This is contentious because there's no constitutional basis at all for the Federal government having any say over education per the 10th Amendment.[1] The Constitution doesn't mention education at all, which means the states should have control. This was mostly the case until the 1980s.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
For what it's worth, I grew up in South Carolina, went to a Christian school up through 5th grade and grew up in a Southern Baptist Church. At no point during any of this did anybody try to convince me that the world was 10,000 years old. We learned dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago. We learned everything we needed to learn. I now have a masters degree.
This school brainwashing stuff that floats around the internet is a scare tactic at best and an isolated minority of people at worst who actually believe their children aren't going to have internet access one day. Most of the best schools in my area now spend more time focussing on teaching kids HOW to learn effectively and core life skills because there is an assumption that the bulk of the information is a few clicks away.
Somebody teaches a kid a made up story, that kid is eventually going to have Google and question just about everything those people ever told him.
Yes, pretty much. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/education/creationists-on-... and plenty of other articles. The National Center for Science Education (http://www.ncse.com) is a good place to pick up further insights.
This scenario is a sufficient argument for placing K-12 education under Federal control, in my view. Local control makes absolutely no sense where teaching objective facts in a standardized curriculum is concerned.
For what it's worth, I grew up in South Carolina, went to a Christian school up through 5th grade and grew up in a Southern Baptist Church. At no point during any of this did anybody try to convince me that the world was 10,000 years old. We learned dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago.
At this point I'd say you're an exception, but I don't have access to the statistics I'd need to make the case. Most Christian denominations may not specifically encourage their followers to toe the "Intelligent Design" line, but among Southern Baptists, my experience is that they do. (Of course, the Earth was only 6,000 years old when I was a kid.)
This school brainwashing stuff that floats around the internet is a scare tactic at best and an isolated minority of people at worst who actually believe their children aren't going to have internet access one day. Most of the best schools in my area now spend more time focussing on teaching kids HOW to learn effectively and core life skills because there is an assumption that the bulk of the information is a few clicks away. Somebody teaches a kid a made up story, that kid is eventually going to have Google and question just about everything those people ever told him.
I'd like to agree with you (and did at one point) but the opposite seems to be happening. The rise of the Internet has disintermediated us from our teachers, so to speak. Every moron with an opinion and a Facebook account is an "authority" now.
This isn't just a right-wing phenomenon, either -- look at the childhood vaccination rates in places like Marin County. It's another example of something that should have gotten better, but instead has gotten worse. As you said elsewhere, it's not a partisan issue.
It's a little more complicated than simply accusing the other party of cognitive dissonance. There actually is a right answer and a wrong answer to some of these questions.
K-12 education, for instance, has no business being a state-level issue. It is grossly unfair if a kid in New York learns about evolution while her cousin in Texas learns that Jesus rode a dinosaur to work. (Especially considering the disproportionate influence that Texas has on the textbooks that every other state must buy.) Yet Federal control of educational standards is one of the most contentious issues of all.