Evolution took center stage at another Kansas school board meeting Monday.

This time it was the Pratt Board of Education that wrestled with how to
deal with evolution -- the theory that living things share common
ancestors but have changed over time.

On a 4-2 vote, the Pratt school board approved local curriculum guidelines
stipulating that 10th-grade biology students will understand that there
are different views of how life on Earth began and urging students to
compare evidence for and against the ideas.

Supporters hailed the board's decision as a victory for critical thinking.
Pratt parent Chris Mammoliti, a biologist with the Kansas Department of
Wildlife and Parks, had been pushing for the change for more than a year.

"It gives students the opportunity to look at a wide variety of
information presented as evidence (for evolution)," Mammoliti said Tuesday.

Evolution advocates, however, warned that the move would create an
opportunity for religion to enter the public schools by discrediting
evolution. Jack Krebs of Lawrence, a board member of Kansas Citizens for
Science, worried that students would be encouraged to throw out evolution
in favor of "intelligent design," the theory that an intelligent being
created the universe and everything in it.

"The door is open," Krebs said. "They didn't quite stick their neck in,
but they opened the door."

The developments in Pratt are reminiscent of an August 1999 decision by
the Kansas Board of Education to play down evolution, the age of the Earth
and the big-bang theory in state science standards. That decision prompted
a national debate over evolution and the origins of life.

Since then, two board members who supported those standards have been
voted out of office, and a new majority has promised to reopen the science
standards in January.

But the situation in Pratt, a town of 6,300 west of Wichita, has been
brewing since spring 1999, when the board began reviewing the district's
science guidelines.

Soon after, Mammoliti and Pratt lawyer Ernie Richardson asked the boards
in the Pratt and the Skyline school districts to consider adopting an
intelligent design textbook titled Of Pandas and People. The board
declined.

Earlier this year the board rejected, 4-3, a biology curriculum written by
a district committee of science teachers and professionals. The version
approved Monday was presented by four board members.

That is what bothered board President Bruce Pinkall, who with member Tom
Jones voted against the new biology guidelines. The board did not follow
its own policy, Pinkall said.

"I'm more concerned with the effect on the staff and the perception of
their work and the lack of support from the board of their efforts,"
Pinkall said.

There is also the question of legal challenges. The American Civil
Liberties Union of Kansas and Western Missouri is reviewing the Pratt biology
guidelines, executive director Dick Kurtenbach said. It is too early to
determine what the ACLU's response will be, he said, but he is eager to
meet with Pratt parents and teachers concerned about the school board's
actions.

The Pratt situation is not as clear-cut as earlier cases in Arkansas and
Louisiana that eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, Kurtenbach
said. In those instances the states had mandated, in some form, the
teaching of biblical creationism.

"It's another kind of wrinkle in the debate," Kurtenbach said.

The Pratt school board's supporters are not worried. John Calvert, a Lake
Quivira lawyer who is managing director of the Intelligent Design Network,
said he doubted that a lawsuit over the new Pratt biology guidelines would
stand.

"I can't imagine a legal basis for challenge," Calvert said. "We'd
probably welcome a legal challenge."

To reach Kate Beem, education reporter, call (816) 234-7734 or send e-mail
to kbeem@kcstar.com

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