Kansas State Board of Education defends science standards as 'performance expectations'
Kansas State Board of Education defends science standards as 'performance expectations'
Opponents describe teaching of evolution, climate change as 'atheistic'
Kansas education officials deny standards they adopted for teaching of science in public schools endorse what critics say is a “a non-theistic religious Worldview.”
By Robert Boczkiewicz, Topeka Capital-Journal, 5/9/2015
DENVER — Kansas education officials deny standards they adopted for teaching of science in public schools endorse what critics say is a “a non-theistic religious Worldview.”
The Kansas State Board of Education stated its position Monday in arguments submitted to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
The arguments are in response to an appeal by critics of a document the board adopted in 2013. The opponents contend the document violates the religious rights of students, parents and taxpayers, and is unconstitutional.
The document treats evolution and climate change as key scientific concepts for classes from kindergarten through 12th grade, The Associated Press reported when the controversy arose.
Opponents who sued to overturn what they characterized as a “teaching plan” include an organization known as Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE).
The education board’s response contends the opponents mischaracterized the document. Known as Next Generation Science Standards, it establishes “ ‘performance expectations’ for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level,” the board asserted in Monday’s court filing.
The opponents’s description of the standards as “ ‘atheistic’ is a gross mischaracterization,” the board argued in a 37-page filing.
“The performance expectations do not dictate curriculum,” the board asserted. The Kansas Constitution “allows local school districts to determine their own curriculums” and state law “does not require local school districts to implement the science standards.”
COPE contends a judge in Kansas City, Kan., erred in December by throwing out its lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree dismissed the lawsuit on grounds the plaintiffs didn’t have “standing.”
Standing is a legally protectable stake in a dispute that entitles a plaintiff to bring the dispute to court.
Crabtree, in dismissing the lawsuit, “incorrectly characterized” parents and children who are plaintiffs as “bystanders” whose injuries from the standards are abstract, rather than concrete and particular, opponents argue.
The education board is asking the appeals court to affirm that Crabtree was correct.
Monday’s brief was submitted by Assistant Solicitor General Dwight Carswell, of the state attorney general’s office.
Appellate judges have given no indication when they will decide the case.