Fight biology lesson locally, official writes

Charter operator pulled text, state schools chief tells group

An organization that advocates for keeping religion out of government operations should take its concern about an Arkansas charter school teaching creation science directly to the school operators, state Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said.

In a letter released to the public Monday, Kimbrell told the Americans United for Separation of Church and State that the Arkansas Department of Education doesn’t choose or endorse any particular curriculum for use in public schools but monitors the schools for compliance with state-adopted curriculum standards.

“For all public schools, including public charter schools, decisions regarding curriculum and instructional materials are made at the local level, not the state level,” Kimbrell wrote. “For these reasons, you should direct your specific concerns to the leadership of Responsive Education Solutions. That entity has the responsibility for selecting instructional materials that meet the state Board’s curriculum standards.”

Kimbrell also said in the letter that Responsive Education Solutions of Lewisville, Texas - operator of a growing number of publicly funded, open-enrollment charter schools in Arkansas - had recently “announced its decision to remove the biology workbook in question from its inventory and to update its curriculum.”

The Americans United organization last month complained to the state Education Department that Responsive Education Solutions was using a high school biology course curriculum at its Premier High School of Little Rock and at another of its schools that “repeatedly attacks and undermines evolution” and “refers multiple times to supernatural creation as an alternative to evolution.”

Those components of the curriculum “cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny,” legal staff members for Americans United wrote to the department.

“The U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have consistently and unequivocally held that religious views on the origins of life, such as creationism, ‘creation science’ and ‘intelligent design,’ cannot lawfully be advanced in the public schools as alternatives to the scientific theory of evolution,” they wrote, quoting from different federal court decisions including the 1982McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education case.

The McLean decision concluded that creation science has no scientific or educational value and that its teaching is for the advancement of religion, Americans United organization representatives wrote.

“We therefore ask the Arkansas Department of Education to either direct Responsive Education Solutions to stop using these curricular materials, or to revoke their charter,” the representatives wrote.

Ian Smith, a staff attorney for Americans United and one of the authors of the letter to the department, said Monday that he had not received the state response but that others in his organization might have.

Smith said he was aware that Responsive Education Solutions leaders have said the biology material has been removed.

Told that Kimbrell said complaints raised by Americans United should be directed to Responsive Education Solutions, Smith said he believes the state agency “would have had an obligation to deal with” the instructional materials “under its own criteria” for monitoring a school’s compliance with education standards - had Responsive Educational Solutions not pulled the material.

“Since they have, we’ll just have to see what Responsive Ed puts in its place,” Smith said.

Americans United wrote that the biology curriculum was used at both the Premier High School of Little Rock, which is on the Arkansas Baptist College campus, and at Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy, a charter school in Bentonville. The Bentonville school did not use that curriculum, according to Responsive Education Solutions.

The exchange of letters between Americans United and the state Education Department came after a January article published on Slate.com criticized the charter school operator for its teachings regarding creationism in its Texas schools.

Chuck Cook, chief executive officer for Responsive Education Solutions, wrote to the Arkansas Education Department on Feb. 11 in response to the Slate.com article and the Americans United complaint.In that letter, he said the school system has addressed the concerns about the biology course.

“Specifically,” Cook wrote, “while we do not believe that our Biology course violates either our charters or applicable law, Responsive Ed has already removed the Biology workbook in question from our inventory and is currently updating it in order to: (1) ensure that the evidence for evolution is presented in an objective and unbiased manner, and (2) avoid any misinterpretations that Responsive Ed is endorsing - or disapproving of - religion.”

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/11/2014

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