Category: Education
Kansas AP Reporter with an Attitude
With some local reporters in Kansas striving to cover the science standards controversy there with fairness and accuracy, it’s disappointing to see the Associated Press reporter in Kansas writing science fiction in the guise of news reports. According to the latest salvo from AP’s Bill Draper: Some conservative members of the state board have questioned whether the committee has properly considered views about creationism or intelligent design alongside evolution. A minority of members on Case’s committee have said it’s not fair to teach evolution as an explanation of the origin of life without also including the possibility that life was formed by an intelligent being. Contrary to Draper, there is no debate on the Kansas Board of Education over whether Read More ›
A True Liberal in Liberal, Kansas
A writer for the newspaper of record in Liberal, Kansas (yes, there is a town with that name in Kansas) endorses the truly liberal policy of teaching the scientific controversy over evolution. He argues: (opponents of teaching the controversy) should come up with a good argument on why teaching only the evolution theory does not violate the state education science mission statement to make all students lifelong learners who can use science to make reasoned decisions. Presenting only one life science theory in classes without alternatives breeds ignorance and violates the mission statement. The author of the essay is wrong to suggest that the Kansas Board of Education is considering adding intelligent design to the Kansas state science standards. In Read More ›
One of These Things is not Like the Other
BY KEITH PENNOCK Some school boards seem to have confused their role with that of the FDA, placing warning labels on textbooks as though they were a package of cigarettes that should be kept out of the hands of minors. Fortunately, there’s a better way. Rather than noting the scientific controversy over Darwinism by placing stickers on textbooks, we advise that school boards attempt to teach the controversy by augmenting their curriculum using supplemental materials. Ohio and Minnesota followed this approach, and now students there can learn both the strengths and weaknesses in Darwin’s theory. And neither state has been drawn into a legal flap. Smart.
Kansas reporting: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Kansas is busy reviewing, and proposing revisions to, the standards by which it will measure what students know or don’t know about science. Regardless of the tin-ear reporting of some journalists, students in Kansas will continue to learn about evolution. The question is will they know ALL about evolution including the scientific evidence against it? Or, will they learn only about the evidence that supports it? Reporting on the issue has run the gamut from good, to bad, to ugly. We remarked on the good previously, an article by Diane Carroll of the Kansas City Star. And, there was today another good article, by Elaine Bessier in the Johnson County Sun. In fact, Bessier’s article was more than good, it Read More ›
Times of India Endorses Teaching the Controversy
One of the world’s top newspapers, The Times of India, is running an editorial encouraging greater openness in how Darwin’s theory is taught. The Times, which sells more than a million copies a day, asks: In any case what’s so wrong in expecting schools to make the teaching of evolution more rigorous by bringing up its drawbacks and examining areas of controversy it shares with the people who are promoting an alternative theory called intelligent design, or ID? If only editorialists at The New York Times and The Washington Post were as open-minded.