In the comments to yesterday’s post about the vote taken by the State Board of Education that stripped out “strengths and weaknesses” language about evolution, Martha noted that there was another vote on this to be taken today. I haven’t seen any newspaper coverage of that, but according to TFN insider and Thoughts from Kansas, both of which did extensive liveblogging of the hearings yesterday, today’s vote went the same way as yesterday’s. There’s still a final vote to be taken in March, and as reported by both Martha and TFN there was some other anti-evolution language slipped in the back door as an amendment to the Earth Science TEKS, but overall things are looking better for science education in Texas than they were before. Keep your fingers crossed.
UPDATE: I missed Martha’s blogging on this – see here and especially here for more.
I agree that things mostly went the right way. And because they voted for science in the critical “strengths and weaknesses” part of it, I am hopeful that by the final vote in March, the eight pro-science board members will vote against the two worst amendments – one in the Earth and Space Science TEKS and one in the biology TEKS, that essentially open the door wide open to creationist beliefs. Those amendments had to have been confusing to some of the board members, because they were slipped in at the last minute without consultation with scientists or public testimony.