Dive Brief:

• The South Carolina Board of Education voted against a proposed standard change that would make the state's biology students write scientific arguments supporting and discrediting Darwin.  
• The failed bill was submitted in April by Sen. Mike Fair (R-Greenville), a member of the Education Oversight Committee who opposes teaching natural selection as fact, arguing that schools should "teach the controversy."
• Since the language change was not agreed upon, South Carolina will keep the same standards it has had since 2005.  

Dive Insight:

For the science community, this is a big deal.  "I was very gratified by the support for rigorous science education that came from the State Board of Education," Rob Dillon, a College of Charleston biology professor and president of South Carolinians for Science Education, told the Post and Courier. In Dillon's eyes, the language change was an effort to inject creationism back into school curriculum.  

South Carolina is not alone in this struggle to teach scientifically approved standards.  Wyoming made news when it rejected the Next Generation Science Standards due to the teaching of man-made climate change as fact. Kansas has also struggled to accept the new standards because of evolution disagreements.