PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 26 — Officials at a suburban school district say new wording in its mission statement is already provoking discussion of evolution and other issues that are often in dispute.
PHOENIXVILLE AREA School District Superintendent David R. Noyes said he doubts the new language will have a big effect on how evolution is taught in the district. But Noyes said he does expect teachers to encourage “critical thinking and divergent thought and higher order thinking.”
“If we can promote that in our students, we will be educating them fully,” he said.
The mission statement was altered at the urging of school board vice president, David M. Langdon. He had sought a statement urging the teaching of “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution.
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