Ohio's "F" Grade In Teaching Evolution Could Have Been Avoided, Researcher Says

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The State of Ohio would probably have gotten an "A" for its model science curriculum had the standards not omitted all references to evolution, according to an Ohio State University professor on hand yesterday in Washington when the grades were passed out.

The independent Thomas B. Fordham Foundation released a report this week that graded the nation's states on the quality of their model science curricula. Ohio was one of only two states that showed a dramatic difference between the grade for the overall science standards and the state's grade for incorporating evolution into the curriculum.

Ohio scored a "B" for its overall standards but an "F" for not incorporating evolution.

"My guess is that if we got the evolution score up to perhaps a 'B,' then our overall score would climb to an 'A,'" explained Steve Rissing, a professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, and director of the university's Introductory Biology Program. Rissing was part of a day-long symposium discussing the teaching of evolution in U.S. schools, sponsored by the Fordham Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The study looked at how the individual states had designed their science teaching standards and specifically, how they incorporated evolution into that teaching. Rissing said "by scanning those two elements, they could identify places where an otherwise good set of standards have been compromised, potentially for political goals." Only Iowa was excluded from the study that looked at the remaining 49 states and the District of Columbia.

Rissing played an active role while a faculty member at Arizona State University when that state faced strong pressure to exclude evolution from the teaching of science. "We had much bigger problems in Arizona (than we do here) with the standards and they proved not that difficult to change," he said. "Most of the 'sins' in the Arizona standards were sins of omission and I suspect that our situation is very similar.

"Much of what we have in the Ohio model curriculum is very good but the Fordham report points out that, when you get right down to it, evolution just isn't in there!"

Rissing said that absence of evolution in the Ohio model curriculum - and the subsequent grade of "F" for the state - could become a serious problem for a state trying to change its image from a historic center of agriculture and traditional industry to one heavily oriented into high-tech businesses.

Business and industry historically has been one segment of society that quickly grasps the significance of accurately teaching science, he said. "We learned from the example in Kansas that American industry will not locate in an area that closes its eyes to modern scientific ideas." The Kansas Board of Education last year voted to remove evolution from the state's science curriculum.

Rissing said that underneath modern biotechnology and molecular genetics, there is a vast body of evolutionary assumptions that have to be accepted. Business was first in line to accept those assumptions, he said.

One major problem, he says, is that the public doesn't understand that science is ever-changing, and that it includes a certain amount of bias that constantly has to be corrected for as it changes. "We need public officials who recognize the role that bias plays in decision-making and who are comfortable in taking a public stance on the teaching of science, including evolution," he said.

"We have to make evolution the uniting theme of our biological science requirements in this state."

Contact: Steve Rissing, (614) 688-4989; Rissing.2@osu.edu. Written by Earle Holland, (614) 292-8384; Holland.8@osu.edu