Kansas Board Approves Science Standards
By David Klepper, The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Nov. 8–TOPEKA — In the face of blistering criticism, the Kansas Board of Education approved its anti-evolution science standards today.
The 6-4 vote this afternoon followed the board’s conservative-moderate split and had been expected for months. This morning, during the board’s public input session, board members faced a litany of complaints from educators, scientists and concerned citizens.
“The standards are bad science… an abuse of the educational system and they advance a particular religious viewpoint,” said Jack Krebs, a science teacher and vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science, a group formed to fight the changes.
The standards cast doubt on evolution and redefine science to allow for non-natural explanations. After nearly a year of debate, a final vote on the standards is set for this afternoon.
Scientists and educators have decried the changes, which they say are motivated by religious beliefs that threaten to weaken public understanding of science. Two national groups — the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association — withdrew their material from the standards in protest. That means the Department of Education will have to rewrite those sections to avoid the copyrighted language.
When the board meeting began this morning, board member Sue Gamble, a moderate Republican from Shawnee, urged the board to postpone a final vote until the copyright problems are resolved. The six conservative board members voted against the motion.
The same board members sat silent during the public comment session. Former board chairwoman Linda Holloway spoke as one of their few defenders at today’s meeting. Holloway led the board when it changed science standards in 1999 to downplay evolution, the origin of the universe and the age of the Earth. The standards were rewritten later when a board with a moderate majority took over.
“I did not see one piece of sky that has fallen,” she said, in reference to worries that the changes will hurt Kansas’ reputation, education and attempts to lure high-tech companies. She said the changes are “the next step in breaking the shackles of evolution.”
National groups said approval of the science standards was inevitable, despite last-minute petitions and e-mail campaigns. The Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a Washington-based group which works against the religious right, asked members to inundate board Chairman Steve Abrams with e-mail protesting the changes.
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