[roc]

> "On the flipside, doesn't tenure allow teachers to defy a progressive administration and teach Creationism just as easily?"

Teaching creationism (as opposed to not teaching evolution) is a funny edge case that runs, pretty quickly, into the establishment clause. So it's perhaps not the best example.

But, sure, tenure protects teachers who refuse to teach evolution just as it protects those who would teach it.

And I see that as a feature as well. It's not there to further any particular ideology. That's rather the point.

And the problem with a federal curriculum as ultimate judge is that such a curriculum is ultimately a political creation. If today's legislature were voting on the NCLB act, the Santorum amendment would very likely have become law. And then we'd have biology teachers forced (via the courts if necessary) to "teach the controversy".