The new statement, updated from an older document, does not include any alternative theories such as “intelligent design,” which posits a master plan or master “designer” as an explanation of how the universe began. Outside groups quickly pounced on the move as a way of sneaking creationism–or a divine explanation–in the back door of the classroom.

Alex Branning, a 22-year-old entrepreneur who owns a Web design and marketing firm based in Lancaster, first proposed the changes at a school board meeting two weeks ago.

He told trustees it was “imperative” that the school district update its stand on the teaching of evolution as soon as possible. Teaching the theory of evolution enters California’s curriculum in seventh grade.

Victory came sooner than Branning expected. All five trustees voiced support for the amended statement, which members of the administration worked with Branning to revise.

“We owe it to our students to give them a world-class science education that prepares them as scientifically literate citizens and members of the work force in the 21st century. Our proposed policy is designed to do just that,” Branning said recently when he was pursuing adoption of the new standard.

He said the policy adopted by the school board Tuesday night will give students the “thinking skills” needed to compete in today’s economy.

Trustee Mel Kleven said the new philosophy will bring “scientific reality to the classroom” and promote an “open environment.”

Critics, however, questioned the motives in Lancaster’s approach to science instruction.

“You don’t do students a favor by pretending there are controversies in the scientific community where there are none,” said Kevin Padian, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

California Schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell said by telephone that schools should follow the state’s standards on evolution.

“We want information that’s based upon accepted scientific theory. We need to have that info that’s accepted by the mainstream scientific community,” he said, adding that a discussion of beliefs may be more appropriate in a philosophy class rather than a science class.

“If it’s a back door attempt at promoting creationism or ‘intelligent design’ if that’s being portrayed as gospel, that would be incorrect in a science class,” O’Connell said. “That would not be helpful.”

Branning insists he is not anti-evolution and does not endorse teaching creationism or “intelligent design.” He said the group he founded, called Integrity in Academics, includes others who, like himself, want the whole picture of the origins of life shown to students.

Branning grew up in Quartz Hill and was home-schooled. He attended Antelope Valley College and has run his business, the Branning Group, for three years. He became interested in the controversy over evolution after conducting his own research, reading what he described as arguments for the theory, and challenges to it.

The businessman said he makes no claim to possessing a formal scientific background.

One problem with evolution, he said, is the Cambrian Explosion, a period he said has yet to be explained by modern biology or paleontology.

During that early period of Earth’s history–about half a billion years ago–the ancestors of most modern animal phyla first appeared.

Questioners of evolution often describe this period as “sudden,” but Padian of UC Berkeley said that scientists consider that view misleading. The period described actually took about 70 million years, he said.

“It’s usually misrepresented by anti-evolutionists,” he said. “The notion that this stuff appeared all at once is completely wrong.”

Branning’s push for a re-thinking of how to teach evolution locally comes at a moment of renewed debate over life’s origins.

The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based advocacy organization, has pushed intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin’s theory, and other groups have raised questions about supposed gaps in fossil records.

Casey Luskin, an attorney with the institute, said Lancaster’s new board-approved philosophy on teaching will open up debate on a subject that is usually one-sided.

Various attempts to introduce intelligent design as a scientifically objective counter-theory to the theory of natural selection has been consistently rebuffed by courts.

“Any time that you’re permitting criticism, this is going to be good for students. We definitely support the school district bringing objectivity to science curriculum,” he said.

Luskin said Branning did not work directly with the Discovery Institute, but one of his associates, Larry Caldwell, has worked with the intelligent design group in the past.

Caldwell tried unsuccessfully to get a policy similar to the one Branning proposed adopted in Roseville, near Sacramento. In a statement issued on Branning’s Web site, Caldwell praised Lancaster and encouraged other districts to follow suit.

“Unfortunately, there is a kind of ‘Taliban’ in the scientific establishment that seeks to suppress any criticism of Darwinism in the classroom,” Caldwell added. “It is refreshing to see school officials willing to stand up against Darwinian fundamentalists to give their students a science education rather than a science indoctrination. After all, effective science education is all about teaching students to ask meaningful questions and follow the evidence wherever it leads.”

Howard Sundberg, Lancaster’s assistant superintendent of educational services, said the philosophy fits into California’s established framework for teaching science.

“If you’re dealing in science, you’re not dealing in a belief system,” he said.

“Sure, kids can question things, but once you start crossing the line into beliefs or religion, that’s not something that’s appropriate for science.”

Still, he believes students will benefit from probing what some see as weaknesses in the theory.

“Those questions could help a theory to be understood,” said Sundberg, who crafted the final draft of the philosophy. “I just don’t see any bad that can come out of it, as long as we stay within the domain of science.”

