Phil Plait, Slate’s pugilistic anti-anti science journalist, blames charter schools for the use of public money in Texas to teach creationism :“…why is Texas (and with new schools opening, also Arkansas and Indiana) spending a whopping $82 million of taxpayers’ money every year to teach it [creationsim]?”
As much as Plait is correct that the creationists get away with scary fraud by conflating their religious fantasy with science, he makes the exact same error of logic by conflating charter schools with creationism.
Charter schools are public schools and must follow the same guidelines as all public schools. If there are charter schools using the horrid texts Plait describes, they are doing so in states where any school district can make the same choice and, I suspect, some do.
What disturbs me even more about lace curtain liberalism, that is the too easy taking of liberal stances, is that it rarely extends to the proponents’ own lives. The strongest opposition I have seen to charter schools in Seattle has come not from teachers but from liberals whose own kids either live outside Seattle or attend Lakeside, Univ. Prep, Bush or the diocese’ schools.
I understand Mr. Plait’s outrage at the use of public dollars to teach untruths, but I suggest he look around at the religious schools. If it does matter that WE teach our kids truth, then perhaps WA state needs stronger rules regulating what kids need to learn, ALL kids.