House gets legislation on teaching evolution

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: May 22, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Despite charges that it will be struck down in court, a House panel Wednesday approved a bill that would revamp the way evolution and other science topics are taught in Louisiana public schools.

The vote came after 2 1/2  hours of testimony on an issue that has become one of the most volatile topics of the 2008 regular legislative session.

The measure, Senate Bill 733, won approval in the state House Education Committee without objection and next faces a vote  in the full House.

The Senate passed the bill 35-0 on April 28.

State Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa and sponsor of the bill, repeatedly denied that his proposal was a bid to inject biblical teachings into public schools.

“This bill is about science education, period,” Nevers told the committee. “There is no hidden agenda.”

Nevers said, “It does not promote religion in any fashion.”

Opponents charged that the legislation is part of a stealth campaign by the Louisiana Family Forum – which says it promotes traditional family values — and others to get  religious theories into the classroom.

“There is absolutely no need for this bill,” said Tammy Wood, a veteran educator in the Zachary School District and a former Louisiana science teacher of the year.

Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and an opponent of the bill, and others predicted that passage would trigger lawsuits. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 struck down a 1981 Louisiana law that required the teaching of creationism when evolution was taught in public schools.

Nevers’ bill is called the Louisiana Science Education Act.

SB733 would allow science teachers to use supplemental material “that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

Nevers went along with an amendment by House Education Committee Chairman Don Trahan, R-Lafayette. It would allow the state’s top school board to prohibit supplemental materials used by science teachers.