Austin Statesman Scoops Texas Board Evolution Story
Kudos to Austin American Statesman reporter Molly Bloom. She apparently stayed for the entire Texas State Board of Education meeting, unlike some of her colleagues in the press. She's the first reporter I've seen who actually reports the fact that the Texas Board voted to revise proposed standards on evolution to require students to analyze and evaluate the key concepts of the theory such as common ancestry and natural selection. Her story, "Third state education board vote mandates teaching students challenges to evolution" gets the basic point right, even though she is still off on the details. She only describes the new evolution standard added at the behest of state board Chair Don McElroy, failing to mention earlier approval of a series of amendments offered by board member Terri Leo to the evolution standards. Still, Ms. Bloom is to be congratulated for covering something the rest of the press thus far has missed.
UPDATE (6:25 pm Pacific Time): The Associated Press has finally gotten the message that something else happened at the Board meeting, but the piece doesn't seem to be based on independent reporting, because it repeats the same errors as the Statesman piece and only mentions McElroy's amendment, not the others.