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The new standards adopted also call for a tighter licensing process for new teachers, including a requirement that rookies submit videotapes of themselves at work to prove they could do the job.

But the video portion of the standards will not take effect until next year after a thorough analysis by state staffers, said Harry Gamble, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.

The action Friday followed testimony Thursday, much of it focusing on proposed science standards, which initially called for for wording that some speakers said failed to acknowledge that biological evolution is the unifying principle for all the life sciences.

The proposed guideline stated: "A student should ... develop an understanding of changes in life forms over time, including genetics, heredity and the process of natural selection (evolution)."

"We are very concerned about any attempt to remove evolution from the science standards," Comeau said, while adding that placing the word in parenthesis isn't much better.

"We think that means it's kind of an afterthought, kind of an example of what could be used," she said. "We think ... it needs to be strongly stated."

Gamble said public testimony influenced the modifications to the science guidelines approved Friday.

"It has a more direct and specific and unambiguous reference to biological evolution," Gamble said. "It's no longer in parenthesis."

The word "evolution" had been deleted from the life science standards altogether in an earlier version of the guidelines approved by the board a year and a half ago, despite complaints by educators who helped draft the guidelines that the term should be included.

After a similar episode in Georgia prompted a firestorm of criticism and national headlines, state Department of Education Assessment Director Les Morse restored the word parenthetically, as it appeared in standards drafted in 1993 under the Walter J. Hickel administration.

Concern that the science teaching standards might open the door to discussing religious views in science classes prompted some speakers at Thursday's hearing.

Barbara Bundy, an archaeologist who graduated from an Anchorage high school and later earned her doctorate in science, said her college anthropology students are always surprised by the "huge mountain of evidence - hundreds and thousands of thousands of fossils" that support the evolutionary record.

"Evolution is taught at every accredited college in the nation, including Baylor, Brigham Young and Notre Dame, all of which are religious institutions," Bundy said. "This debate is not happening at the college level. And if we don't teach evolutionary theory, they're going to go to college unprepared."

The standards still need to be reviewed by the state Department of Law and signed off by Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, Gamble said.