I suppose Intelligent Design proponents try to portray it as a brief and uncontroversial footnote. But rather transparently it is the next in a long line of attempts to undermine or remove evolution from state biology curricula. This looks like a fight to me. I don't know what the history would look like if those fighting on behalf of science had been more critical of it but I think the scientific establishment's status as a credible arbiter of truth is pretty central to the argument that other 'ways of knowing' don't belong in science classes.

It's silly, but irrelevant.

And it isn't irrelevant. Part of the what science classes are supposed to do is explain science as a method and perspective for understanding the world. You can't talk about falsifiability one minute and Intelligent Design the next.

Besides which, focusing on what goes on in public school ignores the large numbers of American children who are schooled at home by parents who teach what religious leaders tell them to.

In any case, it shouldn't be impossible to reform the scientific establishment while defending it from evangelicals. In fact, one could craft a good argument that a better science would be harder for religious authorities to undermine. But I'd be very wary of underestimating the threat religion poses.

ETA: I'd be interested in skipping this debate and talking more about what a reform of science (or a replacement) would look like.