Dear Future President,

Recently I discovered that in Louisiana we have a law called the Louisiana Science Education Act that was signed by our formal governor Bobby Jindal. This law is meant to regulate material being used in science classrooms in public schools. However, there are some extremely controversial issues with the law regarding its open-ended wording.

The controversial part of the Act states that “Supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique and review scientific theories” (Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008). At first glance, this sounds perfectly fine. Its sounds as if it is only giving the teacher the ability to help their students understand the lesson by using supplemental material. However, because the act is so vague, Radical Creationists are taking this as an opportunity to interpret this to mean teachers can teach creationism in the classroom. Creationism is the idea that humans and the world were created like it says in the bible. This means Adam and Eve and the creation in 7 days. However, the creation story from the bible is purely that, a story. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that it happened the way it says in the bible. There is, however, evidence proving Darwin’s theory of Evolution. 

Public school students, when they go to college, will be completely blindsided by their professors when they don’t know anything about the evolution theory except that their teacher said it wasn’t true. This can also tamper with the reputation of the intelligence of Louisianans. Our country and the world have already stereotyped Louisianans as a bunch of camo-wearing, alligator riding, unintelligent people. This Act has the potential to tarnish our reputation even more; I will not stand for this. I want my state to be known as strong, dignified, and highly educated. I believe that in the science classrooms, science and not religion should be taught. Don’t get me wrong I am a Christian. I believe in the Holy Trinity and that Jesus dies for my sins, but I also am intelligent and believe proven scientific theories. Science has proved evolution to be true and I believe that it should be taught in the classroom like it is supposed to. So Mr./Mrs. President, I need your help. In America, we need a federal law or laws passed in order to prevent the states from passing these kinds of laws. We do not want the students of our country to be behind academically from the rest of the world. 

Sincerly,

A Concerned Louisiana Student 

Works Cited

Kopplin, Zack. "Louisiana’s Creationism Law Lets Creationist Teachers Teach Creationism

       Web. 11 Nov. 2015.

Kopplin, Zack. "School Boards, Principals, and Teachers Are Pushing Creationism on Kids."

     Slate. 2 June 2015. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.

S. 733 (2008) (enacted). Print.