The Republican Party of Texas has now posted its State Party Platform for 2008.
I have also excerpted and posted here the four pages of that platform with the Preamble, Principles, and positions on Education.
As usual the Texas GOP takes interesting positions on many things, but in this post I’ll just quote their statement on “theories of origin”:
Theories of Origin – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories, including Intelligent Design. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as scientific theory, not scientific law. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.
Here’s the provision in their 2006 platform:
Theories of Origin – We support the objective teaching and equal treatment of scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories, including Intelligent Design. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as scientific theory not scientific law; that social studies and other curriculum should not be based on any one theory.
Two years ago I noted that in my own subject area,
. . . the social studies subject that is most prone to being taught as something “based on one theory” is, of course, economics [for which the National Economics Standards present this subject as] limited to the “one theory” of free-market economics.
While social studies is no longer addressed in this provision of their platform, the new language about teachers and students being able to discuss the “strengths and weaknesses” of “theories of life origins and environmental theories” indicates support for the kind of anti-evolution legislation that has just passed in Louisiana, and now awaits signature by the Governor who, despite having majored in Biology at Brown University, has indicated that he plans to sign it into law. (See also this post on Ed Darrell’s blog.)
Tony's curricublog 
One Comment
Dear Tony,
You seem to be concerned about economics being taught from only “one theory”, that being free-market economics. Surely you can talk about the weakness of free-market economics vs. socialism.
But of course you don’t have to teach a word about socialism because the students are experiencing socialism first hand while they are on the government school campus.
Don’t worry. As carefully and persuasively as you attempt to teach the “one theory”, they won’t get it because they haven’t experienced it in an educational setting.
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