Eric Meikle, education project director at the National Center for Science Education, recently told Politico that he doesn’t believe “the function of public education is to prepare students for the turn of the 19th century.” Good point. We should stop teaching kids about the wonders of windmills and choo-choo trains and stop demeaning the technological accomplishments of the 20th century. Because guess what; it already sounds a lot like the 19th century in classrooms.

Of course, Meikle wasn’t referring to the environmental Cassandras of our public school districts; he was pondering the boogeyman of creationism. And like most efforts to warn us about the menace of religious extremism in schools, all these investigations into “creationism” offer the media a convenient way to express secular unease about the supposed outsize power of zealots while also clouding the purpose of school choice.