RE: Yellow reading (Supreme court decisions)

Most of the court decisions on this handout were new to me, so I was interested in seeing what kind of decisions had been made about education in the past. A couple in particular caught my eye.

I noticed a pattern in decisions having to do with the teaching of Evolution vs. Creation in schools. It seems that this debate is ongoing and there is no real end in sight. It is hard for me to say, as a Christian, whether or not students should or should not learn one or the other. I think personally that teaching evolution in schools is just a basic lesson in science. We know that science is not exact, and that even our "proof" could never be truly verified or denied. Therefore, if one's faith is strong enough that they do not allow the idea of evolution to tamper with their religious beliefs, then there should not be a problem. The issue at hand, however, is not so much whether or not it should be taught, but who gets to decide. The government doesn't have the bias of the church, and the church doesn't have the bias of the government. Neither one is really equipped to make an informed decision by representing the other's point of view equally.

The other decision that caught my attention was San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez. Here there was argument over funding and "equitable redistribution of funds across the state's school districts." The decision was that funding doesn't have to be equal across districts. Kozol covered this idea in his book, so it naturally caught my eye. I think in response to this idea, Kozol would say that ideally we would want equal distribution of funds across state school districts. That way there would be more equality of education of students. If there was equality, there would not be the opportunity for people in more affluent neighborhoods to keep all the wealth in one place, and with redistribution, everyone would be more likely to chip in and give more to educating their children. For example: Compare one wealthy high school (A) and one poorer high school (B). If there was a redistribution of funds and funding was taken away from A to make it equal to B, then perhaps the community around A would be more inclined to give to the district in general so that A could be raised, and by doing so, B would be raised as well.

I think this decision would be worth reconsidering if equality in education is valued in this nation.