Wanted: Comments on Kansas Standards

By Jack Krebs

Opportunity to comment on the Science Curriculum Standards Draft and the Intelligent Design/creationist Proposals (Minority Report) on the Kansas Department of Education’s (KSDE) website.

From Kansas Citizens for Science:

One part of the Kansas state Board of Education’s recent Resolution concerning the science standards was to “collect comments from the public regarding the various proposed changes to the Science Curriculum Standards, either contained within the Science Curriculum Standards Draft or contained within the Minority Report.” KSDE has set up a webpage where one can offer comments on either or both of these.

Furthermore, the Resolution instructed KSDE to “make the raw data available to the members of the Board, and to deliver to the KSBE a report that will organize the data into categories of (a) how many respondents were within Kansas; (b) the number of respondents that generally supported and generally opposed the various areas of input.”

We urge you to go to here and comment. We understand that science is not established by public vote, and that this survey is merely a vehicle for trying to legitimize inserting Intelligent Design creationism-influenced claims into the standards. However, as long as the survey is there, we need to respond.

We recommend that you make short, firm statements - most of what they will be doing is counting responses. Include both a comment for the Science Curriculum Standards Draft and one against the Intelligent Design/creationist Proposals (Minority Report). Be sure to include your credentials, such as scientist, science educator, parent, businessperson, and so on. Note also that even though they will separating in-state from out-of-state responses, out-of-state responses are important because they show that the nation has its eyes on Kansas.

For more information, see the BOE Resolution, and the second article in the KCFS Update 2-10-05 for commentary from Kansas Citizens for Science. Also, see the KCFS website for links to the Science Draft and the Intelligent Design creationists’ proposal.

Please feel free to distribute this request for comment far and wide.