While OP's child may not get information about evolution in public school until 4th grade, there is no telling what misinformation would be given to the child in first grade at that school.
Also Catholicism has no problem with evolution. You can believe in both and it is okay. There are many Christians who believe in evolution. The bibilical literalists do not have exclusive rights at Christianity.

Anonymous wrote:If they don't teach science, how do their students pass ACT tests?

If the Lord wills that they do well on the ACT they will; otherwise it's a sign that they have been naughty in his sight.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how long do you expect your DD to attend this school? Only for 1st grade?

I don't know. I was considering it long term. But I won't send her there if they won't teach real science.

I'm just curious about the religions schools... if they teach from the religious point of view (which they should, if they're truly religious), then how to they students pass SAT and ACT tests?

My boss's son got into MIT, majoring in biomedical engineering, after attending a Catholic school. How on Earth did he study sciences there?

Catholic schools do not subscribe to this rejection of science. I'm betting this school you're considering is not Catholic. There is no comparison between the Catholic tradition of education and what the new earth creationists, usually Baptists, subscribe to.
- not a Catholic

+1 some of history's greatest thinkers and scientists were Catholic- Galileo, Descartes, Copernicus, Louis Pasteur, Gregor Mendel, Blaise Pascal...

You forgot Georges Lemaitre, the Belgian Jesuit priest who proposed Big Bang...

OP--Catholic here. Creationism drives me crazy and looking at history as God's providential plan also is crazy making. But I agree with PP that none of this comes into play until around 4th grade, so if you wanted to keep your child in this school through third grade I don't think it would be terrible. If you could find a Catholic school and you are okay with that, that could be another cheaper way to go here. But check the math curriculum--some use Saxon, but not all do. Singapore Math is an equally good choice for math.

First of all, the SAT doesn't test science knowledge. I think the ACT does rely more on content knowledge, but I have no direct experience with it.

Secondly, while evolution, being commonly accepted, is something your child should be taught as part of a solid education, it is not that demanding a topic. I think most kids don't get much about it until middle school or high school (both common points to switch schools), and then I'd guess it's a week or two, if that, of direct instruction on evolution within a broader science course (life science, biology, etc.) It may be an underlying theme of such a course, but it's not a subject in and of itself like Algebra, French, or Chemistry. I suspect you could supplement at home if you chose. I also assume you can share with your child what your family does and does not believe. I suggest you contact the school and find out what they teach and when. Right now we're speculating. In my public school World History class they taught us the underlying principles of the major religions, even though they clearly were not endorsing any. For all I know the private school may give a thorough background on evolution as an alternative, prevalent theory.

As to the disparate theories, there is a great deal of overlap between them. The evidence for evolution could also be seen as evidence for Creationism and I find it interesting that the ones who are supposedly basing their arguments on "objective" science are the ones who seem closed-minded about the possibility there could possibly be a God. Whether the Big Bang happened randomly, was ordered by God, or was some manifestation of God himself, I have no idea, and frankly I don't know that it matters. I know that there weren't any eyewitnesses (unless you accept the Biblical account). I know that in quantum physics, weird things happen with time and space, matter and energy. I know that when you mathematically factor in extra dimensions, different forces start to unify. Frankly, matter and energy converting back and forth, across dimensions of time and space I can't perceive, encompassing every force we know of, sounds a lot like God or a "place" for God to exist that I am to limited to perceive (like somebody in a two-dimensional world would have trouble perceiving me in three-dimensions). You don't have to believe there is a being out there beyond your perception, but can you be positive there isn't?

As for me, I went to a public magnet school (non-local). As the parent of a Blair student, I can say that while we didn't have as many specialized science courses, our basic magnet science courses were far more rigorous than Blair. You can be certain that I was taught evolution. I am also <<gasp>> a Baptist. I maintain that if you "objectively" compare the two theories you'll find a great deal of common ground. (If you're stuck on the six days, the Bible makes it clear that God views time differently than we do. The bible doesn't specify 24 hours. Do I think a God who is so much more than I can even imagine, who may transcend time itself, could have created everything in six 24-hour days? I think anything is possible. Do I think God could have used days as a term for a cosmic timescale? Again, it's possible.)

I think the issues here are so great that I can't ever fully wrap my head around them. I have trouble visualizing a fourth spatial dimension. Trying to picture a tesseract makes my head hurt. Physics theories allow for the possibility of 9 or more spatial dimensions and some suggest there may be more than one dimension of time.

Does it really matter, from a scientific perspective, if evolution happens randomly, or if God directs every mutation, or if God set up the process to happen randomly? It's like asking if God makes it rain. We can scientifically describe the water cycle. Water vapor evaporating and condensing are matters for science. Whether God set it up that way is a matter of faith.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A theory in science is not the same as "theory" as conventional term. Ignorant people hear "theory" and think it's a guess.

"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world."

