-Caveat Lector-
Kansas battle over evolution in schools lingers on
By Carey Gillam
OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Sept 11 (Reuters) - A month has passed since
the Kansas Board of Education voted to remove evolution as a key
concept in the state's science curriculum, but the issue still
touches raw nerves for people on both sides of the debate.
The Kansas Board of Education on Aug. 11 voted 6-4 to embrace new
standards for science teaching in public schools that eliminate
evolution as an underlying principle of biology and other
sciences.
``This issue is not going away,'' said board member William
Wagnon, one of the four who voted against the new science
standards. ``It is a live issue. The long-term consequences of
this are phenomenal. If not corrected, it will undermine a very
fine public education system.''
Kansas Board of Education Chairwoman Linda Holloway, who voted in
favour of eliminating evolution teaching, said she stopped
reading her e-mails after hundreds of what she described as
insult-laden messages from around the country filled her home
computer. She said her husband was worried about threats of
violence.
If not for the board's action rewriting the state's science
standards, evolution would be given too much credence in the
classroom, Holloway said.
``I would do it again,'' she added.
With children settling in for the new school year in communities
across Kansas, many of the state's school district leaders and
teachers have pledged to continue to teach evolution as they have
in the past.
The Kansas science curriculum standards set out guidelines for
instruction and dictate what will appear on state tests. But
decisions about day-to-day instruction remain in local hands.
Some districts are mulling changes. The district in Pratt,
Kansas, for instance, is considering including a book questioning
evolution's validity in supplemental reading for science classes.
Pratt district superintendent Ken Kennedy said a group of parents
proposed the book, adding that the timing of the move was merely
coincidental to the board vote.
Some state legislators are calling for a law mandating the
teaching of evolution, as well as a measure that would reduce the
power of the state's board of education. A group of moderate
Republicans have also announced plans to target fellow Republican
Holloway for defeat in elections next year.
Additionally, the chancellor of the University of Kansas last
week announced the formation of a task force on scientific
literacy in education.
The theory of evolution holds that over millions of years humans
and other life forms evolved from earlier life forms.
Religious conservatives in Kansas and elsewhere are looking anew
at science instruction in their local schools and dissecting the
ways in which evolution instruction does or does not align with
what they see as church teachings about the creation of man and
the universe.
Mary Kay Culp, an official with the Kansas Catholic Conference,
said she was pleased with the de-emphasis of evolution, but said
the new standards did not go far enough in purging evolution
teaching from classrooms.
On the other side of the issue, the American Civil Liberties
Union of Kansas and Western Missouri has mailed letters to every
school district in Kansas threatening legal action at the first
hint of unconstitutional religious intrusion into public schools.
Earlier this week, two community organisations made moves at
finding a middle ground. At their invitation, National Centre for
Science Education Executive Director Eugenie Scott discussed
evolution and creationism in presentations held in a Lawrence,
Kansas, church and a Jewish community centre in Overland Park,
Kansas.
Scott said people did not necessarily have to choose between
evolution and creationism.
``Many people think that evolution is the way God brought about
life,'' she said.
But Scott argued that downplaying evolution in the state's
science curriculum standards was wrong.
``I'm sure in school districts around the state, less evolution
will be taught, and that will be a disservice to students when
they go on to college,'' Scott said.
11:49 09-11-99
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