In an interesting commentary in the Austin American-Statesman, Jim Marston (director of the Texas office of Environmental Defense Fund) wonders out-loud that citizens of Texas can not let Texas become a science-free zone. He was prompted to do so because of recent shenanigans of the State Board of Education. At last weeks’ board meeting, the board decreed science textbooks “analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming.” On the surface this seems justifiable. But it is not. To me this is an affront on students who are involved in science courses which are based on scientific inquiry as practiced by the scientific community. Students are being forced to to go along with global warming deniers who simply use their religious beliefs to set science education policy.

In Texas, and in others states (Florida, Kansas, Mississippi as examples), state education board members, legislators, and governors impose their views, which are based on very narrow outlooks, and a basic distrust for science—in a sense a distrust for inquiry. These doubters and deniers not only restrict the work of science teachers, but limit the minds of students who attend our schools. They cleverly disguise their views in language suggesting that all science theories need to be carefully examined for considering all sides, when there is not another side.

Marston suggests that the Texas Education Board’s action have far reaching impacts, and he puts it this way:

At a time when the states are competing for the biggest pieces of the “green” tech revolution that offers the best hope for reviving our economy and laying the groundwork for a prosperous, post-fossil fuel future, the board’s stance is, to say the least, not helpful.

But besides tainting the reputation of our children’s science education in the eyes of the world, the board’s mandate has other ramifications: It suggests to our children that their economic and lifestyle choices might have no effect on global warming, thus eroding many parents’ efforts to instill in their children the ethic that they must be responsible for their own actions.

The best action that boards and governors can do to improve science education is to get out of the way, and let professional science teachers design and implement the science curriculum that they know. Instead of science-free zones, science teachers will be free to make science an adventure of exploration for their students.