On the subject of evolution, I've yet to see a science text that actually shows "evidence" for macroevolution. They all use microevolution and use it as "proof" for the theory of evolution. I have a biology text right next to me (I am odd and take great joy out of reading textbooks) and it is the same way. If they really wanted to teach it as a scientific theory, they really should present some evidence for macroevolution.

How can they present them when there are none?

Anonymous wrote:A theory in science is not the same as "theory" as conventional term. Ignorant people hear "theory" and think it's a guess.

"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world."

On the subject of evolution, I've yet to see a science text that actually shows "evidence" for macroevolution. They all use microevolution and use it as "proof" for the theory of evolution. I have a biology text right next to me (I am odd and take great joy out of reading textbooks) and it is the same way. If they really wanted to teach it as a scientific theory, they really should present some evidence for macroevolution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how long do you expect your DD to attend this school? Only for 1st grade?

I don't know. I was considering it long term. But I won't send her there if they won't teach real science.

I'm just curious about the religions schools... if they teach from the religious point of view (which they should, if they're truly religious), then how to they students pass SAT and ACT tests?

My boss's son got into MIT, majoring in biomedical engineering, after attending a Catholic school. How on Earth did he study sciences there?

Catholic schools do not subscribe to this rejection of science. I'm betting this school you're considering is not Catholic. There is no comparison between the Catholic tradition of education and what the new earth creationists, usually Baptists, subscribe to.
- not a Catholic

+1 some of history's greatest thinkers and scientists were Catholic- Galileo, Descartes, Copernicus, Louis Pasteur, Gregor Mendel, Blaise Pascal...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how long do you expect your DD to attend this school? Only for 1st grade?

I don't know. I was considering it long term. But I won't send her there if they won't teach real science.

I'm just curious about the religions schools... if they teach from the religious point of view (which they should, if they're truly religious), then how to they students pass SAT and ACT tests?

My boss's son got into MIT, majoring in biomedical engineering, after attending a Catholic school. How on Earth did he study sciences there?

Catholic schools teach evolution. Also the Pope says the Bible is not a science book. Therein lies the difference between Christians who espouse anti-evolution rhetoric and Catholics who do not.

Another Catholic here, who had an excellent science education, including biology, in Catholic schools. Catholicism does not reject evolution.

I would never send my kid to that school. In addition to the science not being scientific, their history/social studies program will likely be awful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how long do you expect your DD to attend this school? Only for 1st grade?

I don't know. I was considering it long term. But I won't send her there if they won't teach real science.

I'm just curious about the religions schools... if they teach from the religious point of view (which they should, if they're truly religious), then how to they students pass SAT and ACT tests?

My boss's son got into MIT, majoring in biomedical engineering, after attending a Catholic school. How on Earth did he study sciences there?

Catholic schools teach evolution. Also the Pope says the Bible is not a science book. Therein lies the difference between Christians who espouse anti-evolution rhetoric and Catholics who do not.

A theory in science is not the same as "theory" as conventional term. Ignorant people hear "theory" and think it's a guess.

"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world."

Anonymous wrote:who cares. the big bang theory is only a best guess. never can be proven.[i][u]

secondly, there's no evidence humans came from monkeys or any other animal. or dogs came from toads. nobody has ever found EVER a sort of changling skeleton or fossil that's half this half that. and we've found human skeletons supposedly millions of years old, granted different variants of human/homo. but never half animal half human.

http://science.nasa.gov/missions/cobe/

Sorry PP - that's not quite how it works.
In science, we come up with a "guess" as you call it (we call it a hypothesis) Then we come up with tests. So, If this hypothesis is true, than this should happen when I do that.
And for the big bang, the test was "if the big bang theory of the origin of the universe is true, then there should be a nearly uniform cosmic background radiation remnant that I will be able to detect."

And so... NASA launched COBE, detected the cosmic background radiation, and the Maryland's own John Mather won the Nobel Prize.
So... yeah. There is real data for this stuff.

Science is cool like that.

Anonymous wrote:

ok. provide me with a link to an article about ONE found half ape half human skeleton, as your BELIEF is obviously we evolved from apes or gorillas or monkeys or whatever.

give me a link!!!!!! one.

What about Lucy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus)

Humans are apes. Also, humans didn't evolve from monkeys, and humans didn't evolve from gorillas. Apes (including humans and gorillas) and monkeys had a common ancestor.

Here is a good resource for you: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/

hint: there isn't one (hint: doesn't exist).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:who cares. the big bang theory is only a best guess. never can be proven.

secondly, there's no evidence humans came from monkeys or any other animal. or dogs came from toads. nobody has ever found EVER a sort of changling skeleton or fossil that's half this half that. and we've found human skeletons supposedly millions of years old, granted different variants of human/homo. but never half animal half human.

OP, the benefit of a good (i.e., science) science curriculum is that your child will be less likely to come up with beliefs like this.^^^

"belief?"

ok. provide me with a link to an article about ONE found half ape half human skeleton, as your BELIEF is obviously we evolved from apes or gorillas or monkeys or whatever.

give me a link!!!!!! one.