Anyone who wishes to be considered well educated should know the sciences of geology, biology, chemistry, astronomy and physics; all of which have findings that “cdesign proponentists” have problems with.
Do you think any science that's findings conflict with a particularly peculiar religious view should not be taught, do you think it is your “right” not to have science that conflicts with your religious beliefs taught to other people's children?
Try this on for size. Nobody else has bothered to answer it.
“Would you support the opt out option for students in the public schools in regards to teaching creation instead of an outright ban on teaching creation in science classes? One that would allow creation to be taught along with evolution but not requiring that children attend?”
Yet your expressions on this forum indicate an indifference to what beliefs are taught in public school, so long as they are secular and not “religious” (on those rate occasions when you remember, “oh, yeah, that’s right, it’s “religious” public education I oppose, not just “Christian” public education.) What values, then? Don’t bother to answer if you can’t get past generalized platitudes and deal with specifics. What values are composed of the value-sets of public teachers today, and which of those values would you wish to see passed on to the students and which would you not? How do you separate the chaff from the grain, and who decides which is chaff and which is grain, if it’s not the patrons of the school district? I don’t wish to be insulting, but I would venture to say that your thoughts have not gone much beyond “don’t let it be Christian values that are taught.” Maybe with a little foray into don’t let it be religious values.
When Jefferson and Adams spoke of the need for ‘moral instruction’ in public education, what values do you suppose they had in mind composing the base of that moral instruction? And, more importantly for our modern discussions, did not their narrative explicitly recognize that someone’s values would be included in education, public or private? Whose, then?
”. . . but children in public schools should have the expectation of a good education. .”
Why?
”Do you think . . .”
I think what is taught this country’s children is none of the government’s business. I think this is particularly the case when government (national, state, and, increasingly, even local) has come to look upon their respective education departments as ministries of information, whose chief function is to project and promote the government’s interests. I think that as soon as you begin asking some parents if they believe they have a right to enforce their values on other peoples’ children, then you have a moral obligation to explain to those parents why it’s perfectly appropriate that values inimical to their beliefs should be enforced on their children. I think, at bottom, that is a conversation you don’t want to have.