National standards in various fields often originate with and rely on specific states.

For example, the organic certification of foods, on which now rests a vast multi-billion dollar industry, began with The Oregon Tilth and the California Certified Organic Farmers, which devised the first standards for what constitutes “organic.” For years, food manufacturers tried to follow the Oregon standards if they wanted to get that lucrative organic label. Now that there is a national standard (partly based on the Oregon and California standards), the “Oregon Tilth” stamp of approval is not as important, but some companies still seek it out.

When it comes to school textbooks, the three big states are Texas, New York and California — precisely because those states hgave far and away the most kids in public schools. Textbook manufacturers don’t want to have to make 50 different custom textbooks, one for each state; instead, they will make three different ones at most, each designed to satisfy the political demands of the school boards in Texas, New York and California. That way, they’re guaranteed the most sales.

But what this means is that the other 47 states usually end up settling for textbooks which were originally designed to TX, NY or CA standards. It’s either that, or make your own textbooks — a pretty expensive proposition. So, most states settle for one of the other books — Texas textbooks being the most commonly adopted.

So this problem with agenda-driven creationists doctoring the content of Texas science textbooks in no simple “local issue,” nor is it a minor matter. It had national implications. Because whatever garbage is forced into the Texas textbooks will end up being read all over the country (mostly midwest and south).

America went from being #1 in the world when it comes to science education to being an international laughingstock. True, much of that decline was attributable to left-wing educational experimentation that failed utterly in every way except to increase the indoctrination quotient. But it was partly due to other political meddling in science teaching, most notably the anti-science mania called creationism.

This new drive by the Texas school board will not only fail to improve our national science education, but it will certainly exacerbate the situation and make the US international rankings drop even further.

Therefore, we must fight this madness with everything we’ve got, if we want to regain our leadership position in scientific research.