations and Conclusions of Law, it is RECOMMENDED that a final order be entered upholding the adoption of Elevate Science by Miller, Padilla, Wysession and Biology by Miller and Levine.

The school board was scheduled to consider this recommendation at its June 5 meeting. I don’t know what the final result was. The meeting video and/or documentation is not available anywhere online that I know of yet. I’ll report back once I find something out.

Here is the full report from the hearing officer in pdf: Recommended Order – Instructional Material- 05-23-2018 – Julian.

The Orlando Sentinel published an article a few days ago highlighting the atrocious curriculum some voucher-accepting private schools use: Private schools’ curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together.

Now we’re starting to see reactions to the story. First there is Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano writing about the deeper problems the Sentinel story exposes: Florida’s schools engaged in double standard of epic proportions.

This isn’t about whether you believe in Adam and Eve or the Origin of Species. It isn’t even about whether the Legislature is circumventing the state Constitution with its voucher program.

The bigger picture is that the state has created an uneven playing field. It is pushing private and charter schools as being more innovative and parent-friendly, while at the same time handcuffing traditional public schools with more and more onerous regulations.

Surely, there is something in those religious textbooks that covers hypocrisy.

The Orlando Sentinel’s sister paper the Sun-Sentinel noted that it’s hard to have a conversation about whether private schools that accept public money should teach creationism in science class when members of the general public believe creationism has more validity than evolution: Were dinosaurs and humans alive at the same time? (And is that debate a good use of your money?)

Reader Bob Zydach emailed to take issue with this statement from the initial article: “For the record, dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago, and the Homo Sapiens species is less than a million years old.”

“These are unproven theoretical ages for dinosaurs and Homo Sapiens,” Zydach wrote. “You need to do your homework before you report things as facts. Just because a lot of people say it, it does not make it a fact. These are theories when I went to school and are still theories today.”

And the Orlando Sentinel recently ran a couple of letters to the editor responding to the original story: 2 views on private religious schools.

The article covered a lot of ground, including academics, racial discrimination and what a science teacher termed “plain-old, misguided, bad, horrible science.” Yet it gave no voice to the idea that the theory of evolution (no matter what current public-school texts say) has never been elevated from the status of theory or that creation scientists have built equally complex models to support their theories. Just ask Answers in Genesis or Institute for Creation Research or Apologia.

Good grief, “the theory of evolution has never been elevated from the status of theory”. My guest opinion column in the Tallahassee Democrat needs to be passed around a lot more: Banish ‘just a theory’ dunces with sound science education.

The Orlando Sentinel has been running an excellent investigative series called “Schools Without Rules” about private schools that accept public money in the form of various types of scholarships (otherwise known as vouchers). The articles have been documenting “problems in some scholarship schools, including campuses that hired teachers without degrees and with criminal records, forged fire and health inspection forms, and faced eviction midyear because they failed to pay their bills.”

The latest installment is right up our alley: curriculum, especially for science. The headline gets the point across: Schools Without Rules: Private schools’ curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. I’m quoted toward the end:

“That was just plain-old, misguided, bad, horrible science, talking about dinosaurs and humans living together,” said Brandon Haught, a science teacher at University High School in Volusia and member of the advocacy group Florida Citizens for Science, who also reviewed the materials.

Haught said all the texts, compared with what he uses in his public high school, seemed to downplay “actually doing some science.” They also disregard a key point of science — that not all answers are known, that there are more discoveries to be had.

That quote was just a snippet from my interview that lasted more than an hour. However, the video that goes along with the story has some additional information not in the print version and features me talking about the use of the word “theory” (at about 5:19) and explaining the potential impact of such horrible curriculum (at about 7:42). Make sure you take the time to watch it. It’s the one right by the headline. There’s another video further down on the story’s page that gives a good overview of the entire series of articles.

Also accompanying the main story is a sidebar story focused on the companies that supply the curriculum to the private schools: Who is behind Christian curriculum companies that supply lessons to Florida’s voucher-funded private schools?

Abeka, along with the Bob Jones University-affiliated BJU Press and Accelerated Christian Education Inc., is among the most popular curricula used by Christian schools that take part in Florida’s $1 billion voucher program, which pays for children from low-income families or those with special needs to attend private schools.

A have a few books from these companies that I used as reference when writing my book, Going Ape: Florida’s Battles over Evolution in the Classroom. I wrote about voucher-accepting schools in chapter eight. That’s part of the reason the Sentinel reporters interviewed me; I’m already familiar with this stuff. Yes, the books used in some private schools’ science classrooms are awful! And our tax dollars are paying for them!

We should stop teaching evolution as established fact and instead supplement its teaching with all the gaps and uncertainties that so many of the world’s scientists admit that it is riddled with. That’s the main argument proposed by a few citizens in Martin County who testified before a hearing officer May 9, 2018, about new science textbooks the school district is in the process of adopting (Biology by Miller & Levine and Pearson’s Elevate Science). In years past, these same citizens would have submitted written complaints or spoken for a few minutes before the school board and then would have been politely thanked. End of story. But now due to a new Florida law, any citizen with complaints about textbooks must be allowed to present their grievances, regardless of their merit, in an official hearing presided over by an appointed hearing officer and responded to by school district staff.

