It's been a week since our kids went back to school here in the Springs. What with summer camps and visitors from out of state the summer seemed to go quickly for my family. We should be grateful here in Colorado to have such a good school system compared to many other states. Let's hope that common sense, reason and good education continue this school year for our children.

We have been lucky that the Intelligent Design nonsense has not infected our schools (at least not to my knowledge) here in Colorado … yet. Other states are not so lucky. This will be a big year for schools elsewhere in the continuous fight for good education, common sense, rationality and real science in the classroom. The last couple of years, especially since Kitzmiller Vs Dover, have seen continuous defeats for the Intelligent Design movement. However, the war against reason continues.

There are a couple of stories from other states for parents concerned about good education I would like to highlight and that you may be interested to follow

• What may be the biggest story comes out of Texas which is mounting the greatest challenge to common sense education yet. A key part of this story concerns Chris Comer, the former Curriculum Director for Science who was fired for not remaining neutral on the topic of keeping religion out of the science classroom 
• The second story to follow comes out of Louisiana which a few months ago passed what might appear to be an innocuous bill around academic freedom, but it is just a matter of time (weeks? months?) before it is abused by some teacher attempting to insert religion into a science class. Keep an eye out for the first lawsuit. Go here for some excellent analysis around this topic

A good single place to follow these stories is at Panda's Thumb which covers a lot of stories around the topic of evolution and the continuing battle to keep religion (aka "Intelligent Design") out of good science education.

For the latest across pretty much any topic on science that you might be interested in, try ScienceBlogs. There you will find professors, researchers, students and other real, working scientists who often write articles about the latest science topics in an accessible and informal way. But as with most blogs, watch out - screen it first to decide if you think it is appropriate for your children if you think you might like them to read it as well. A couple of specific blogs from ScienceBlogs I'd like to highlight are

• Dispatches from the Culture Wars by Ed Brayton who often writes about issues around freedom of speech, and has commented on many issues on this topic relevant to schools. Ed comments on a recent Springs freedom of speech story here
• I should also mention Pharyngula written by PZ Myers, biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Pharyngula is one of the most popular blogs independent of topic area. PZ is a hard core atheist who often points out the absurdities of the 'faith based position' when it comes to science matters. He also often writes about topics relevant to biology and evolution in an extremely accessible way.  

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