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"What debate? It's a religious debate . . ."

You're right in so far as you address the debate among and between religious groups. But as soon as that debate becomes an attack on science itself, and that is clearly the way I view the Creationist/Intelligent Design/Evolution controversy, you have reached a point at which it can be treated on a basis other than pure religious study. High school students, who are some of the most impressionable beings on the planet, can benefit from the development of skills in critical thinking that will enable them to understand the distinct assumptions upon which each side to the debate is basing their arguments. If you do not arm these students with this knowledge, how many of them will walk away from the debate concluding that science is some evil conspiracy of godless atheists bent upon destroying the Christian religion, rather than a discipline rooted in the materialist study of the natural universe? Or conversely, how many students will come to see religious belief and practice as a retreat from intellectual honesty, leading them to condemn religiosity in all its forms? Informed students schooled in critical thinking can avoid either of these extremes.

"A more modest goal in my mind, and an achievable one, is to keep religious dogma out of science classes."

That is definitely part of what I am trying to achieve here ml1954. But I don't think it goes far enough. "Critical Thinking" comes down to a lot of things, but basically focuses upon developing the "tools of rational thought." And do understand, since I may not have made this perfectly clear to everyone, I only want this CreationistID/Evolution debate aired for a very small portion of the class. I might envision it as a one or two day exercise in comparing Metaphysics with Materialism, once students understand the distinction between the two. That's all I have in mind. The other 248 days of the school year I will want them studying quite a bit more; Informal Fallacies of Logical Argument, Logical Rules of Inference and their Application, How Ordinary Language is Expressed Symbolically, What is Philosophy?, What is Epistemology?, What are "Schools of Philosophical Thought"?, What were the major "revolutions" in human understanding? These form the real basis for a course in critical thinking.

But I don't think it goes far enough. "Critical Thinking" comes down to a lot of things, but basically focuses upon developing the "tools of rational thought."

That is fine -- in "critical thinking" class. I have been the most strident proponent of high school students learning comparative theology. And some philosophy.

But for the core curriculum, they need to be taught hard science, hard math, hard chemistry, hard mathematics.

Do you really want to open the door on Creation when they are learning about the red shift? That the stars we see are billions of years old, but there is a contravening idea that says they are only 6,000 years old?

Kids today are coming out of High School stupid enough with the way Liberals have ruined the curriculum with experimental ways to teach English, hating white males in history, and allowing "all ideas are OK" and "optional constructs" in English.

Do you want to apply "critical thinking" for little children to use very adult-level philosophy to try to apply silly psychobabble in looking at hard facts?

That results in the kind of thinking that we have on many of these posts -- that TToE is some sort of guesswork or, worse, a Commie plot conspiracy.

You request making kids basket-cases who would make great "Jay Walking: fodder.