While Sundberg’s background is not in science, he advised teachers faced with student questions to respect individual beliefs, but refer questions of a religious bent to be directed to a social studies class, or to parents or clergy.

Still, evolution’s defenders say the philosophy looks like a long-standing tactic aimed at “slinging mud” at Darwin’s theory, long accepted as bedrock science.

“It’s a bad policy,” said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the Oakland-based National Center for Science Education. “The point of it, of course, is to instill scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution.”

“It’s a fairly sophisticated approach because to most people it sounds pretty reasonable,” added Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

“Evolution is the only thing they single out. It’s not real critical analysis. It’s just an attack on evolution.”

Branning wouldn’t discuss his religious beliefs, saying his faith was a private matter. He said he is on the fence about evolution and finds credible arguments on both sides.

He is not, he insists, in favor of teaching creationism or intelligent design in a science class.

“Those aren’t scientific,” he said.

And Branning does not worry about his group being infiltrated by those who would promote alternatives to evolution.

“We keep those people out,” he said. “While we appreciate the encouraging words, we have different goals.”

Branning said his next stop is the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school system. He expects a bigger fight there, but he remains confident he’ll win.

“Thomas Edison, when he was inventing the light bulb, was told that he couldn’t do it,” Branning said, “because that was the scientific evidence of the day.”

The day after losing her seat on the Palmdale School Board, Shawny Barcelona was back at work, running her salon, trying not to let the loss get to her.

She was frustrated but hoped to get back on the board when another seat opens up. She says she’ll at least stay active.

“I ran a good, positive campaign, and I’m very happy with that,” she said. “I think everyone else is more sad than me.”

Barcelona lost her seat to newcomer Jeff Ferrin, a vice principal at William J. “Pete” Knight High School. Both had the backing of Valley Republicans, and Ferrin had state Senator George Runner, R-Lancaster, behind him. Republicans also endorsed incumbent Sheldon Epstein.

Ferrin, Epstein and Sandy Corrales, the current board president, all of whom won seats in Tuesday’s election, were on the slate of candidates endorsed by the California Teachers Association. Barcelona drew the union’s wrath for supporting Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger, whose propositions the union adamantly opposed. She came in fourth, finishing 466 votes behind Ferrin.

The big winner in this election, locally and at the state level, was the California Teachers Association.

On local school boards, with one exception — the Antelope Valley College Board of Trustees — every candidate teachers picked won a seat.

The union also helped sink initiatives backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would have changed teacher tenure rules, changed political spending by public employee unions, affected school funding and capped state spending.

Endorsements are a regular part of every election. Candidates at every level seek the backing of every influential organization they can find, hoping voters who put stock in those groups’ philosophy will help put them in office.

CTA wasn’t the biggest power player in this election, and it certainly wasn’t the only group promoting candidates. In fact, teachers’ endorsements often overlapped with groups that have little in common politically with the left-leaning union. The Antelope Valley Republicans Assemblywoman Sharon Runner and Sen. George Runner, for example, also boosted their own slates of candidates in most races.

But where there was a difference — such as in the Antelope Valley Union High School District or the Palmdale School District — the union’s candidates won seats.

Ferrin might never have run if not for the Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association. The union asked members to find candidates, and a Joshua Hills teacher knew Ferrin, whose wife is active in the Parent Teacher Student Association at another Palmdale School.

PETA organizers convinced Ferrin to throw his hat into the ring. They said he had more ideas than Barcelona, who has had a rocky relationship with the teachers’ union.

Barcelona, a Republican, took heat from PETA for appearing at a fund-raiser in Lancaster for Schwarzenegger. Her husband, Isaac Barcelona, head of the Palmdale Chamber of Commerce, sold enough $250 tickets to the dinner for the couple to sit near the governor and be named a co-chairman of the event.

While Barcelona said she opposed the core of Schwarzenegger’s proposals — the spending cap and tenure-reform initiatives — she said she still supported the governor.

That got teachers fuming.

Earlier in the year, when teachers rallied outside the Palmdale district office in an effort to improve stalled labor negotiations, Barcelona parked in back, then joked about avoiding the union.

“I came in the back way,” she told the Valley Press. “I didn’t want to be mauled.”

She apologized a few weeks later, saying the remark wasn’t meant to harm. But the damage was done.

“Shawny was compromising a lot,” said Bruce Shank, a political organizer for PETA. “She didn’t have strong opinions or ideas of her own that were really contributing. Whatever (fellow trustee) Tom Lackey did, she usually did.”

