Or, briefly, even a weak theory beats no theory at all.
and a weak placemarker is better than no placemarker at all.
If I thought evolution was a weak theory (judgement again) I would not argue for it vehemently.
I understand that hypotheses attempting to explain abiogenesis are currently weak (but they have the virtue of suggesting research). I would be careful with this in high school.
As you point out, ID is worse than weak, because it suggests no lines of research. It's worse than that because it suggests that research is somehow immoral.
When you see words like mindless tossed around, you know the tosser is making moral judgements about ideas themselves, and no longer cares about truth (or even confidence). ;-)