Evolution Still Struggling in Public Schools

Despite 80 years of court battles ousting creationism from public classrooms, most public high school biology teachers are not strong advocates for evolution.

While vocal advocates of intelligent design and similar non-scientific alternatives to evolution are a minority, more than half the teachers in a nationwide poll avoided taking a strong stance for evolution.

Such teachers “may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists,” wrote Penn State political scientists Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, the poll’s architects, in a Jan. 28 Science paper.

Read the WIRED article:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/scopes-weeps/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Separate Autism Schools Proposed in New Jersey

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/nyregion/17njautism.html?ref=education

Two sides of the debate:
A) "...children with disabilities gain valuable academic and social skills from interacting with their peers without disabilities, and also develop closer ties to their communities... It would also send a message to parents that children with autism can’t be included."

B) "...specialized autism schools would provide a much-needed alternative for some families. Many districts lack the staff, training and resources to educate children with autism... The governor has a vision to expand the continuum of options for our students. There are currently not enough high-quality school options for children with autism. Not every child is being educated in an effective program."

What's your opinion?