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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Here is the actual relevant text from the law[0].

    Assignment grades and scores shall be calculated
    using ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance,
    including any legitimate pedagogical concerns, and shall not
    penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a
    student's work.

I'm not certain whether this means students must not be penalized for factual errors if those errors are based on religious beliefs (eg claiming God created the world in seven days and declaring evolution to be a heresy), or whether they simply cannot be penalized for religious content given otherwise factually correct answers, which would seem to be blatant religious discrimination.

It does seem like a really weird, suspiciously contextually specific thing to want a law for, since religious discrimination is already illegal and something people can sue over.

[0]https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-doc...

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I'd interpret that as meaning that the student still needs to get the right answers; a wrong answer won't get marked correctly for writing "as God commands" next to it, and a correct answer won't be marked down for the student writing "praise be to the Lord" at the end of it.

ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance - answer must be correct.

shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student's work - writing something religious won't affect the mark either way (no penalty, no reward), which is still awarded on ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance (i.e. must be correct).

Is getting docked points for bringing religion into an answer on physics, or biology, or chemistry religious discrimination or is it requiring an answer to be germane to the question?

If I'm asked a question in a biology exam and I start talking about computer science, losing part of the score doesn't seem completely egregious.

>Is getting docked points for bringing religion into an answer on physics, or biology, or chemistry religious discrimination or is it requiring an answer to be germane to the question?

IANAL but reading the text of the law, I honestly can't tell. It seems like it says a teacher can't go outside the bounds of normal academic standards for grading in regards to religious content, which if true doesn't actually change anything, since it's already illegal to discriminate against people for their religious beliefs, but it would be acceptable to do so in the specific context of education if religious beliefs aren't germane or factually correct IRT a test or curriculum.... so what's the point?

Although it does use the weasel word "legitimate" which makes me suspicious that the real purpose of this is a bait for pro-religious lawsuits.

Whenever you see "legitimate pedagogical concerns" in the scholastic context you should probably understand it to be referring to the Hazelwood standard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelwood_School_District_v._K...

a) "The Earth is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old" b) "The Bible teaches us that the Earth was created in six days by God, and this occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago" c) "The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old" d) "In God's creation, the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago"

I would interpret that law as requiring that the answers in (a) and (b) be graded as wrong, and that the answers in (c) and (d) be graded as right.

i.e. a teacher should not mark down a student for having a progressive creationist view if they get the answer correct; nor should they give credit for an incorrect answer because that student has a Young Earth creationist view.

As an Ohioan, I am deeply disturbed by this bill. I guess we will see how this is handled in practice over the the few years... I think the best case scenario is that they would still need to answer the question correctly but could additional give their religious view on the matter and not be docked points. So the student would have to explain the book answer on the age of the dinosaurs but could also add their personal view of the earth being X years old without being penalized.

...man, even typing that out hurt.

I agree on your proposed best case scenario. It's mind-boggling to be honest.

Right above this it says,

>No school district..shall prohibit a student from engaging in religious expression in the completion of homework, artwork, or other written or oral assignments

Where religious expression is defined including

>Prayer..activity of a religious nature...expression of a religious viewpoint...

So there's more to the story (imagine that, in a story about religion and politics) than "Johnny gets a free A+ on his multiple-choice quiz about evolution."

When bills are this vague, you can bet it will lead to selective enforcement.

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