Kansas science controversy continues

The Star's special report on science standards in Kansas schools


By KATE BEEM - The Kansas City Star
Date: 01/11/00 22:15

Creationists had even more influence over Kansas' science standards than was previously thought, members of a pro-evolution group said Tuesday. If the allegations are true, they are further evidence that the science standards violate the separation of church and state, say members of Kansas Citizens for Science and an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The final version of the science standards, written by three of the 10 members of the state board, bears striking similarities to a version written by several members of the Creation Science Association for Mid-America, based in Cleveland, Mo. The science standards, approved in August, will determine what Kansas students will be tested on. The standards downplay evolution, the theory that living things share common ancestors but have changed over time. Standards heavily influenced by "young Earth" creationists -- those who believe God created the Earth in six 24-hour days sometime in the last 7,000 years -- might not pass the Lemon Test, said Dick Kurtenbach, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. The Lemon Test, based on a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, is the standard of judicial review in cases involving the First Amendment's establishment clause, which prohibits government from establishing a state religion. In that case, the court said a law must have a secular purpose, cannot advance or prohibit religion and cannot encourage "an excessive government entanglement with religion."

Proof that creationist groups influenced the writers of the Kansas science standards to leave out many references to evolution and proof of an earth older than 7,000 years would be helpful in any lawsuit the ACLU might file against the state, Kurtenbach said.
In September three national science organizations refused the state's request to use their copyright material in the standards. Substantial parts of the standards were rephrased by state staff members, and the board in December approved those changes. The board also voted to send the changed standards to an outside reviewer who will evaluate the standards' rigor and thoroughness.
Proposals from possible outside reviewers are not due until Jan. 20, said board member Linda Holloway of Shawnee. Holloway, who had been the board's chairwoman, on Tuesday became vice chairwoman after switching jobs with Harold Voth of Haven, a town about 20 miles northwest of Wichita. The three board members who wrote the August standards -- Voth and conservatives Steve Abrams and Scott Hill -- have said they did not use the final creationist version, which was never presented to the state board. Abrams and Voth say they have no idea why 16 similar passages appear in both the official document and the creationist version, almost word for word. Hill said that if there were any borrowing, it would have been in the other direction -- the creationists taking their wording from the official document, which the three board members wrote July 29.

Members of the creation group say their final draft was available by late July. They think the state document did, indeed, borrow wording from their version. "(But) what difference does it make?" asked Tom Willis, president of the Creation Science Association. "So they borrowed a few phrases from people who don't build their religion around evolution." If that is true, the current standards should be abandoned, said Jack Krebs, a high school teacher in Oskaloosa and a member of Kansas Citizens for Science, a pro-evolution group formed after the state board's August vote to approve the standards. "Even though the changes made to the standards contain no religious language," he said in a letter sent to board members that month, "the fact that the creationists were allowed to alter the standards to fit their religious beliefs is a violation in spirit of the separation of church and state."

Another member of the creationist group, Bob Williams of Leon, Kan., said the creationists held no sway over the state Board of Education. He said he was certain the board members were careful not to allow his group much input, to avoid charges of religious entanglement. He said, however, that Abrams did have a copy of the final creationist version before he, Hill and Voth met to revise the state standards.
Abrams said that it was no secret that the August standards, approved on a 6-4 vote, took some wording from an earlier creationist draft that the state board rejected in May. He called the evolutionists' continued attacks on the standards a case of sour grapes.
"They're going to be mad no matter what we do," Abrams said. Voth said he was baffled by the allegations of the evolution supporters. He said in December that he had never seen the creationist draft.

Val DeFever, a moderate board member from Independence, Kan., did not know until early December that there was a new creationist version. She said she was surprised at the similarities between that version and the standards she voted against in August. She speculated that if the other board members had known of the situation last summer, the moderates would have balked at voting on the Abrams-Hill-Voth version.
"But it wouldn't have mattered, because they had six votes," DeFever said. "We can get as mad as we want, but there's not much we can do about it."

That is not necessarily true if the standards violate the separation of church and state, Kurtenbach said. The local ACLU chapter is ready to become involved in the Kansas science controversy and has enlisted a Kansas City law firm to assist with a lawsuit should one develop. Kurtenbach said the ACLU would sue if a district began teaching creationism or intelligent design in science classes. Krebs and other members of Kansas Citizens for Science compared line by line the original science standards, written by a 27-member committee of science teachers and professors, with the two creationist versions and the final standards approved in August. Willis said he believed many of the similarities between his group's final draft and the August standards came in the introduction, which defines the nature of science and describes how to use the standards. Krebs, however, said that excluding the introduction, 40 of 42 changes to the standards written by Abrams, Voth and Hill were contained verbatim in one or both of the creationist documents.

Most occur in the benchmarks for the eighth- and 12th-grade standards -- a set of seven topic areas ranging from "science as inquiry" to "life science" to "history and nature of science." Some changes are slight, such as the addition of words within sentences. Others are more substantial. In the eighth-grade earth and space science standards, for example, both the creationist version and the August standards contain the same teaching example for requiring students to learn about earth's constructive and destructive forces. The example bears no similarity to the one contained in the standards written by the state committee. "The thing that is significant is the fact that all those direct quotes showed up in the standards," Krebs said.

To reach Kate Beem, education reporter for The Star, call (816) 234-7734 or send e-mail to kbeem@kcstar.com

State earns an `F' from foundation

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has given a failing grade to Kansas' new science standards. The foundation, part of the conservative Manhattan Institute, earlier this month released an updated evaluation of state curriculum standards from across the country. The foundation reviewed Kansas' science standards in 1998, giving the state a "C." This year, Kansas received an "F" from the same reviewer, Lawrence Lerner of California State University, Long Beach. Lerner accused the state board of "gutting" the standards and replacing the theoretical "backbone" of science with "nonsense of a pseudoscientific bent."

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