Here’s good news from the UK, and a reminder of how backwards the U.S. is in its attitude towards teaching evolution.

As reported by io9 as well as The British Humanist Association, all schools that receive government support in the UK will now be banned from teaching pseudoscience—including creationism—and required to teach evolution.

This is a bit complicated given the confusing panoply of British government-funded schools (I won’t say “public,” because that means what we in the U.S. say “private”).  For a while now, all regular government schools (and, I think, “faith schools”) have been banned from teaching creationism. The new requirement extends that mandate to “academies” and “free schools”. What are those? io9 explains:

In the UK, state-funded academies are basically equivalent to charter schools in the United States, and are primarily comprised of high schools. Free schools, which were introduced in 2010, are non-profit making, independent, state-funded schools which are not controlled by a local authority, but are subject to the School Admissions Code. Free schools make it possible for parents, teachers, charities, and business to set up their own schools.

Here’s the new policy about creationism, also from io9:

Back in 2012, the UK government banned all future free schools from teaching creationism as science, requiring them to teach natural selection. At the time, however, it didn’t extend those requirement to academies, nor did the changes apply to existing free schools. The new verbiage changes this, precluding all public-funded schools — present or future — from teaching creationism as evidence-based theory.

The new church academies clauses require that “pupils are taught about the theory of evolution, and prevent academy trusts from teaching ‘creationism’ as scientific fact.” And by “creationism” they mean:

[A]ny doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution. The parties acknowledge that creationism, in this sense, is rejected by most mainstream churches and religious traditions, including the major providers of state funded schools such as the [Anglican] [Catholic] Churches, as well as the scientific community. It does not accord with the scientific consensus or the very large body of established scientific evidence; nor does it accurately and consistently employ the scientific method, and as such it should not be presented to pupils at the Academy as a scientific theory.

And in regards to protecting religious beliefs, the clauses acknowledge that the funding agreement does…

…not prevent discussion of beliefs about the origins of the Earth and living things, such as creationism, in Religious Education, as long as it is not presented as a valid alternative to established scientific theory.

Note that last bit: it’s okay to discuss creationism, but not in science classes and not as if it’s a valid theory.

This is what we should be doing in the U.S.

The federal government does not mandate public-school curricula, a task left to the states. Most of them require teaching evolution as part of the state education standards, which can go up to grade 12 (17- or 18-year-old students); but how, and how much, evolution is taught varies from state to state.  As far as I know, no states explicitly forbid teaching creationism. The way those religious views are kept out of the schools is only through local custom and enforcement by the courts after student or parent complaints. There are in fact plenty of state-funded (“public”) schools in the U.S. that continue teach creationism, even though it’s illegal; I hear this constantly from parents.

Teaching creationism in the U.S. can be stopped only if a child or parent (someone with legal “standing”) complains, which of course people are loath to do because it turns them into outcastes. After that, someone must usually threaten the schools with legal action, or take them to court, as happened in Dover, Pennsylvania. But that doesn’t happen as often as it should. Several times, for instance, I’ve heard from parents upset that their kids are being taught creationism in public schools, but they won’t make a formal complaint because it’ll turn their kids into apostates. (Creationism is usually taught in religious parts of the U.S.)

I’m not even sure if the U.S. government can make a rule like they’ve done in the UK, given that states set curricula. But surely there is something they can do, like not giving federal funding to states for education unless those states enact a no-creationism and no-pseudoscience policy. The ability of the federal government to withhold aid from the states has been a powerful weapon in the past.

h/t: Rob