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This is my first scratch at stating my position on this...please pardon me if the clarity is wanting. First of all, you make a very valid point about teaching "creationism". It's not good to put non-christian kids in a seat, using tax dollars and then say here you go! It only took 7 days after all!! Nope, then it does indeed become a religious class. Why should we set a bad example? Why should we be hypocrites? (Why indeed is home schooling exploding as well?)

My conclusion is based on my experience. I was indoctrinated that "revelation" type knowledge was only available to the nuts that wasted their time on "non-testable" ideas. In other words, any type of "Aha!" that can't be reproduced in a lab (or if a theory, wasn't available for criticism by my peers) was an Aha born of craziness (or faith from our perspective).

There is an important implication here - that we're smart enough to carve out boundaries about how we "know" anything. That is called pride, and it goes before a fall. It's also stupid from my perspective, for we become as little gods from that point forward if we buy that idea. It's only us that can figure out what's knowable. There's a word for that - it's called wagering.

One big problem is evolution is not like the science behind the forces that act on the surface of a wing. Evolution, is indeed, a "theory" as you state (kind of a shock actually) - but while there are shocking examples of scientists putting fraudulent material out there to promote evolution, there is the small issue of not being able to, in the lab, categorically state, here's the proof!

Instead, we are left to dwell on the compelling elegance of evolution, the same way we're left to dwell on the utility of string theory (all 11 dimensions of it) to reconcile macro/micro physical behavior. And oh yes, all the moral stuff out there are merely moral relative constructs too...

So, the problem is it's sold to kids with the same validity as aerospace science. There are no "maybes" in science text books about how old the earth "really" is. No maybes about statements regarding dinosaurs. But relentless stories are sprinkled in these books about how these brave scientists stood up against the ignorant, crazy Christians. If that isn't a spiritual glove being thrown down, I don't know what is.

So, attacks against Christians by evolutionists are commonplace; there's no argument there. But more subtle, and wrong is the missing discussions about the limitations of discovering the mechanics of, say, just how blood "evolved" the ability to clot. When I first really looked this over I was astounded - talk about a hammer blow against the macro evolutionists.

That discussion is conveniently not on the menu of vulnerable high schoolers. (Fortunately, the unreal association of socialists and scientists helps put the radar up - I'm meeting lots of kids who take a very dim view the the story of the USSR, if they get a decent history teacher.) No, they wait for the pagan training grounds known as college to sell the idea that we're only a few births away before we discover all that hard stuff behind the evolution of that mechanism - we're just one Einstein away from deliverance. (Yup, I'm not happy about how Christian parents are hostage if their kids are going to government schools. Ironically enough, it's because these kids are denied the training to think on their own).

So, in short, government schools are "religious" schools after all, using tax dollars to preach the gospel of secular humanism. Only, the kids are not told that - they're lied to and told evolution is "neutral", and "scientific". They're not told the Marx saw history as scientific too as well, but boy, they sure are told that ignorance is the handmaiden of the man or woman of faith.

That is flat out not fair to kids, using tax payer dollars - for I have read enough, and met enough evolutionists to have discovered something. Most evolutionists flat out see bible-oriented Christians as direct competitors, and at the best we're benign, but mostly we're surely "imbalanced" and "dangerous" to people who believe in evolution! Sounds a little bit like what was going on in Elizabethan England quite frankly.

Christianity is seen as a mental disorder by many of these "compassionate" people I have met. They are very intent on denying who God, or their view of who they think we think God, is. Your average rocket scientist doesn't have that ax to grind. For he's got the lab to back him up and can leave it be.

So, attacks against Christians by evolutionists are commonplace; there's no argument there.

I've noticed no such thing. I have seen scientists defending evolution against that small segment of Christians that rail on about creation "science".

Christianity suffers because bright young people who can see the physical evidence of evolution are told by a few preachers that they can't believe in God and Evolution at the same time. So they choose evolution.

Had these preachers taught as I was that there was no conflict between Genesis and Evolution, there would be more Christians. And isn't that the important thing?

There is an epistemology underlying science that is too complex to discuss here, let alone explain to kids.
Science, like all knowledge is based on some faith.
Truths exist outside the logical positivist realm of verifiable truths, but arguing that point is -well - like arguing religion.

The point is, the 'white lies' in science education eg the Bohr model of the atom I was taught in 1980, 60 years after scientists knew it was false, goes on all the time. Those are necessary because reality deep down has a complexity and require math tools kids arent armed with.

Dumbing-down intersects with the 'trust us on this' view of philosophy to make theories into facts and facts into certainties.

... gotta go. will try to respond better to this later.