Georgia General Assembly On Education

The Georgia GOP is racing through the legislative session, and there's some very weird stuff going on.

Take House Bill 179, introduced by Rep. Ben Bridges of Cleveland, GA.

Part 2 of Article 6 of Chapter 2 of Title 20 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to competencies and core curriculum in elementary and secondary schools, is amended by adding at the end thereof a new Code section, to be designated as Code Section 20-2-148, to read as follows:
∀20-2-148.
(a) Whenever any theory of the origin of humans or other living things is included in a course of study offered by a local unit of administration, factual scientific evidence supporting or consistent with evolution theory and factual scientific evidence inconsistent with or not supporting the theory shall be included in the course of study.
(b) The method of instruction described in subsection (a) of this Code section is intended to strengthen the analytical skills of students by requiring the presentation of a broad range of scientific evidence regarding theories of the origin of humans and other living things. The requirements of subsection (a) of this Code section are not intended to authorize or promote the presentation of religious beliefs.

Will this lead to teachers being prosecuted or sued when parents or state officials don't feel that a science curriculum is sufficiently broad to render it incoherent? I'm all for invigorating curricula, but I think we all know that the goal is to water down the material so much that students will emerge from science classes having no idea what science is or what current scientific thinking points to as fact.

On a happier note, HB 153 will make campus crime statistics public information. Certainly a good move.

On another sad note, HB 340 closes the records of donations to public colleges from public scrutiny. This was approved unanimously by the House Higher Education Committee last week without debate.

Does this mean that Osama bin Laden could anonymously donate $1 billion to UGA for a new College of Modern Islamic Studies and the public wouldn't know?

Thank you Georgia GOP. Not only can begin our jihad against teachers now, but we can have real jihadists privately, secretly paying to ideologically arm our young people for the war.