A Brief History of the Minnesota Academic Standards
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Pirate modeFlorida Citizens for Science has an excellent History of the Minnesota Academic Standards in Science, written by Minnesota's own Melanie Reap and Jamie Crannell. It's short and clear and puts all the details in order. You'll see why we found Cheri Yecke infuriating; she was a sneak who worked to bias the standards at several steps along the way, like this:
The Commissioner of Education chose members from the larger committee to form the final writing committee. Of the twelve members selected, four were intelligent design proponents. The criteria for selection were never made public.
Be warned, Floridians. Yecke isn't going to be blatant and openly declare her fondness for medieval anti-science. She's going to be devious and pack her assistants and committees with creationists to do her dirty work for her, and I suspect that her experience here in Minnesota will have taught her to be even more snake-like.
I'm a lurker that has enjoyed your posts for quite a while. Today, however, you refered to an ID proponent's behavior as snake-like, and to that I feel I must respond. Please don't add to the negative press on snakes as they have it rough enough already. I would suggest instead that IDiots are more like fungal infections, lingering, spore-like, undetected or unnoticed for a time, only to quietly spread their hyphae through society's flesh, causing an infuriating, durable irritation that is difficult to relieve. As with fungal infections, IDiot infections are preventable through careful (cultural) hygiene - that is, education.
In keeping with that analogy, I hope the federal court in Harrisburg manages to act as a potent anti-fungal agent.