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Part IV Curriculum Development: Products and Issues

permitted a discussion of the episode on the television show Ellen in which E mitted
that she was gay. The formation of the Gay-Straight Alliance in a Salt high school in
1996 resulted in the school board's banning of all clubs except U-"
lated to academics. Shortly after the school board's action the Utah state legis _____________
passed a law barring gay student clubs in Utah high schools.
The teaching of values has come under attack by protesters who hold tha . the
schoolbooks undermine traditional American values. Protesters have taken
ception to the book Values Clarification, ostensibly because the program that it p_-n;- .. ...." ...
allows students to express their own views on personal problems.I"
The teaching of the Darwinian theory of the evolution of humankind has lo~ a
cause of concern to the scientific creationists, who champion the biblical accoun : ation
in Genesis. The aforementioned Scopes trial in Tennessee in the 1920s refl sentiments of
the creationists. In 1968 in the case of Epperson v. Arkansas
Supreme Court ruled that the theory of evolution may be taught;40 however, ch._.--=_
have continued up to the present and may be anticipated in the future.
Examples of the evolution versus creationism dispute are not difficult to
1982 the federal district court holding that scientific creationism was a religious d ....... :.=---.,
struck down an Alabama statute that would have required instruction in scientifi ationisrn in
additionto the theory of evolution. In June 1987 the U.S. Supreme
ruled unconstitutional Louisiana's Balanced Treatment for Creation Science and E
tion Science Act of 1981, which would have required that scientific creationism be =equal
instructional time with the theory of evolution. In 1982 Arkansas' attemp troduce
Creationism into the curriculum met with rejection by the courts on the groezcs that the law
promoted religion and was, therefore, unconstitutional. In October' more than twenty years
after Epperson, the Texas Education Agency's approval or =....::adopted textbooks that taught
the theory of evolution made national news. Sentimerr: - teaching scientific creationism
either in place of or in addition to evolution theory __
mains strong, popping up at both state and community levels.
Scarcely five months before the start of the millenium, in the summer of Kansas joined
the opponents of evolution. The powerful State Board of Education _ 6-4 vote banned the
treatment of evolution as a scientific principle (i.e., humankind .. scended from the apes) in
science classes, a decision provoking strong criticism fro ucators, legislators, and the
governor. The Board permitted continuation of stud: c evolution but rejected it as a
requirement or as an item on state-approved tests. 0 other hand, in October 1999 the New
Mexico State Board of Education barred the _ of Creationism in the public school science
curriculum while retaining the study of ~= theory of evolution. Illinois lent yet another
dimension to the issue when also in 0
ber 1999 its state Board of Education eliminated the word "evolution" from its state s -.
dards, using the expression "change in time."
Objections to the theory of evolution surfaced on the community level in Ap - 2003 in
Blount County, Tennessee, for example. The Daily Times of Maryville headlinec the action of
the Blount County School Board in refusing to adopt three high school h- ology textbooks
because they did not include discussion of creationism along with material on evolution.f!