Lackey is a conservative Republican on the Palmdale school board. He won a seat on the Palmdale City Council in Tuesday’s vote. Barcelona is now angling for the Palmdale board seat Lackey will vacate when he joins the City Council.

“The union’s worked hard,” Barcelona said the day after the election. “I’m not going to take away from fact that Jeff Ferrin is an educator, and that’s very powerful.”

Palmdale teachers started organizing politically three years ago, Shank said. This year, PETA built a campaign fund from member dues and CTA contributions, setting aside about $5,000 for the election. The union split that money evenly between the candidates.

David Aponik, a local CTA organizer, said parents were a key target in local races.

“They’re very supportive of teachers and the teaching profession,” he said. “When the teachers’ associations weighed in on candidates and endorsed them, parents and residents gave their support.”

In the state election, CTA formed the core of the opposition groups fighting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Year of Reform” initiatives. Voters rejected all the governor’s propositions, along with every other initiative on the ballot.

Senator Runner, a strong Schwarzenegger backer, said his side made a mistake in letting the opposition frame issues before the governor could respond.

“I think we underestimated the vigor with which the unions and Democrats would come against these things,” George Runner told the Antelope Valley Press.

“A lot of the attacks went on early and were unanswered…Part of our problem was we started in a hole because we were not able to come back and answer the critics and attacks that started early in the summer.”

The stunning defeat for the once invincible Schwarzenegger, who rode into the statehouse on a wave of voter rage that ousted Governor Gray Davis by recall, gave CTA President Barbara Kerr cause to gloat on Wednesday.

“Let’s hope the governor has finally heard the real will of the people and understands that his agenda was wrong for California,” Kerr said.

“The people of California want real solutions that include adequate funding of our schools, protecting our minimum school funding guarantee and affordable health care for all.”

Aponik said the campaign started long before the special election. Really, he says, everything began in January, “when the governor declared war on working families.”

In his State of the State address, Schwarzenegger called for massive structural reforms in state pensions, teacher pay and tenure and the state budget. Every proposal would have affected public-employee unions.

Teachers came out swinging. They hit back early and hard.

Ten months later, after watching his initiatives sink in a special election he called, the governor promised to work with the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

While union organizers and supporters were celebrating the statewide victory, they also noted a swing in local polls driven by strong sentiments toward state measures. Candidates took notice, too.

“I think the propositions brought out a lot more union voters than usual, which in turn affected the outcome,” said Gwen Farrell, a Westside Union School District trustee who was not up for re-election.

“They’ve always had clout,” said Greg Tepe, who won re-election to the Lancaster School Board. He said of teachers: “They certainly showed up in force because all the propositions affected teachers.”

CTA’s hand was hard to miss.

“The teachers’ union seems to have affected all the districts,” said Lancaster trustee Keith Giles, the top vote getter in Tuesday’s election for his district. “Overall I received a lot more votes than I have in past elections.”

Both Tepe and Giles enjoyed CTA backing.

Aponik, the local CTA organizer, said his union has the momentum. Politicians should take note, he said.

“It’s not just a message for the governor. It’s a message for the Legislature, as well,” he said.

Looking at Tuesday’s vote, in which all eight initiatives lost, Aponik said the Legislature should hear people saying: “We elected you guys to do a job. Now do it,” he said.

He added, “I think we’ll see that.”

LANCASTER — Spc. Eric Huff is ready to be done with the Army. Ten months after an attack by three fellow American soldiers outside his barracks in South Korea that nearly killed him, the stricken soldier has not fully recovered.

Deborah Huff, Eric’s mother, wants her son out of the military, too. “I know my son is not fit to be in the U.S. Army anymore,” she said in an interview at her Lancaster home.

Huff spent a weekend in Lancaster, where he grew up, following the last of his attackers’ courts-martial. He has been stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash., since the attack.

“He’s come a long way, but he’s not like a normal 20-year-old male,” Deborah Huff said. “He can’t do things he’s supposed to be able to do.”

Shortly after midnight on Dec. 10, three soldiers from the 305th Quartermasters Company attacked Huff outside his barracks at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, South Korea.

According to a preliminary report by the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, the three soldiers knocked Huff to the ground, then punched, kicked and stomped on his face and head, leaving him with a fractured skull.

The next thing Huff remembered was waking up in the base hospital, his parents at his bedside. He had been scheduled to leave South Korea on Dec. 10 after a two-year tour of duty.

Yongsan Garrison, in the South Korean capital, is the headquarters of the 8th Army and U.S. Forces Korea, which have maintained roughly 37,000 troops in South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. United Nations Command and U.S.-Republic of Korea Combined Forces Command also are based there.

