Michael Satchell

U.S. News and World Report. June 10, 1996

On June 25, the school board in Escambia County, Fla., will decide whether to ban a high school textbook titled Environmental Science: Ecology and Human Impact. The book was withdrawn after Whit Wise, a candidate for school superintendent, complained that it deals with global warming as fact, cites the United Nations as a scientific authority and is anti-industry. Before approaching the school board, Wise took his concerns to the manager of the Monsanto chemical plant in Pensacola, a major regional employer. The manager called for banning the book. Says Wise: "It's absolutely against industry. It presents the student with a Unabomber theme. There is no solution except a return to the wild."

The fight over the nation's environmental agenda is expanding from polluted cities and pristine countryside to a new battleground: the nation's schools. Ground zero is Arizona, where the legislature has overturned a 1990 law requiring environmental education in public schools. The curriculum guide has been withdrawn and funding for classroom projects slashed. If school districts choose to continue environmental instruction, teachers are not to encourage advocacy or activism: no more collecting pennies to plant trees or save whales; no more letters to protest polluting industries or rain forest destruction; no more posters depicting damage by ranchers or loggers. Similar initiatives have been considered or are pending in Texas, Florida, Wisconsin and North Carolina.

The attack on environmental education, which in 20 states is either mandatory or strongly encouraged by state curriculum guides, has academics concerned. However, they acknowledge that biased material is sometimes presented by teachers who don't know the subject well enough to ensure balance and that some activist teachers push ecoagendas on malleable youngsters.

Bad examples? State Rep. Russell Bowers, who led the campaign to retrench in Arizona, was prompted in part by the curriculum guide that suggested second graders dance to wolf howls and whale songs. "It's ecocultism," he says. Protesters in the timber community of Laytonville, Calif., tried to ban Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, about a creature that protects trees. A middle school envirocamp in Bend, Ore., was canceled in part because some parents felt its commune-with-nature theme was "anti-Christian and paganistic." In the West, loggers, miners and other dependent on natural resources resent their children coming home from school and criticizing their livelihoods. In Boise, Idaho, fish and game biologist Jon Rachael used to visit schools to present wildlife programs. State law, however, forbids him to discuss a topic that's anathema to the state's powerful ranchers: reintroduction of the wolf into Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. "If I spoke about it, my job would be in serious jeopardy." Rachael says. "Wolves, grizzlies and salmon restoration have become such hot issues that I don't do school programs anymore."

Teachers in nearby Meridian, Idaho, say parents and administrators discourage their broaching issues like endangered species, cattle grazing and wilderness preservation. School board guidelines state: "Discussion should not reflect negative attitudes against business or industry." "The message is clear," says elementary school teacher Kathy Zager: "Stay away from controversial topics."

Attacks on environmental curricula are being led by conservative think tanks such as the Washington-based Heritage Foundation and Montana's Political Economy Research Center; they are supported by elements of the Christian right. In a speech on the House floor, Idaho Republican Helen Chenoweth summed up the opponents' charge: "This cloudy mixture of New Age mysticism, Native American folklore and primitive Earth worship is being promoted and enforced by the Clinton administration. It is driving the nation's regulatory scheme, and workers, small businessmen and property owners are becoming [its] victims."

Earth daze. The environment has been an increasingly popular school subject since the first Earth Day in 1970. In 1990, Congress allocated $65 million for grants, materials and teacher training, but national standards are still being developed. Teacher skills, acknowledges Bora Simmons, president of the North American Association of Environmental Educators (NAAEE), are uneven. And with many districts strapped for funds, teachers rely heavily on free materials produced by corporate and green groups.

Both sides peddle propaganda. Greenpeace encourages kids to write to French President Jacques Chirac to protest nuclear testing or to DuPont, demanding the company stop producing chemicals that harm the ozone layer. Proctor & Gamble's widely distributed "Decision Earth" materials tout disposable diapers as more Earth- friendly than cloth. Georgia-Pacific extols the virtues of forest clearcutting over selective harvesting. The American Coal Foundation trumpets coal's economic benefits without mentioning global warming, dirty air and streams poisoned by acid mine drainage.

Critics of environmental education focus on what they consider attempts to indoctrinate kids rather than educate them. They say youngsters are taught that recycling is good but rarely learn about alternate waste-disposal methods such as landfills. Green education degenerates into "emotionalism, myths and misinformation," contends Jo Kwong, environmental researcher at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Kids are encouraged to parrot slogans like "Save the Rain Forest" with little understanding of what a rain forest is or why it needs saving. Other examples:

*Kids learn that acid rain is a continuing crisis that kills or damages forests, crops, fish and buildings. A $500 million congressionally funded 1990 study that concluded acid rain is far less harmful than had been feared is rarely mentioned.

*Students are told that with only 6 percent of the world's population, the United States gobbles 40 percent of Earth's natural resources; they aren't told that this country generates some 35 percent of the world's wealth.

*Youngsters are admonished not to use aerosol spray cans, although Congress banned ozone- destroying chlorofluorocarbons from most aerosols in 1978.

*Industry and technology are often presented negatively. Plastics, pesticides, oil, nuclear energy, landfills and automobiles are invariably evil. Hydropower, solar energy, bicycles, recycling and paper grocery sacks are presented as good.

*Kids learn that Third World starvation is the result of overpopulation. In fact, much famine is caused by logistical problems or civil wars.

The 2,500-member NAAEE, the nation's largest environmental teacher organization, began developing standards and reviewing materials five years ago, and classroom evaluation will begin soon. Leaders concede that biased materials need to be winnowed.

NAAEE Executive Director Ed McCrea says attacks on environmental programs are motivated by ideology rather than reason. "They're uncomfortable with teachers doing more than just imparting knowledge," he says. "But kids should be encouraged to think, to become activists. Isn't that what teaching is about?" That, indeed, is the question.