So, I see your state government has finally done it...
Louisiana's Governor Bobby Jindal signed Senate Bill 733 into law, 27 years after the state passed its Balance Treatment for Evolution-Science and Creation-Science Act ... Jindal's approval of the bill was buried in a press release issued on June 25, 2008 ...Houma Today reports (June 27, 2008) that the bill "will empower educators to pull religious beliefs into topics like evolution, cloning and global warming by introducing supplemental materials."
I'm not here to comment on the legal issues raised by this law. I'm not even commenting on the science behind such an incredible law...
I'm here to just quickly explain to you parents of school age children what is going on in the legislature of another state - Massachusetts.
Like Louisiana, we have a first term governor who is seeking to put his personal mark on the future of our state. And since public school education has always been contentious here, Governor Patrick decided to attempt to "improve the quality of education in Massachusetts." So, he formed the Readiness Project to develop a plan to overhaul the school system with an intial focus on elementary school.
The current plan panels, in conjunction with an independent finance commission, are now comparing options on how to reconstruct the state's education finance formula in order to fund the Readiness Project. I think the plan contains a number of initiatives parents in Louisiana might find interesting.
Without going into detail, the major initiatives in the project are:
* Universal preschool
* Longer school days
* Scientifically tested early literacy programs
* Family counselors in every low income school
* Readiness Schools not subject to teachers' union contracts
* Implementation of the Children's Nutrition Assessment Progam
There are dozens more suggestions from various groups yet to be incorporated into the Program, but interestingly, not one of them deals with Intelligent Design, Creationism, or Abstinence Only Sex Education.
Now, I'm not saying every aspect of the Readiness Program is going to be funded by the Legislature, even though all the polling to date shows citizens willing to pay higher taxes (sales or income) if they knew the money was being spent on improving education and not on administrators, pay increases or premium healthcare benefits for teachers.
If I were a parent of school age children in Louisiana, I'd be a bit concerned about my kid's chances of successfully competing against these Bay Staters for college entrance, technical traing or future employment. But, as that great philosopher and shrimper, Forrest Gump, always said,
"Stupid is as stupid does."