Charter school leader defends creationism in schools' curriculum | Arkansas Blog | Arkansas news, politics, opinion, restaurants, music, movies and art

The subject has come up on previous threads, but more prominent attention is due a response issued by Texas-based charter school operator Responsive Education Solutions to a powerful piece of investigative reporting in Slate on the organization.

It's important in Arkansas, because Responsive Education, with Walton Foundation help, has a growing footprint in Arkansas. It will open its fourth Arkansas charter school next year in Chenal Valley. The Quest middle school is designed as a haven for parents in the upscale neighborhood from the supposedly inferior Little Rock School District. Just last week, a state advisory panel approved conversions of three public schools, including the high school in West Memphis, into charters for which Responsive Ed will be paid to be a consultant and curriculum provider.

The Slate article reports that Responsive Education teaches creationism in its Texas high school classes. It reports multiple examples of factual problems with history instruction. It provides rich details of the web of relationships between Responsive Ed people with organizations aimed at increasing the role of religion in public life and providing "Christian education," as opposed to simply education.

Responsive Ed didn't respond directly to my request for response. But Chuck Cook, CEO of the Lewisville, Texas Responsive, posted the company's prepared statement distributed in response to the Slate article on my earlier item about the issue. I've put it on the jump in its entirety. It's interesting reading, to say the least. Readers have already commented on that item and here.

Charter school leader defends creationism in schools' curriculum | Arkansas Blog | Arkansas news, politics, opinion, restaurants, music, movies and art

Texas Charter School Operator Defends Misleading Its Students with Junk Science, Political Propaganda | TFN Insider

Hmm,,,can I copy and past a whole article?? Prolly not,,,

The CEO of Texas-based Responsive Education Solutions has responded to an in-depth article in Slate [the article I posted about here] detailing how the charter operator’s public schools teach junk science and political propaganda as factual. Frankly, the CEO’s response is just as troubling as the original allegations about the schools’ troubling curriculum.

The article then delves into specifics of Cook's response which is best read in it's entirety. The author also links to and article out of Arkansas [see next post], that also deals with their current battle with Responsive Ed.  Cook's statement can be read there. Be forewarned it's scarey reading to say the least

Texas Charter School Operator Defends Misleading Its Students with Junk Science, Political Propaganda | TFN Insider

Biggest Texas Charter School Network Reportedly Teaching Creationism

There is way more to this than I initially realized. I foresee picking at this story a bit at a time as it is hitting some other topics, individuals and organizations I'm still learning about (to be read, I have to once again dig for deleted articles,,,sigh). One such organization is ACE (Accelerated Christian Education), the board president of Responsive Education Solutions has ties to this organization which has popped up in other articles concerning homeschooling and the like,,,

According to science advocate Zack Kopplin, Texas students in more than 65 schools are not learning real science. Instead, he alleges, students enrolled in schools operated by the state’s largest charter school program are learning a curriculum that is riddled with factual errors, pushes creationism and undermines evolution.

Kopplin, 20, railed against the crooked standards at Responsive Education Solutions charter schools in an article published on Slate.com Thursday. He says he used an open records request to attain copies of the workbooks used to educate Responsive Ed students and found science lessons that call evolution a “dogma” and an “unproven theory.” He also said he saw history lessons with a misogynistic and religious agenda.

“What I found is that, really unquestionably, the Responsive Education Solutions program is teaching creationism,” Kopplin told The Huffington Post over the phone about the publicly funded, secular charter school network. “It highlights supernatural creationism as a legitimate alternative to evolution. It says that evolution is unproved dogma with no experimental basis.”

Biggest Texas Charter School Network Reportedly Teaching Creationism