Kansas Chaos

by Cliopatria

There were no significant races in Kansas' primary yesterday--except for the primaries for the state Board of Education. If there's ever an example of why BOE's should not be publicly elected, it's Kansas. Creationists lost their 6-4 majority on the board when an open seat went to a supporter of teaching evolution and one creationist board member (who had labeled evolution a "nice bedtime story") narrowly lost. So, no doubt, in early 2007, the new board will change Kansas' standards back to real science--making this the fourth shift in Kansas' science standards in the last decade.

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Oscar Chamberlain - 8/3/2006

How to connect the public and education is always a challenge. The Kansas situation certainly makes me sympathetic to a frankly elitist approach. But too much distance between the public and the educators creates its own problems, as some of your own work has pointed out.

In this case, the problem is multifarious. 1) Evolution is often taught badly, if at all. 2) The nature of scientific theories and research isn't taught all that well either. 3) The nation's dominant religion emphasizes the distinction between humans and animals.
4) For the more fundamentalist of that religion, rejection of evolution has become a sign of faith and wisdon.

It's a mess.