“As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox’s attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia’s students,” Carter, a native of Plains, Ga., said in a statement.
Cox said Thursday that the proposal for new middle and high school science standards would ban references to “evolution” and replace them with the term “biological changes over time.”
The proposal is part of more than 800 pages of draft revisions to Georgia’s curriculum that were posted Jan. 12 on the Department of Education Web site for educators and the public to consider.
A Cox spokesman said the superintendent was reviewing Carter’s statement and did not have a response to it at this time.
Carter, a Democrat who served as Georgia’s governor before being elected president in 1976, went on to say the debate will hurt the reputation of Georgia’s schools, colleges and universities.
“Nationwide ridicule of Georgia’s public school system will be inevitable if this proposal is adopted,” he said.
Carter, a Baptist, said that existing references to evolution in Georgia’s curriculum have done nothing to damage religion in the state.
Read Saturday’s Rome News-Tribune for more on this issue.
The Associated Pres
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