Texas students will continue to learn theories that challenge the scientific understanding of evolution after the State Board of Education signed off Wednesday on a preliminary version of the state’s pared-down biology curriculum.

The board, made up of 10 Republicans and five Democrats, is in the middle of whittling down the state’s voluminous curriculum standards, starting with science. Last month, a committee of mostly school district officials appointed by board members recommended paring down the language of, or removing, four standards that require the state’s high school biology students to learn about scientific phenomena that evolution can’t readily explain.

On Wednesday, the board voted along party lines to reinstate most of the language the committee wanted gone, requiring students to learn about the complexity of cells, the origin of life and abrupt appearance and stasis in fossil records.

Some of the Democratic board members suggested that the move would invite teachings of creationism or intelligent design into the classroom.

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Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, proposed amendments to reinstate the language. Each curriculum standard she proposed required students to learn the scientific explanations behind biological events, which she said was intended to root out teachings of creationism.

She said her proposals were based on feedback from teachers and industry leaders, who said via a survey and informal public comment, that they wanted critical thinking taught in classrooms.

"Why is it that when I talk to biology teachers…why is it that they look at me with a strange look when I say, ‘Do you feel like this standard is opening the door to creation?’" Cargill said. "They’re just not thinking this way. It’s ridiculous. There’s been no lawsuits, no huge outcry that creation is being taught in the classroom."

Kathy Miller, head of the liberal advocacy group The Texas Freedom Network, disagrees.

"Teachers are practically begging the board to stop forcing them to waste classroom time on junk science standards that are based mostly on the personal agendas of board members themselves, not sound science," Miller said in a news release. "But these politicians just can’t seem to stop themselves from making teachers’ jobs harder."

The four curriculum standards that the committee recommended dropping were approved by the State Board of Education in 2009, amid national media attention. Although the standards were meant to be a compromise between adherents of teaching evolution and those who question evolution, social conservatives on the board considered adoption of the standards a victory at the time.

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Committee members in favor of dumping the requirements have said they were vague, redundant or would require too much time to teach. Texas Education Agency officials will determine whether Cargill’s amendments will take teachers too long to cover.

On Friday, the board will vote, and likely approve, the first reading of changes to the science curriculum standards, including Cargill’s amendments. Once they do that, the changes will be posted to the Texas Register for members of the public to give their input. In April, the board could adopt the curriculum standards, which would then go into effect in the 2017-18 school year.

The curriculum standards dictate what teachers teach in the classroom, what students are tested on in standardized tests and what appears in textbooks.

It’s not clear whether any Texas teacher is teaching creationism or intelligent design in the classroom. Multiple court rulings have upheld the legality of teaching evolution over opposing theories. The Texas Science Teachers Association also discourages the teaching of creationism and intelligent design because they lack scientific evidence.

"In each of the changes that we made we were careful to word them … to make sure that doesn’t occur," board member Marty Rowley, R-Amarillo, said.