First off, learning is always about behavior modification, and usually about challenging fixed beliefs. Teaching math focuses on changing student behavior when encountering numbers and symbols on a piece of paper. Phys. Ed focuses on changing student behavior when swinging at a ball. If you haven't changed their behavior, you haven't taught them anything.
As to whether the language of the plank refers to things in the generic or the specific, note that "Higher Order Thinking Skills" is capitalized and noted as an acronym. While I can't find it in Google, this at least implies that there is a very specific definition for that term. It's entirely possible that there is a known "Higher Order Thinking Skills" curriculum that is nothing of the sort. But there is certainly ambiguity there that they should have cleaned up, if they're talking about a specific program or curriculum.
When they say they oppose "critical thinking skills", they didn't say "Critical Thinking Skills", "'Critical Thinking Skills'", or "the so-called 'Critical Thinking Skills' program proposed by those Godless Democrats for the purpose of teaching free love and atheism". There is nothing in their text that implies that they mean anything but the generic sense of critical thinking skills.
The authors had plenty of opportunity to spin their words properly, if they meant anything other than actually opposing the teaching of critical thinking skills. If they couldn't be bothered to do so, neither should we.
First off, the FSM was invented as an example--even it's creator never claimed it to be true.
Secondly, Christianity has evidence. Sure, it's not slam-dunk proof, sure things can be argued either way, but there is evidence. You want miracles with physical evidence? Google "incorruptable saints". Look up the eucharistic miracle at Lanciano (http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html).
Also, look at the Bible. The Old Testament is a history, written over thousands of years by dozens of authors. Then comes a story of one man who not only fulfills prophecies written over the millenia, but even causes many of the segments of the Old Testament much more meaningful (example: Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son as a test? Because God did it for real). One person, or a tight team of people living in the same century, could make something like that hang together. But is it easier to believe that a group of authors could do this over millenia without a guiding hand, or with divine intervention? Apply Occam's razor there.
Yes, there are counterarguments, and there are those that doubt the evidence. But to dismiss it as if to say "if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you" is uncalled for.
Waste not, get your budget cut next year.