Plans are under way to move Yongsan Garrison out of Seoul and to reduce the American presence on the Korean peninsula. U.S. forces could be reduced by a third by 2008.

All three of the soldiers who attacked Huff in December pleaded guilty to the assault, and each will spend the next decade in a military prison, then leave the Army with a dishonorable discharge. The sentences also carried demotions to the Army’s lowest rank, private.

The last to be convicted, Pfc. Henry Hall, threw the first punch that knocked Huff to the ground. Pfc. Demetry L. Randall and Pvt. Rodney A. Brackens then continued to pummel Huff until he was bleeding and unconscious. The three attackers fled and did not call for medical help for Huff.

During his court-martial, Hall said he wanted to prove to Randall and Brackens that he didn’t “hit like a girl,” according to Stars & Stripes, which covered the trials in South Korea.

In the eyes of Huff’s mother, the scales are far from even.

“It’s never justice,” Deborah Huff said Friday.

“But this we know: He’s never gonna want to ‘be a man’ again,” she added, referring to Hall. “At least no other parents will have to go through what we went through, because somebody wanted to prove he was a man.”

All three attackers apologized to Huff in court. Hall said after his conviction: “I pray every day for him. … I just wish I could change a mistake. I gotta live with it,” according to Stars & Stripes.

Huff and his mother have a hard time forgiving the three soldiers.

“He made the first punch. He started everything,” Huff said of Hall. “I don’t know how he could be sorry for that.”

His mother added, “Maybe if he hadn’t thrown that first punch, maybe nothing would’ve happened.”

Maj. Elizabeth Robbins, an Army spokeswoman at the Defense Department, said the attacks contradicted core Army values. The spokeswoman was not familiar with all the details of Huff’s case, but what she knew left her shocked and disgusted.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this in my 17 years,” she said. “We’re a values-based army. Clearly, physical violence does not meet the standards that we set for ourselves. The Army takes very seriously soldiers who fail to treat people as they should be treated.”

As for Huff’s future in the Army, Robbins said the Army’s first priority in such a situation would be the soldier’s health. Federal law prohibited Robbins from giving specifics about Huff’s case, the spokeswoman said, and she spoke in broad terms.

“We certainly don’t want to move someone out of service too expeditiously,” Robbins said. “You can still help someone when they’re within the family, the embrace.”

Once a soldier’s health stabilizes, a medical review board will decide whether to keep him in the Army or offer a medical discharge. The board also considers the soldier’s abilities and his use to the Army.

“If a soldier was an infantryman, and he badly damaged his ankles and could never run again, he might be able to do honorable service as a clerk or a mechanic, but not as an infantryman,” Robbins said. Decisions apply to the individual on a case-by-case basis.

“The last thing we want to do is endanger the soldier or his colleagues,” Robbins said. “We exist to fight and win the nation’s wars. It’s not a job program.”

In South Korea, Huff worked mostly on radios. He performed maintenance and had started procuring parts for his unit, the 17th Aviation Brigade. He liked the work, he said.

After the Army, Huff planned to go to college and study computers, using money earned from his service.

Now at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash., Huff spends his days doing odd jobs in a unit of injured soldiers. He collects linens for laundry. Sometimes he cleans barracks. Mostly, he sits in his room.

“They come up with little details that the medical unit I’m in has to do, like whatever,” he said.

Huff is still getting physical therapy, including regular ultrasounds on his left hip, which started hurting when the feeling came back into the left side of his body.

Worse, Huff has no transportation, and doesn’t know Washington state well.

“All I do is sit in my room and sit at my computer while they think of something for me to do downstairs,” he said.

Huff could barely walk after the attack, and underwent physical and occupational therapy in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto. Now he can drive, although with restrictions.

“I still get headaches,” he said Friday, “but I’m used to that.”

The wounded hip slows him down the most. He has trouble getting in a car.

“I can get the right leg in no problem,” he said, “but I can’t lift my left leg. I have to pull it up with my hands.”

More than anything, Huff is bored, tired of the Army and getting depressed.

“I don’t want to be there. I’ve been there too long already,” he said. Another soldier in his unit has been at Fort Lewis for two years. “I don’t know if I could be there that long.”

Huff’s enlistment runs until August 2006, but he wants out “as soon as possible.”

“I’m tired of waiting and doing nothing,” he said. “I want to be in school, too. That’s one reason I joined the Army, to pay for school.”

Huff suffered brain damage in the attack — his doctors have said he will never remember the incident — and he could have difficulty picking up new skills. But the soldier believes he can recover, and he can live the life he wants.

“It’s most likely going to be a challenge, because my head hurts a lot,” he said. “But I’m gonna try.”

camico@avpress.com