Kansas School Board Revisiting Science Standards

From Reuters:

For the fourth time in eight years, the Kansas Board of Education is preparing to take up the issue of evolution and what to teach -- or not teach -- public school students about the origins of life.

After victory at the polls in November, a moderate majority on the 10-member board in the central U.S. state plans to overturn science standards seen as critical of evolution at a board meeting on Tuesday in Topeka.

New standards would replace those put in place in 2005 by a conservative board majority that challenged the validity of evolution and cited it as incompatible with religious doctrine.

Of course, the Discovery Institute is not happy. Their quote in the story:

"You have a board in Kansas that is so extreme," said John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a think tank focusing on science education and intelligent design.

This is still Kansas, mind you. But I guess to extremists, anyone not sharing their extreme view looks, well, extreme.

The grassroots group Kansas Citizens for Science has an open letter posted on Panda's Thumb, including a link to a .pdf that shows the proposed revisions. Everyone sounds pretty optimistic about the outcome.