The May 9 proceeding was an hour and twenty minutes long. Two men laid out their cases in person at the hearing against the teaching of evolution as fact and a few others who had earlier submitted complaints were represented by written statements due to their not being able to attend. The school district defended evolution in the science textbooks with testimony from the district’s chief academic officer and the district’s science coordinator.

The Collier County school district is also facing complaints from citizens about evolution in the science textbooks. The main similarity between Collier’s and Martin’s protests is that they’re claiming that the textbooks don’t adhere to Florida Statute requirements. Here is what one of the Martin County citizens said during the May 9 hearing:

“Florida Statutes declare that materials recommended for instructions should be accurate, objective, and balanced. Within the scientific community, the origin of species is a debated topic. Since there is controversy within a scientific community it is unbalanced to present evidence from only one side. And to present that one side as seemingly factual is also not accurate.”

But the Collier and Martin groups are taking significantly different paths in their efforts to make the textbooks “accurate, objective, and balanced.” Collier County protesters are boldly and proudly demanding that evolution be balanced with creationism, according to their (Florida Citizens’ Alliance) website, their multiple statements to the media, and their statements at a recent school board meeting. But the Collier citizens haven’t had their official hearing yet, so we’ll see if that tactic changes.

Martin County protesters are attempting to stay clear of overt mentions of creationism. Their written objections that had sparked the need for a hearing (see my previous post about the objections) did request things like: “Develop a curriculum which presents the fact that evolution is theory and not fact, making room for other beliefs.” But there was no explanation of what those other beliefs might be. And during the May 9 hearing, creationism was never mentioned. One protester stated: “I would like to first point out that my objections to these instructional materials are not solely based on my personal belief system but are grounded in our established Florida Statutes.” That’s about it.

Instead, the Martin citizens spent all of their time at the hearing testifying that the textbooks’ treatment of evolution is not accurate or balanced. They brought up a long list of examples of prominent scientists questioning the theory of evolution. The protesters pointed out several supposed inaccuracies in the textbooks. They insisted that evolution counterarguments need to be included in the textbooks or some type of supplementary materials and that the inaccuracies need to be removed. They argued that evolution should not be spoon-fed to students as settled science as that stifles critical thinking.

But when the hearing officer asked the gentlemen for specific information about what should be given to students, neither had an answer. For instance, here is one exchange:

Citizen: Well, my conclusion is that this textbook presents only one side of a controversial scientific subject. And I’m also concerned with the inaccuracies presented. To be accurate, objective, and balanced more information must be presented than is in this textbook. Therefore, I suggest the best solution will be to develop or procure supplements, supplementary materials, that offer parallel explanations and to not use the textbook as the sole source of information. Presenting only one side of a controversy should not be recognized as good teaching.

Hearing Officer: What parallel theories do you propose?

Citizen: I do not have that information.

And here is another exchange:

Hearing Officer: Now do you have a suggestion that the board should consider in terms of textbooks?

Citizen 2: I do not and the reason for not coming prepared with that is that I read the Florida Statutes and I did not see really, and this was just possibly my mistake, but I do not really see a place where I was specifically at you know instructed to bring my own supplementary materials. Of course, I did … when I originally filled up the objection form I believe that we should have replacement. I also understand that Al was talking about supplementary materials. I did mention supplementary materials as well. But yeah that’s my reasoning.

Hearing Officer: So that I’m clear, and I think this question goes to both of you and I think this is what I have gleaned from your presentations, is that you believe the current textbooks, Biology and Elevate Science, are short, deficient as good as word as any, in that they do not present the possibility of other theories to Neo-Darwinism.

Citizen 2: Not necessarily other theories because within evolution there are so many different ways that they believe it started. Even to just add that in. I mean, that there’s, you know, other ways that we believe life started. I’m not proposing any specific way. I’m just saying that I feel like our students deserve, you know, other ways to know that it’s not just set in stone. That there’s a frontier out there that they can really explore. But when you when you just kind of give them that this is what most people think, well then they’re gonna think like most people, and not critically.

Hearing Officer: So you believe that the material should be supplemented …

Citizen 2: Yes.

Hearing Officer: … by material that suggests there are other explanations, or that Darwin’s explanation needs to be expanded upon.

Citizen 2: Correct.

Citizen 1: We go so far as to say that the material ought to at least point out the fact that there are gaps in the theory. That there is controversy and it makes no mention of a controversy.

Hearing Officer: Sure.

Citizen 1: And I think that was some effort, people could come up with materials which present other information on the other side of the controversy.

In response to the complaints, the school district representatives relied heavily on the Florida State Science Standards. One powerful argument was:

For the standard, one of the main standards that we’re discussing, and mostly we’ve been discussing today the Miller and Levine biology book, the standard is SC.912.L.15.1 … (miscellaneous discussion about where the information is in the notes) … requires that students explain how scientific theory of evolution is supported by the fossil records, comparative anatomy, comparative embryology, biogeography, molecular biology, and observed evolutionary change. Florida’s science standards do not call for any such material that includes a presentation of alternative theories.

