In my home state of North Carolina there has been some recent publicity touting our state as being one of the most advanced in teaching evolution in public schools. The specific example of this progressive education cited in my local newspaper was embryonic recapitulation, the concept that the development of the human fetus in its growth in the womb shows its evolution heritage by going through a series of stages including a "fish stage", a "lizard stage", etc. Let me quote from a bulletin published by ICR that addresses this issue.
"This line of reasoning called the biogenetic law, and known by the catch phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". It was originated in 1866 by Hitler's mentor, Ernest Haeckel, who produced the series of comparative drawings used in both biology textbooks and abortion clinics. . The whole concept has been discredited for decades. As the evolutionist Dr. Blechschmidt said in his book, The Beginnings of Life, "the so-called law of biogenetics is wrong. No buts or ifs can mitigate this fact. It is not even a tiny bit correct or correct in a different form. It is totally wrong" (1977, p. 32). As a matter of fact, German embryologist Wilhelm His published, in 1874, a catalog of willful distortions of the data by Haeckel in order to win adherents. Haeckel was subsequently tried and convicted in a scholarly inquest and barred from many scientific circles. But what about the supposed evidence for gill slits, yolk sac, and tail (to name the most used examples) in a human embryo? True enough, at an early stage of development the human fetus does have certain folds or creases which resemble these found in a fish embryo. As they develop, however, the resemblance stops. In the fish, the folds develop into gills; but in the human, they develop into the glands and structures in the ear and neck areas. If humans were related to fish, one would expect the gills to evolve into the lungs, trachea, and mouth. Similarly, the embryonic human "tail" is in reality the developing coccyx, or "tail bone," a vitally important, fully human feature, while the so-called yolk sac is not a source of nourishment as in a bird egg, but is the source of the embryo's first blood cells. Everything about the human embryo is totally unique and human."
Since evolution never happened, all the so-called evidence for evolution is fakes, frauds and phonies. Bragging about being a leader in teaching evolution is at BEST a dubious distinction. We need good science education not indoctrination in poor science, which is why I advocate teaching ALL the science that relates to evolution and not just the positive evidence. Our purpose in education should be to develop critical thinking not indoctrinating our students in only one way of thinking. Let's have an open discussion in our public schools of all of science not just selected segments to "prove" the unprovable idea about the past, evolution.