Over time, most local school districts in Kansas have found that the best way to deal with the excesses of the Kansas State Board of Education is to ignore them. So it will be interesting to see whether any follow the urging of the Kansas Citizens for Science and the lead of the Manhattan-Ogden public schools — and reject the state board’s new science standards, which encourage the teaching of criticisms of evolution. In its letter to superintendents of the state’s 300 districts, the advocacy group said the “standards are so flawed that they may be unconstitutional, and if endorsed by a local school district could lead to serious legal difficulties.”
That seems like an overstatement, but David Awbrey, communications director for the Kansas Department of Education, told The Hutchinson News that the state gives districts considerable latitude on curriculum. “They are just suggestions, guidelines," Awbrey said of the science standards. That being the case, school districts that care about the integrity of science education arguably should not shy away from rejecting the state board’s faulty standards.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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