Kansas Fights Back

If you've been following our blog, you will have noticed that the state of Kansas gets mentioned more than its share of the time. Their state school board is ... a piece of work. They re-defined science so it would include supernatural phenomena. They made a big deal out of their "opt-in" procedure for sex-ed, trying to make it as easy as possible for kids not to take it. They have made it clear that it's OK with them if everybody homeschools or sends their kids to charter schools -- this is not really who you want running the public school districts.

Tonight there will be a rally, organized by a new grassroots group called the Kansas Alliance for Education.

Their web site says:

KAE has been organized to promote the election of individuals whose beliefs and objectives are more in line with mainstream Kansans. If you share our frustration with the current majority and would like to help make a difference, we encourage your support and participation.

Yesterday's Kansas City Star (am I the only one who still hears Roger Miller singing, "That's what I are?") had a lengthy commentary yesterday about this new group.

The newspaper calls a farmer, Don Hineman, on his cell phone as he's out working on his tractor.

Last summer, at an unrelated statewide leadership training meeting, Hineman says, people got to talking about the state board and the decisions it was making.

“There was just a sense of frustration among a number of folks in the group,” he said. “And we thought, by golly, somebody ought to do something about this.”

The alliance wants to replace certain members with more progressive-thinking people who value public education. The group has endorsed both Republicans and Democrats and is giving money to both.

Betsy Hineman says many in the alliance consider themselves conservative, including her. But the six religious conservatives who dominate the 10-member state board are “radicals,” she says.

Yes, there's definitely a difference, a big difference, between being conservative and being ... a nut. And once you let the radicals start getting their way, once they've grabbed the bullhorn, it takes a lot of hard work to wrestle it back from them.

In Montgomery County, like everywhere else, there are parents who are concerned about their children learning too much too soon. There are people who are afraid that the lessons their kids have learned at home might be undermined if the schools aren't careful in how they present sex-ed. That's the way it is, some parents are more cautious than others, and the challenge is to develop curricula that are sufficiently informative without threatening any family's values. That's a tough challenge, but it can be done. You stick to the facts, and you don't shy away from facts. You give details in a dispassionate way. It can be done.

I don't think any of us have a problem with conservative parents -- I have not always been cheered by the stories my kids brought home from school, and I understand wanting to keep a lid on the ... promoting ... that teachers do. And there's no way around compromising, that's the hard part of the school district's job, trying to come up with something that everyone can accept.

Everyone who's serious about it, that is.

We have in our county, same as Kansas, certain people with a radical agenda, mainly a religious agenda, who will not compromise. Their interest is not in improving public education but destroying it. They want homeschooling and charter schools, where their kids can receive religious indoctrination at taxpayers' expense. In Kansas they used evolution, in Montgomery County they tried to use sex-ed as a wedge to crack apart the public schools, and the community.

We've got to stop them.

(yo-doo-lady-are, ya oughta see my car)

And the six “radicals” have gone too far, the alliance believes, in devaluing evolution in the state’s science standards, pushing to inject religion into public education, making it tougher for young people to get sex education, and hiring a commissioner of education whose track record is not kind to public schools. That commissioner, Bob Corkins, has expressed interest in charter schools and vouchers that would finance private education with public tax dollars.

In our county, we're lucky that we have a moderate school board; this hasn't happened to us. Oh, trust me, members of TeachTheFacts can complain about the board, we don't individually love every decision that's ever been made there. But whatever their faults, it's not that they came into office with plans to put an end to public education.

Elections are coming up, and we will all, as citizens, need to look closely at all the candidates. We will want to prevent the Kansafication of Montgomery County.