The good people of the Texas State Board of Education don’t think that children should have a complete science education:

HOUSTON, Dec. 2 — After 27 years as a science teacher and 9 years as the Texas Education Agency’s director of science, Christine Castillo Comer said she did not think she had to remain “neutral” about teaching the theory of evolution.

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But now Ms. Comer, 56, of Austin, is out of a job, after forwarding an e-mail message on a talk about evolution and creationism — “a subject on which the agency must remain neutral,” according to a dismissal letter last month that accused her of various instances of “misconduct and insubordination” and of siding against creationism and the doctrine that life is the product of “intelligent design.”

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The standards, adopted in 1998, are due for a 10-year review and possible revision after the 15-member elected State Board of Education meets in February, with particular ramifications for the multibillion-dollar textbook industry. The chairman of the panel, Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist and Sunday School teacher at Grace Bible Church in College Station, has lectured favorably in the past about intelligent design.

According to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 34% of Texas 4th graders score “Below Basic” and 41% score “Basic” in science proficiency.   Among 8th graders those numbers increase to 47% “Below Basic” and 29% at “Basic.”   The report doesn’t have state by state statistics for 12th graders, but I think it’s safe to say that the numbers probably aren’t much better.

But hell, if Texas thinks that they can disregard a century of established research and empirical verification and instead teach a shoddy, sectarian theological “alternative”, then well, more power to them.  And uh, you know, less education for the students