The Alabama Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama. Photo by David Lundgren on Unsplash.
"In Alabama, public money buys textbooks that downplay slavery, call rock music 'rebellion,'" according to a report (November 20, 2025) on AL.com about the CHOOSE Act, a state program that in 2025 provided $100 million in education tax credits to pay for private school expenses, including textbooks. Evolution is among the topics that is often mishandled in such textbooks.
"[M]any popular textbooks from Abeka, Bob Jones University and the Association of Christian Schools International, which distributes a science textbook called 'Purposeful Design,' include some outdated instruction and mix political points of view with religious teaching, AL.com found." The report showed a box from such a textbook headed "Evolution, a Destructive Faith."
Ironically, as AL.com's report parenthetically acknowledged, "Alabama public school science textbooks include a disclaimer that calls evolution [rather, "the theory of evolution by natural selection"] a controversial theory." Different versions of the evolution disclaimer have appeared in Alabama biology textbooks since 1995.
