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Creationism Spreading in Schools, Thanks to Vouchers

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wheat-dogg, raker of forests, master of steam1/16/2013 9:09:48 pm PST

I don’t know how many of you know about the Wedge Document from the Discovery Institute. While vouchers (aka “school choice”) are not mentioned in particular, they fit in well with the general intention to remake public education into an arm of the Christian Right.

While the Wedge strategy is aimed particularly at science education, the end result has been an overall attack on anything the Christian Right deems “un-godly.” The whole David Barton-style revisionism of history is just one example.

I’ve reviewed some of the textbooks favored by these yokels. They are horribly written and pedagogically awful, even setting aside the scientific inaccuracy and religious content.

Since they can’t get their way easily (eventually school boards and parents reject their Christianizing efforts), the next best thing is to push vouchers aka “school choice.” These were already favored by more secular proponents of school reform as a way to give concerned parents the opportunity to send their kids to private or parochial schools. Since then, the whole voucher idea has been co-opted by the Religious Right to continue their fight to co-opt public education.

It fits in really well with the Seven Mountains strategy of the Dominionists.

This is not like busing. Busing was a pragmatic, Band-Aid solution to an endemic problem of separate, but unequal education. Vouchers are part of a wholesale takeover of American public education.