News roundup on Texas science standards

As I expected, there were a lot of 8-7 votes on the Texas science standards by the State Board of Education, with "weaknesses" of evolution being kept out of the standards. But other changes got stuck in, and there's a very clear pattern of who tried to make changes to the draft standards, in every case trying to weaken them so they would be more palatable to biblical literalists.

Coverage in the press can be found in The New York Times:, two from The Dallas News (first, second)) the Austin American Statesman, where the latter quotes:

Changing the standards from those recommended in the draft document for what seemed to be ideological reasons could make it more difficult for teachers to teach often controversial science topics, said Joe Bean, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, a labor group.

Coverage in blogs includes Bad Astronomy, Houston Pres blog, and NSCE news.

But this still isn't done. One more round of education death match in March. Unfortunately, is the only one that matters.