No Escape from Freakazoid Control of Textbooks

If you thought you could protect your children from the freakazoid lies being taught in public schools by home schooling them, think again:

Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn't taken a friend's advice and tried a textbook from a Christian publisher for her 10-year-old's biology lessons.

Mule's daughter Elizabeth excels at science. But Mule watched Elizabeth's excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin's theory.

“I thought she was going to have a coronary,” Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. “She's like, ‘This is not true!'?”

Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children “religious or moral instruction.”

“The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians,” said Ian Slatter, of the Home School Legal Defense Association. “Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program.”

Those who don't, however, often feel frustrated from trying to find a textbook that fits their beliefs.

Two of the best-selling biology textbooks stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books at the request of The Associated Press.

“These books are promulgating lies to kids,” said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago.

Read the whole thing.

Read more about the defense of scientific fact at Coyne's website here, and at Richard Dawkins' website here.

And if you're looking to teach your children, or yourself, the facts about evolution, you can't do better than Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth, and Coyne's book Why Evolution is True. Both are accessible, well-written and conclusive.