Additionally, the school district had reached out to textbook author Kenneth Miller to get his response to the complaints. The district included in their testimony this quote from Miller:

However, authentic critical thinking does not involve misleading students by presenting ideas that have been rejected for cause by the scientific community in a way that gives them equal standing to accept a well tested theory and principle.

The next step in the Martin County process is for the hearing officer to submit a written recommendation to the school board based on the information he gathered at the hearing. That’s supposed to happen within 14 days; however, I don’t know if that is 14 days including weekends or just 14 work days. Depending on the answer to that, the document should be submitted by either May 23 or May 30. Then the school board will make a final decision on what to do about the complaints at their next board meeting.

I have no idea what to expect. If I was forced to make a prediction, I’d say that the hearing officer is going to recommend that the school board take no action on the complaints. The protesters didn’t come prepared to the hearing with a specific course of action for the school district to take other than change the textbooks or provide supplementary material. What specific changes? What supplementary material?

But I could be wrong. I don’t know if the hearing officer was swayed at all by the protesters’ lengthy list of dissenting scientists examples. And I don’t know the backgrounds of the school board members, other than board member Rebecca Negron is the spouse of Florida Senate President Joe Negron. It’s worth keeping an eye on this.

I’ve included “below the fold” of this post the full transcript of the hearing. You can also listen to the hearing — it was only audio recorded, not video recorded. I’ve uploaded the hearing recording to YouTube. During the upload, I was forced to break it into two parts. Part one. Part two. I’m sincerely interested in hearing your thoughts!

Continue reading →

Florida Citizens for Science News Release (May 13, 2018)
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BALANCING EVOLUTION AND CREATIONISM IN SCHOOLS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Attempts to alter science textbooks in Collier, Martin and Nassau Counties are a waste of school boards’ time, money and could lead to costly lawsuits
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Contact: Brandon Haught / bhaught@flascience.org / www.flascience.org

Citizens in Collier and Martin Counties are asking that creationism get equal time with evolution in textbooks under consideration for adoption by their school districts. Florida Citizens for Science states that this is a foolish waste of the school boards’ time and taxpayers’ money, caused by a bad instructional materials law passed in 2017 that requires school districts to hold official hearings for any citizen who files a formal complaint. The U.S. Supreme Court and several federal courts over the years ruled that balancing evolution with any form of creationism is unconstitutional.

At the May 8 Collier County school board meeting, five people protested many proposed science textbooks during public comment time. They complained that evolution and anthropogenic climate change weren’t balanced with other views. One of the people leading the effort, Keith Flaugh, stated at the meeting: “Before you vote to adopt these science textbooks tonight that completely ignore the concepts of creationism and that champion the indoctrination of controversial man-made warming: how are you again going to vote?” He has also been quoted in the media several times about creationism in public schools, such as when he told PBS’s Frontline: “Darwin’s theory is a theory, and the biblical view is a theory, and our kids should be taught both in a balanced way.” The protesters stated they will be filing formal complaints. This will will trigger a hearing before an appointed hearing officer, as now required by Florida law, in mid-June.

The Collier County protesters’ complaints rely heavily on Florida state statute 1006.31, which, in part, states: “Instructional materials recommended by each reviewer shall be, to the satisfaction of each reviewer, accurate, objective, balanced, noninflammatory, current, free of pornography …” They emphasize the “objective, balanced” phrase. But they ignore the “accurate” part. The scientific consensus on evolution and anthropogenic climate change is unequivocally supportive of the topics’ accuracy. There are no other accepted scientific views that would offer a so-called balance. There are only religious views, which, as mentioned earlier, are unconstitutional to be mandated as balance in public school science classrooms.

The Martin County School District held an official instructional materials hearing before an appointed hearing officer May 9 after five citizens filed complaints about evolution being presented in proposed science textbooks without some type of “balance.” The results of the hearing will be presented to the school board at a later date.

Yet another school district faced a challenge to evolution in textbooks in December. Nassau County heard from a citizen who asked that a disclaimer sticker be placed in all textbooks that mention evolution. Even though school officials were sympathetic to the man’s point of view, they wisely turned him down on legal grounds.

Florida Citizens for Science encourages the Collier and Martin school boards – and any others that face science textbook challenges – to also see the wisdom of avoiding guaranteed court loses.

# # #

Florida Citizens for Science is a 501c3 nonprofit, statewide organization founded in 2006 to support and defend quality science education in the Sunshine State.

Brandon Haught is a Florida public high school science teacher who teaches both evolution and climate change. He is a founding board member of Florida Citizens for Science and author of the book Going Ape: Florida’s Battles over Evolution in the Classroom published by the University Press of Florida.

Court Cases:
1987, Edwards v. Aguillard, U.S. Supreme Court
1982, McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, federal court
2005, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover, federal court

Keith Flaugh quote:
PBS Frontline, A New Wave of Bills Takes Aim at Science in the Classroom, May 8, 2017