The Senate Education Committee heard SB 89 sponsored by Committee Chairman Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn) which gave local school boardsauthority to require that students be taught various theories on the origin of life including creation science.    ISTA was called as the lead witness on the bill and presented each legislator with a packet of information showing that federal courts have repeatedly ruledthat creationism is not a science and students cannot be required to take the subject.   ISTA expressed appreciation for Sen. Kruse’s recognition that there are multiple views on the origin of life within and among various religions and offered that there are ways to teach about religion in public schools so long as schools honor constitutional guidelines including that:  

• The courses must be academic and not devotional in nature.   
• The teacher cannot favor or disparage one religion over any other and cannot indoctrinate or proselytize students.   
• The courses must be electives rather than requirements.   
• Students could learn about various religious beliefs on the origin of life and other issues without treating it as a science course and without supporting one view over another .
• Teachers must  be trained in what is and is not constitutional and selected on their academic credentials and preparation to teach about the religion content of a course rather than on their beliefs or non-beliefs.   

ISTA invited a retired Carmel High School teacher to testify who had taught a course about the Bible as an inter-disciplinary course on literature, history, and geography interwoven with current events in classes including Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and atheist students.   Influences ofJewish, Muslim, and Christian religions on the Middle East and world events were all included and taught.    

Students and parents of various religious perspectives gave the course highly positive reviews with parents urging that the course be taught at night so that they could take the class as well.     The teacher worked hard to make sure that his personal religious views were not expressed or evidenced in the classes. 

ISTA asked the committee to change the bill to restore a program Indiana had in the late 1970’s which taught teachers how to teach about religionin various disciplines in a constitutional way.     The program provided teacher training in course content and constitutional guidelines and how toavoid unintentional violations of those guidelines.   It provided appropriate texts for students and year-round resource individuals to provide on-goingguidance to teachers whenever questions or problems arose.    Future teacher training was modified to include instruction on problems whicharose in various classrooms.

Many others testified for and against the bill.    Since it was the last day for bills to move from Committee and since the Chairman does not allow on-the-spot amendments, Senator Kenley (R-Noblesville) expressed concerns that the bill in current form has major legal problems and he would not vote for the bill unless Chairman Kruse would agree to work with him to replace the bill’s content with constitutional language when the bill came to the Senate floor for amendments.    Senator Kruse agreed and the bill then passed from committee.     ISTA is working with both Senators on language requiring the Department of Education to bring back a plan to the legislature next year to restore the program of the late 1970’s.