Get ready for a dustup, Texas: The Intelligent Design carpetbaggers have moved south to Austin after being thrown out of Kansas and Pennsylvania and have their eyeballs on the Texas Education Agency. The first skirmish in the new Northern War of Educational Aggression was Oct. 26, 2007 with the first casualty being Ms. Christine Castillo-Comer. Never heard of Comer? She was the Director of Science Education at the TEA for nine years. She is an award-winning, well respected educator, nationally recognized for her work on science education standards. Never mind all that. She doesn’t work for us anymore. She was canned. So long, Chris. Thanks. Don’t let the screen door hit y‘all.
Why would a veteran educator with over 35 years of experience be forced to resign from the agency that oversees what your kids are taught? Seems Chris had the gall to FORWARD an email about a lecture from an opponent of Intelligent Design, or ID. Her message in the email? “FYI” That’s it: FYI.
An hour after the email went out, former deputy legislative director under then Gov. Bush, now TEA “senior adviser on statewide initiatives" Lizette Reynolds, demanded Comer resign or be fired. Reynolds, speaking for the agency in her memo to Comer stated that Comer violated the policy of the agency which had to remain “neutral” when dealing with the topic of evolution. By forwarding the memo, those recipients might “assume this is a subject that the agency supports.” Interesting and absurd, mainly because the agency must support evolution; it is written into the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills in Biology specifically, and implied at every other science level under the phrase “Change over time.”
Conversely, there seems to be no other science-related subjects that the agency does not “support.” “Gravity? Go for it. Forces and Motion? Have fun!” “Change over time? Whoa there partner, them is fighting words! Ya’ll can say anything you want ‘bout them other science terms, but ya better just hush-up when yer talking that devil Darwin”
Of course, this is not the forum to debate creationism and it’s pseudoscientific facade ID. What should concern everyone with any interest at all in Texas education is how the agency appears to be stifling debate and discussion, even within itself and within broader science education, the very place where debate and discussion should take place. A science director for a state education agency should be the one that fosters discussion. Comer should not have been fired, she should have been praised. Politics has no place at the TEA curriculum table, especially when it comes to proven scientific truth. (And don’t kid yourselves, there is not a scientist alive today worth his or her salt that does not view as a given that systems change over a period of time.) "This just underscores the politicization of science education in Texas," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. "In most states, the department of education takes a leadership role in fostering sound science education. Apparently TEA employees are supposed to be kept in the closet and only let out to do the bidding of the board."
The timing of Comer’s firing is not without interest either. Soon, the state will be rewriting the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS. The TEKS are those set of skills that every student in Texas is required to know by the time they complete a course or grade level. It is the TEKS that tell the textbook companies what to put into textbooks, it is the TEKS that tell school districts what to put into curriculum and it is the TEKS that tell teachers what to teach. By removing those that are familiar with legal precedent, science education history, and an opposing point of view, the Agency is telling the public that dogma can now be part of your child’s science experience. That is where the real fight is going to take place.
Castillo-Comer was small beans, expendable, a mid-level cog of a much larger machine. The message of her firing however was a shot across the bow to all science educators and ID opponents: Don’t mess with Texas and the TEA. With the SBOE now seemingly presided over by a pro-Creationism president, and TEA taking a pro-ID stance, (or at least a hands-off stance) the stage is being set for the Texas version of Scopes II.
Never mind that when these exact tactics were tried in Kansas, they were struck down and the Kansas State Board of Education voted out of office after that state was made a laughing stock not only nationally but around the word. Same in Pennsylvania in the now famous Dover trial. History is ready to repeat itself in Texas, but the ID-ers are willing to try because Texas, Florida, California and New York drive textbook sales. Knock down one of the four big states, and the smaller states have to follow. As goes Texas, so goes the midsection of the country. I hope you are ready Oklahoma and Arkansas.
So Chris Comer takes her severance package and rides off into the sunset. But like any good cowgirl, she doesn’t ride off without at least shooting a few shots into the air to warn the townsfolk of impending danger. The New York Times, USA Today, Dallas Morning News, Yahoo News, Houston Chronicle, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Waco Tribune and the Austin American Statesman have all either told her story or editorialized against her resignation. If she were smart, she has a good ACLU lawyer on retainer by now. Then she will be able to send a strong message right back to the state.
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Tim Holt is a 22-year educator and former President of the Science Teachers Association of Texas. You can see more of his thoughts at Tim Holt's Intended Consequences.
