Nevada
State rejects curriculum as "too religious"
In a memo written to the Nevada State Board of Education, Science Education Consultant Dr. Richard Vineyard recommended that the board remove the School of Tomorrow (SOT) science curriculum from the state's list of approved correspondence programs.
"I would describe this set of curriculum materials as a religion curriculum built around a selected and limited set of science content, rather than a comprehensive science curriculum," said Dr. Vineyard in his April 9 memo (which can be read in full on Home School Legal Defense Association's website, http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200204260.pdf).
Dr. Vineyard explains:
They [SOT] criticize science because the results of all experiments are interpreted based on the previous knowledge and background of the scientist doing the interpretation; that the preconceived ideas that the scientist brings with them might limit the "facts" that they choose to consider. At the same time, they freely admit that all results should be viewed and interpreted through the lens of religious belief.
This methodology, according to Dr. Vineyard, causes SOT to go to great lengths to find data that can be interpreted . . . to support the ideas of special creation and the great Flood.
On April 23, 2002, several Nevada Department of Education officials met with five attorneys and experts from Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), the company that publishes the School of Tomorrow program. In the meeting, ACE representatives got Dr. Vineyard to admit that he did not doubt that their program could meet the state's "content standards" for science. The big dispute is over the method of science instruction, and the degree to which a curriculum can be "science" and still insist on the inerrancy of Scripture. According to ACE representatives, the department believes "that the science program's biblical basis could be grounds for them to ban it from all Christian schools, home schools, and home school academies in the State of Nevada."
In light of ACE's opposition, the department has decided to postpone further action on this matter until ACE can have its own curriculum experts respond to Dr. Vineyard's unfavorable evaluation. HSLDA will be
following this matter closely.
— Scott W. Somerville
