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Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Florida's chair of the state board of education, Andy Tuck, doesn't believe in evolution
He doesn't believe in public education either and that's why his is on the state board but that's another story. Um, it's 2019 right? Not 1719? Okay, just checking. From the I can't make this up file, one of the most important people in education, state board of education chair, Andy Tuck, doesn't believe in evolution. This is us, this is Florida. From Florida Citizens for Science,
Florida has a new Board of Education chairman: Andy Tuck.
When the state science standards were rewritten in 2008, Tuck was vice chairman of the Highlands County school board. Several school boards passed resolutions opposing the inclusion of evolution in the new standards. Highlands seriously considered a resolution but eventually backed down. But Tuck did say this:
School Board Vice Chairman Andy Tuck said Thursday, “as a person of faith, I strongly oppose any study of evolution as fact at all. I’m purely in favor of it staying a theory and only a theory.
“I won’t support any evolution being taught as fact at all in any of our schools.”
Then in 2014 Tuck was appointed the state board of education. Reporters recalled his earlier stance on evolution and so decided to follow up with him now that he was at the state level. This is what he said:
“I’m not an evangelical right-winger,” he told me. “I’m not trying to get religion in schools.”
[…]
Tuck said his problem is that scientists can’t say for certain how the universe began.
“I guess the thing I struggle with is you’re teaching evolution to fifth-graders and you get done and one says, ‘Where did it start?’” he said. “And you say what?”
Friends it hasn't been the theory of evolution for quite some time.
In some of the voucher schools, that Tuck also champions, they teach junk science like humans and dinosaurs lived together, and junk and offensive history, like Slaves with Jesus in their heart were free as anybody.
Tuck being in the state board, let alone the chair, can steer, policy, text books, and standards and for him to not believe in basic science is more than troubling.
But what is perhaps more troubling is how people are picked for the state board, and criteria number one seems to be how much you donated to the governor.
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