Kansas Debates Teaching Evolution in Public Schools

For the fifth time since 1999, the Kansas Board of Education is faced with questions on how evolution should be taught in public schools. The discussion stems from a lawsuit filed by an organization, Citizens for Objective Public Education that advocates neutrality in public schools.

The suit filed against the board of education on Sept. 26 opposes the science standards adopted in June. According to some local educators, while the continuous debate is important in deciding who gets to influence teaching standards, it has little impact on students.

“It does raise an important issue over who gets to decide what we teach in the classroom,” biology teacher Kim VanNice said. “It reminds people that there are people trying to keep their own [views] the central [views]. But it is not affecting the students much because teachers aren’t letting it, we are still following what the state tells us to teach…we understand how important it is to the whole basic scheme of human biology.”

Deputy Commissioner of Kansas Education Brad Neuenswander said the new Next Generation Science Standards are a set of basic expectations for what skills students in grades K-12 should be able to demonstrate by the end of the school year for a variety of science concepts.The standards were adopted due to a policy that calls for the Board of Education to revise their education standards for public schools every seven years, not only in science, but other subjects as well.

Biology teachers Jennifer Davis and VanNice acknowledge during class discussions that other ideas exist. But, they focus on evolution as a scientific theory with research to back it up, and emphasize the fact that science and religion cannot be compared.

Similar to their views, part of the standards for the topic of evolution state: “students who demonstrate understanding can…communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence,” according to the NGSS website.

This standard faces opposition from COPE, whose members believe that the NGSS promote a non-religious worldview, therefore violating neutrality in the classroom and the First Amendment rights of students. COPE declined to comment directly, but in an email statement President Robert Lattimer wrote that the organization believes the NGSS evoke atheistic and materialistic responses, and according to their complaint, use “deceptive methods” to get their view across.

“Generally COPE seeks to educate about the religious rights of parents, students and taxpayers in public education,” Lattimer stated about the organization’s intentions. “Parents have the right to direct the religious education of the child, not the school…The First Amendment essentially requires that public schools be religiously neutral.”

According to Lattimer, the stance the standards take on evolution can provoke personal questions from students such as “Where did I come from,” “What is the nature of life,” and “How should I live morally and ethically.”  That can, in turn, be met with inappropriate responses from teachers.

Senior Emily Dodd learned about evolution freshman year in Biology I, and again as a junior in Biology II AP. Having grown up in a Christian family, she remembers discussing the matter of evolution after class with her friends, and feeling as if teachers and peers “looked down upon” her belief in creationism.

Creationism is the belief that the universe and all living organisms were generated through acts of divine creation. Creationists believe that God created the world in seven days in the timeline set out in the Bible, which is why some believe evolution goes against their religious beliefs.

Similar to the argument made by COPE, Dodd believes her differing views on evolution were met with responses from teachers that were not necessarily ideal.

“I think it is okay that teachers teach [evolution] because it is a theory; they are informing us on what is going on in the science world and it is important,” Dodd said. “But…what I have a problem with is that teachers sometimes say things like ‘this is the only way the earth was formed’…I think they sometimes act like it has been proven a lot more than it has been.”

Neuenswander, however, does not believe the standards will lead to the disproving of these views, and assures that the standards are not facing any immediate changes. He said that legal documents like a lawsuit take time, and will not affect the science standards or teachings on evolution in the near future.

“They believe that the standards will lead to the teaching of certain religious thinking which we don’t believe is in [the standards],” Neuenswander said. “We have science consultants and people looking over it. [The lawsuit] does not change anything at this point in time.”

The standards took effect this school year, with the goal of moving towards real world application of concepts rather than a straight memorization of facts, Neuenswander said. But teachers fear that the issues with evolution will overshadow the benefits the standards bring to science education.

Biology I teacher Jennifer Davis says that at the Biology I level, the concept of origin of life hardly comes up at all. Origin of life is the question of where humans come from, which is what COPE argues provokes responses that are not religiously neutral. While this concept is more prevalent at higher biology levels, Davis says her students are rarely faced with questions of origin.

“[Evolution] is always going to be an issue no matter what,” Davis said. “People aren’t looking at the big picture, [the] positives of what the kids going to get out of it, but hang up on words that have nothing to do with the actual content.”

Both VanNice and Davis say that the issue of evolution will most likely continue to be a disputed topic, because there are differing interpretations of what the theory of evolution states.

“We are promoting science education, and evolution is always considered a controversial topic because people either don’t understand it and they think it is in conflict with religion, but it’s really not,” VanNice said “We always talk about the natural world and what we can support with evidence. If we start talking about supernatural phenomenon there’s not science to back it up.”