Academic Freedom - How Do You Test Students?

Academic Freedom bills promoted by the Discovery Institute, if passed into law, provide for a veritable free-for-all orgy of teaching whatever-the-hell-you-want. All you have to do is say that your pet theory leads to better critical thinking skills of your students; that you are presenting both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Any ham-handed science theory will do. Where do babies come from? Biology can be so droll, so why not discuss the stork theory? Or the cabbage patch theory? Evidence doesn't matter...it's just a theory after all. Hell, Einstein developed the theory of relativity without evidence, so who's to say you're not the next Einstein?

Conveniently for you, the Discovery Institute has posted a sample academic freedom bill here, just in case you feel like slipping it into your district representative's inbox. But the question that keeps coming up is how to test the students? If you use intelligent design to expose weaknesses in evolution, well what is the student supposed to answer when asked how random mutation and natural selection affect a species?

Let's consult the sample bill:

Section 5. Students may be evaluated based upon their understanding of course materials, but no student in any public school or institution of higher education shall be penalized in any way because he or she may subscribe to a particular position on any views regarding biological or chemical evolution.

The level of geniusness behind this statement makes me weak in the knees. That a teacher should accept any answer on a test, no matter what - well that solves half of the problems of No Child Left Behind at a stroke!

Laurels, accolades, and tributes all around. Let's celebrate the reemergence of the dark ages.