Have I expressed my opinion on this much, or more importantly my meta-opinion?
Evolution/creation isn't one of the ten most important issues IN EDUCATION, much less in the greater political sphere. More important education-political issues, off the top of my head and in no particular order:
1. 10-15% of public school teachers are so incompetent that they're literally ruining young lives, yet tenure prevents them from being fired.
2. By contrast about 20-25% of public school teachers are so amazing at what they do, and add so much value to society, that they deserve 3-4 times the compensation (salary or otherwise) that they actually get -- but as long as seniority is the only thing that matters, they'll never actually get what they're worth as teachers.
3. Regardless of the merits of any teaching subject matter (evolution, creation, sex-ed, phys-ed, fine arts, you name it), would it kill someone to give kids a proper math education? I'm not talking about just Why Johnny Can't Add, but why Johnny can't string two coherent thoughts together and use basic logic.
4. Writing skills are also generally abysmal, though this is a bit similar to #3 in that it involves linking coherent thoughts into sequence.
5. Testing in schools: Are the tests we give the right tests? If not, how could they be improved?
6. Charter schools: No matter where you stand here, this will make a greater magnitude of difference (one way or another) than how much ink Darwin gets in the classroom.
7. Classroom bullies: How do we handle kids who can't or won't behave, to the point that they impede others from learning?
8. Special Ed.
9. What's the most effective way to teach the scientific method in school? Yes, this is closely related to evolution/creation, but really this is the more important issue of which the Flying Spaghetti Monster kerfuffle is just a special case (if not a sideshow).
(A different special case of this general problem: What's the best way to teach Newtonian physics? We already know that it's "just a model," one that loses some accuracy under some well-known conditions, but one that continues to do a great job of reflecting reality as experienced on a human scale.)
10. What's the most appropriate length/shape of a school year.
(Honorable mention: Single-sex classrooms, home schooling, et al.)
Posted by Matt Bruce at August 30, 2008 05:33 PMMatt--
I think you're right about that stuff. But I also think that something can be relatively unimportant qua educational issue, but quite important qua example of how discourse and consensus and deliberation and coercion work in a society.
--Nate
Posted by: Nate at August 30, 2008 07:46 PM