Good news for Kansas BOE (Part I)

Lost in the excitement of Tuesday's Presidential election was some good news for the Kansas Board of Education. For those of you unfamiliar with the history of this board, we are currently operating under our 5th set of science standards since 1999. If you do the math, you'll see that we have been changing our standards, on average, every other year. And it's not coincidental that we have state school board elections every other year as well. The critical issue in each of these elections is how we treat biological evolution.

In 1999, a conservative majority on the board voted to adopt standards that de-emphasized (that's a euphamism for ignored) the theory of evolution. Of course, our great state quickly became the laughing stock of the educated world, and in 2001 an newly elected moderate/liberal majority undid the damage by adopting a fresh set of standards that once again included biological evolution.

But His truth was marching on, and after two more elections the board once again had a conservative majority and once again (in 2005) changed the standards. This time, instead of completely ignoring evolution, the board included language to call the validity, or "truth" of the theory into question. It was during this time that the board held their infamous "Kangaroo Court" and invited "experts" in (at taxpayers' expense) to testify for and against the theory. When pro-evolution scientists (rightfully) refused to testify, the whole ordeal became and exercise in silliness, highlighted at one point by a conservative board member admitting that she hadn't even fully read the standards that were being quesitoned. In a later post, I would like to introduce you to the three uber-conservatives who chaired these "hearings"...but for now I need to return to my main focus.

Two years ago, the flip-floppiness continued when the moderate/liberal coalition regained their power on the board and approved new standards that fall in line with mainstream science. So that's where we are now...after all the Kansas jokes are told, and everyone has a good laugh, we've got a very robust and respectable set of science standards in place for our state.