Frankly, many science teachers neither teach nor understand science.
To explain what I mean, let's look at one of the controversies of past years that is now well understood: The Heliocentric Universe.
The Ptolemaic Theory was geocentric. The sun revolved around the earth. It was a good model for the then available data.
Copernicus, Keppler, Brae, Gallileo and Newton all played a part in establishing a heliocentric model that is still taught in schools as science. This was a far better model based on better observations and a more complete mathematical understanding of the laws of motion. The earth and planets revolve around the sun. The data was not at first conclusive regarding the stars, and the theory changed again as better data became available.
But the theories of science always remain theories. When they are believed or (more to the point) taught as unchanging truth, they are no longer science. They have become dogma.
But surely the heliocentric solar system is the latest theory? Isn't that what children are taught? Isn't that scientifically accurate?
In three scandalous words: No. No. No.
You have undoubtedly heard of Albert Einstein. He proposed a new and now generally accepted model of the laws of motion known loosely as Relativity. This mathematical model, based on tensor calculus with a simple but powerful modification (the Summation Convention, invented by Einstein) is a better model again than the Newtonian one. This then is a later theory.
But surely it's heliocentric? 'Fraid not. It doesn't use a centre at all. In terms of Einstein's model, the earth and sun are mutually in orbit around each other. It doesn't matter which you think is the centre. His equations don't have one.
But...but...but... I learned in school that the sun was the centre, beyond any doubt... Yes, precisely. And it's a good model. NASA sends rockets to the moon and back using Newtonian mechanics, it would be pointless to try to allow for relativistic effects in travelling only half a million miles in a few days.
But so is the geocentric model good for some things. If you're in the bush and your watch battery runs down, you can tell time by the sun. The best way to do this is to think of the sun as going around the earth. It's the correct model for this calculation. To use the Copernican model would just make you dizzy.
The problem is not that you were taught the Copernican model. The problem is that what you were taught was called science but was taught as dogma. And it can't be both.
To return to the three questions I asked above:
Please note I'm not disputing the facts. There's no doubt that all these models have their places, and most thinking about the Solar System quite rightly uses coordinates based on its centre of gravity, which is roughly the sun. (And the haversine tables still used in maritime celestial navigation are geocentric in concept.)
But of course the point is that if we have so much trouble separating science from dogma in the well-understood question of the earth and the sun, we're in no shape to take on evolution. We need to be a lot more careful about our principles first. This study is not itself science, but meta-science, and normally called Philosophy of Science. Science teachers don't need to be experts at it any more than physicists need to investigate the philosophy of mathematics. But they do need to know and apply its main results.
I think I began to understand the rules of scientific enquiry about halfway through high school, and I think without false modesty that I was the first in my year at school to manage this. This was partly because I had spent most of primary school studying chemistry, geology and astronomy when I was supposed to have been reading childish fiction (if your kids want to, fine, but I didn't). I've yet to meet a primary school child who could appreciate the scientific method. In fact I believe that if you were to teach it to them it would do enormous violence to their cognitive development.
So I am a bit sceptical about whether science should be taught at all in primary schools. Nature study, yes. But science is different. We shouldn't call the subject science unless we are prepared to teach it as science.
At the risk of being thought a bigot and slightly paranoid, I must say that I think that the promotion of this dogmatic approach to science was linked to a rejection of Christianity. Many science teachers in the fifties and sixties were (for whatever reason) disenchanted with the church. But we all need dogma. A significant part of their generation found the certainty they sought in scientific progress, and spread this world picture with a missionary zeal. In their zeal they did not notice that they had abandoned science along the way.
We all need dogma. We all have faith in something. Some of us choose to talk about our faith and some don't, but we all have it whether we give it a name or not. One of the problems of not talking about it is you risk stumbling blindly into traps. Many science teachers do not realise that there is a vital difference between faith in the methods of science and faith in particular scientific theories. The first is fine, the second disaster.
The bible does not belong in a science classroom. But neither do many science textbooks. They teach evolution as an undisputable fact, which Darwin (a scientist) did not. The solution to Creation Science is to get rid of all dogma from science classes, not just Christian dogma, and study science instead.
But be warned, you are likely to learn something. If you'd rather not learn, don't read them.
If on the other hand you're really keen on learning, you might also try Robert Shapiro's book "Origins", published in 1986 and also recommended.
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http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa/aja5a2.htm