Nothing lasts forever! The course content improvement projects, which were propelled by the Nation's desire to improve science and mathematics came under attack in the mid-1970s. There were two ideas that surfaced during this time that an impact on science education. One was a movement which became know as the Back to Basics Movement, and the other had to do with the questioning of science textbooks by individual citizens, textbook watchers, and religious groups (especially the Fundamental Christians).
The Back to Basics Movement was a reaction not only to the current wave of course content improvement projects, but was also the antagonism toward the progressive movement in education which surfaced in the late 60s and 70s as the Humanistic Education Movement, which had its theoretical foundations in humanistic psychology. The conservative movement "labeled progressive schools 'anti-intellectual playhouses' and 'crime breeders,' run by a 'liberal establishment." One of the projects funded by NSF came under furious scrutiny by certain conservative congressmen, but most notably Representative John Conlan of Arizona. According to Nelkin, citizen groups in Arizona complained to Conlan (then, a state senator) about Man - A Course of Study (MACOS). Conlan's staff investigated the complaints and eventually, Conlan took steps to stop appropriations for MACOS "on the grounds of its 'abhorrent, repugnant, vulgar, morally sick content." Others criticized MACOS. Nelkin claims that the Council for Basic Education objected to MACOS for its emphasis on cultural relativism, and its lack of emphasis on skills and facts. Even liberal congressmen got on the anti-MACOS bandwagan because of their desire to limit the executive bureaucracies, such as NSF, and for "their resentment of scientists, who often tended to disdain congressional politics; and above all, the concern with secrecy and confidentiality that followed the Watergate affair."
The MACOS controversy brought the issue of censorship into the public arena. However, in order to avoid the claim of censorship, which probably would not have been acceptable to many in the Congress, Conlan focused on the federal government's role in implementing MACOS, as well as all other NSF funded curriculum projects. One issue that surfaced was "the marketing issue---the concern that the NSF used taxpayers' money to interfere with private enterprise." Along with this was the position that conservative writers such as James Kilpatrick, who attacked NSF science programs as "an ominous echo of the Soviet Union's promulgation of official scientific theory."The temper of the times was quite clear: "resentment of the 'elitism' of science reinforced concern that NSF was naively promulgating the liberal values of the scientific community to a reluctant public." The result: on April 9, 1975, the Congress terminated funds for MACOS, and further support of science curriculum projects was suspended, and the entire NSF educational program came under review.
The federal funds that would have been used to support the NSF curriculum projects were used for research and college science programs. The NSF did however fund three large studies to answer the charges that science and mathematics education had not improved as a result of the course content curriculum projects.The three studies, which were mentioned earlier in this chapter were 1) a review of the science education research between 1954 and 1974; 2) a demographic study which assessed such factors important to science educators as enrollments, offerings, teachers, and instructional materials; and 3) case studies of science teaching.
Because the of the volume of data provided by the three status studies, NSF funded a fourth study, called Project Synthesis (discussed at length earlier in the chapter). Project Synthesis recommended expanding the goals of science education to include not only content (science as preparation for further study), but also science for meeting personal needs, resolving societal problems, and for career awareness.
In order to recoup its position as an active force in science education, the NSF prepared a report in 1980 entitled Science and Engineering Education for the 1980s and Beyond to the Carter administration. Unfortunately (for NSF) Carter was defeated, and the new president, Ronald Reagan rejected the reports recommendations, and tried to eliminate the science education section of NSF, and during the early 80s, the influence of NSF in science education was limited to college faculty improvement and graduate student fellowships in the basic sciences.
Another wave of controversy occurred during this period, and that was the teaching of evolution in the public schools, and other science concepts and ideas that touched on beliefs, religion, values and morals (e.g. teaching human sexuality, human reproduction, and birth control in biology classes, for example). But it was Darwin's evolutionary theory that resulted in court cases, and laws being passed to regulate the teaching of evolution (such as giving equal time to "creation science" if "evolution science" was presented in a science class.
A phenomenon that reached its pinnacle during this time was the general scrutiny of textbooks, especially in biology, Earth science, social studies, and literature. In the 1960s, when BSCS, whose textbooks emphasized Darwin's theory of evolution (in contrast to many high school biology texts as the time), submitted its books for state adoption in the lucrative market of Texas, serious trouble surfaced. The Reverend Ruel Lemmons led a protest (that reached the Texas Governor's office) to the get the BSCS textbooks banned claiming the books were pure evolution, completely materialistic and atheistic. The books were not banned, but there were changes made to lighten their evolutionary emphasis. Nelkin reports that BSCS had to specify that evolution theory was a theory, not a fact, and that it had been modified, not strengthened by recent research.
This was just the tip of the iceberg. A group of fundamentalists began to develop a world view of creation based on the story in genesis in the Holy Bible. The creationists rejected the notion of a 5 billion year old Earth, instead claiming that biological life began approximately five to six thousand years ago. One of the forceful voices in the creation science movement was Henry Morris. In an article published in the American Biology Teacher, he set out the differences, from his point of view, between the creation model and the evolution model. Essentially the creationists "theorized" that all living things were brought about by the acts of a Creator. The evolutionary model proposed that all living things were brought about by naturalistic processes due to properties inherent in inanimate matter. The creationists, in their literature, set the creation model along side the evolutionary model, and insisted that good science education would provide alternative views on the same topic, and let the students evaluate them to form their own position.
In 1969, the California Board of Education modified the Science Framework on Science for California Schools so that the theory of creation would be included in textbooks. The Science Framework on Science for California Schools sets forth the guidelines for the adoption of science textbooks (currently over $40 million are spent on science books in California during the science adoption year). Vernon Grose (an aerospace engineer) wrote and presented a document arguing that evolutionary theory was biased and should be taught only if alternative views were presented. He convinced the board of education to modify its position on the teaching of evolution; the board inserted the following statement into the framework:
All scientific evidence to date concerning the origin of life implies at least a dualism or the necessity to use several theories to fully explain relationships, ...While the Bible and other philosophical treatises also mention creation, science has independently postulated the various theories of creation. Therefore, creation in scientific terms is not a religious or philosophical belief. Also note that creation and evolutionary theories are not necessarily mutual exclusives. Some of the scientific data (e.g. the regular absence of transitional forms) may be best explained by a creation theory, while other data (e.g., transmutation of species) substantiate a process of evolution...
The "evolutionists were incredulous that creationists could have any influence." A number of individuals and groups such as National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT), the National Academy of Science, and the Academic Senate of the University of California protested and lobbied against the state board's ruling. The solution to the creation - evolution issue resulted only after the state board had received numerous complaints about the earlier decision. In 1972 the California Board of Education decided to approve a statement prepared by its curriculum committee by proposing neutrality in science textbooks. Dogmatic statements in science books would be removed, and replaced with conditional statements. Textbooks dealing with evolution would have printed in them a statement indicating that science cannot answer all questions about origins, and that evolution is a theory, not a fact. Some textbooks, even in the 1990s, contain statements to this effect, usually printed on the inside cover. The effect of this policy change prevented textbook publishers from having to include in science books, a section on "creation science." The board's decision, which was called the Antidogmatism Statement, caused publishers to rethink the way they were presenting science information in textbooks.
By the late 1970s, the emphasis in education had focused on the "basics," and the literature was replete with the so called "back-to-basics" slogans, e.g. schools need to attend to basic skills. The place of science in the curriculum lost the priority it had had in the 60s. The interest now was in teaching basic skills of reading, mathematics and communication.