The Pan­da’s Thumb issues an Ohio Call to Action:

Please write the Board of Ed TODAY. Polite­ly urge them to hold a vote of the entire Board –at their Tues­day Sept 12 meet­ing – estab­lish­ing that addi­tion­al lan­guage is NOT need­ed to replace the cre­ation­ist non­sense removed at the Feb 06 mtg.

The Board should devote their ener­gy to clos­ing the achieve­ment gap, solv­ing the school fund­ing cri­sis, and oth­er gen­uine issues. They should resist reli­gious extrem­ists pres­sur­ing them to cor­rupt sci­ence edu­ca­tion and co-opt the class­room for reli­gious conversion.

Polite­ly insist they stand up for free­dom of reli­gion, and good sci­ence in Ohio’s schools!

Action 1: Call your elect­ed board rep­re­sen­ta­tive. If you live in the Cleve­land area, that would be Achieve­ment Com­mit­tee mem­ber Vir­gil Brown. 216–851-3304. Urge him to call for a vote in Monday’s Achieve­ment Com­mit­tee meeting.

Action 2: If you know any­one in the Can­ton area, please urge them to call Achieve­ment Com­mit­tee Co-chair elect­ed rep Jim Craig, (330) 492- 5533. He’s up for re-elec­tion this Fall. Here’s his chance to shine!

Action 3: Please also write to all Board of Ed mem­bers to encour­age them to call for a vote that will set­tle this matter!

Details:

1) The “crit­i­cal thinking”/teach the con­tro­ver­sy tem­plate pro­pos­al takes a legit­i­mate pas­sage (orig­i­nal­ly tak­en direct­ly from the Nation­al Sci­ence Stan­dards) in the cur­rent Sci­en­tif­ic Ways of Know­ing sec­tion of Ohio’s Sci­ence Stan­dards (10th Grade Indi­ca­tor 2 under Bench­mark A, pp. 90, 146, 237) and sab­o­tages it by tack­ing on a sec­tion direct­ing stu­dents to apply it pref­er­en­tial­ly to evo­lu­tion, glob­al warm­ing, cloning & stem cell research – 4 areas of sci­ence dis­liked by cer­tain politi­co-reli­gious groups. The effect would be to under­mine stu­dents’ under­stand­ing of sci­en­tif­ic meth­ods and process­es by imply­ing that evo­lu­tion, cli­mate sci­ence, stem cells and cloning are shaky sci­ence that should be treat­ed with spe­cial scruti­ny. This strat­e­gy opens up the sci­ence class­room for co-option as a reli­gious con­ver­sion opportunity.

2) While the achieve­ment gap widens in Ohio, the “Achieve­ment Com­mit­tee” obstructs the progress of our pub­lic schools by wast­ing the time, ener­gy and pow­er of the com­mit­tee at the ser­vice of covert­ly pro­mot­ing a spe­cif­ic sec­tar­i­an viewpoint.

3) As Judge Jones said in the Dover, PA “Pan­da Tri­al” decision:

ID’s back­ers have sought to avoid the sci­en­tif­ic scruti­ny, which we have now deter­mined that it can­not with­stand, by advo­cat­ing that the con­tro­ver­sy, but not ID itself, should be taught in sci­ence class. This tac­tic is at best disin­gen­u­ous, and at worst a canard. The goal
of the ID move­ment> is not to encour­age crit­i­cal thought.

Board of Edu­ca­tion Con­tact info:

(Don’t know your dis­trict? See Ohio Hope.

Pres­i­dent (Mem­ber At-Large):
Sue Wes­t­en­dorf (ID creationist)
(419) 352‑2908 (voice)
(309) 412‑9790 (fax)
Email: Sue.Westendorf@ode.state.oh.us

Vice-Pres­i­dent (State Board Dis­trict 9):
Jen­nifer H. Stew­art (One of the good guys)
(740) 452‑4558 (voice)
(740) 452‑7754 (fax)
Email: Jennifer.Stewart@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 1:
Lou Ann Har­rold (One of the good guys)
(419) 675‑1743
LouAnn.Harrold@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 2:
Martha W. Wise (One of the good guys)
(440) 934‑4935 (voice)
(440) 934‑6089 (fax)
Email: Martha.Wise@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 3:
Thomas Gun­lock (New mem­ber: unknown position)
(937) 435‑5347

State Board Dis­trict 4:
G. R. “Sam” Schloe­mer (One of the good guys)
(513) 821‑4145 (voice)
(513) 821‑2829 (fax)
Sam.Schloemer@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 5:
Colleen D. Grady (ID creationist)
(440) 572‑0239 (voice)
(440) 238‑0874 (fax)
Email: Colleen.Grady@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 8:
Jim Craig (On the fence)
(330) 492‑5533 (voice)
(330) 493‑1804 (fax)
Email: Jim.Craig@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 9:
Jen­nifer H. Stew­art – See pre­vi­ous entry

State Board Dis­trict 10:
Jane Sonen­shein (One of the good guys)
(513) 831‑1870 (voice)
(440) 238‑0874 (fax)
Email: Jane.Sonenshein@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 11:
Vir­gil E. Brown, Jr. (On the fence)
(216) 851‑3304 (voice)
(216) 851‑2900 (fax)
Email: Virgil.Brown@ode.state.oh.us

At Large Board Members:

Robin C. Hov­is (One of the good guys)
(330) 674‑5000 (voice)
(330) 674‑5002 (fax)
robhovis@earthlink.net

Stephen M. Mil­lett (On the fence)
(614) 424‑5335 (voice)
(614) 424‑3534 (fax)
smillett@columbus.rr.com

Eric C. Oker­son (Pro­vi­sion­al good guy)
(513) 629‑2814
eokerson@graydon.com

Emer­son J. Ross, Jr. (On the fence)
(419) 537‑1562 (voice)
(419) 531‑1509 (fax)
Eross@Buckeye-express.com

Richard E. Bak­er (Flat creationist)
(937) 997‑2101 (voice)
(937) 997‑2140 (fax)

Jen­nifer L. Sheets (On the fence; an opportunist)
(740) 992‑2151
E‑mail: Jennifer.Sheets@ode.state.oh.us

Carl Wick (On the fence)
(937) 433‑1352 (voice)
(937) 438‑0678 (fax)
Email: Carl.Wick@ode.state.oh.us

State Board Dis­trict 6:
Michael Cochran (ID cre­ation­ist leader)
(614) 864‑2338 (voice)
(614) 863‑9751 (fax)
Email: ota@ohiotownships.org

State Board Dis­trict 7:
Deb­o­rah Owens Fink (ID cre­ation­ist leader)
(330) 972‑8079 (voice)
(330) 972‑5798 (fax)
Email: deb@uakron.edu

This stuff actu­al­ly does mat­ter. Lean on these folks in your politest pos­si­ble language.