Science is a process of understanding cause and effect, and ultimately having the understanding to make inferences and predictions. Evolutionary theory is the entire body of knowledge resulting from more than a century of scientific progress in understanding the diversity and distribution of species on this planet, past and present. Creationism is a religious view, not a science. Dozens of creation scenarios can be found in the religions of the world. These nonscientific explanations of Earth's species diversity may make for an extremely interesting study in comparative religions, but as faith-based systems these creation stories are not science.
Evolutionary theory is a basic component of biological literacy.
I grew up in Spartanburg, S.C., and was fortunate to have a biology teacher who was not afraid to teach evolution, although the 1968 Supreme Court ruling that reversed the Arkansas ban on teaching evolution was relatively recent at the time. This teacher refused to bow to pressure from school administrators. He risked his job because he knew that the unifying concepts of evolutionary theory give us the best understanding of the natural world. He risked his job because he knew that the insights from evolutionary theory give us the best predictive powers about how nature works. He risked his job because an overwhelming body of evidence supports evolutionary theory and because he knew that science class was a place to teach the best current knowledge in science.