Kansas To Revise Standards Without Citing Evolution

By David J. Hoff

The Kansas board of education last week ordered a rewrite of its controversial science standards, but the revisions still will not address the theory of evolution.

The board voted 6-4 to assign the state education commissioner to work with lawyers to ensure that the standards adopted in August won't violate copyrights held by three national groups that wrote model science standards in the past decade.

Kansas' standards borrowed heavily from those models, but the groups denied the state board permission to use their work because the Kansas document ignores the basic tenets of evolution. ( "Science Groups Deny Kansas Access to Their Standards," ...