Free Our Children!...The Intelligent Design Debate

People much smarter than me have already weighed-in on the merits and de-merits of the evolution vs. intelligent design debate, particularly as it relates to teaching the competing views side-by-side in science classes. My views on evolution and intelligent design are not relevant to this particular editorial.

The reason we are having a national debate on this topic is the same reason we debate school prayer; pc (politically correct) education in all kinds of subjects, particularly literature, history and the humanities (and now science); and racial and ethnic bias in standardized testing...et al. Stakeholders in education, literally everyone in this country, rightly believe they should have a voice in the content and construct of the education our children receive. The result is government bureaucracies (school boards), fearing giving offense or more likely, lawsuits, dumbing-down and sanitizing education to the point where critical thought, diversity of ideas, and in too many cases, factual accuracy, is lost.

This debate adds to the multitude of good reasons to get government out of the education business. Let parents choose where to send their kids to school. Let parents choose an evolution or intelligent design (or both) education. Keep the government out of the debate.

Some will say that there will be children who will be left behind because their parent will make poor and uninformed school choices. This is true. While minimum educational standards can be established by local and state representatives, regulations and laws can not fully protect children...against many bad decisions that parents may make. Such is life. The vast majority of children will receive a better education. As importantly, the diversity of education, of ideas, will add immeasureably to our collective well-being as a nation of diverse, inventive and entrepreneurial peoples.

In the false political religion of 'leaving no child behind', we leave all children behind (except those with enough money to escape public education). Large bureaucracies do not contribute to excellence, they impede it. Although there are always those who want to impose their enlightened views on the rest of us, government is not in a better position than parents to make decisions about children.

Education is on a downhill trajectory and the I.D./evolution debate reminds us of this fact. Get government out of education. Free the children!