evolution

My alma-mater’s newspaper reports that the school board in my adopted hometown of Manhattan (the USD 383 Manhattan-Ogden district) has unanimously declined to use the science standards set out by the State Board of Education, which allow for “criticism” of evolution and “non-natural explanations for natural phenomena”, as the paper put it.

It seems that the 383 Board saw the writing on the wall: the board members, assumed to be rational people, were presented with both sides and heard from the people they serve, and decided that non-scientific “criticism” of science doesn’t really belong in science class after all.

Good. People — even those who may in fact be Biblical creationists — can easily spot disingenuous arguments, and may not appreciate their faiths being used as sock puppets in a battle over a specific worldview. That is exactly what the “intelligent design” community has done.

Now, if you’re not from Kansas, you might think it strange that local school boards don’t have to adopt educational standards recommended by the State. Local control of school boards is a fundamental precept of the Kansas Constitution. Article VI sec. 6 of the Kansas Constitution says that “Local public schools under the general supervision of the state board of education shall be maintained, developed and operated by locally elected boards.” Additionally, under Kansas law (KSA 72-8205), each district board can adopt whatever courses of study, textbooks, materials, etc. it sees fit.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 19:51 and is filed under education, kansas, science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.