The evolution issue is silly,” Connie Morris, a member of the Kansas State Board of Education, told reporters last week. “Get over it. Let’s talk about children.”

Good idea, Ms. Morris. The state school board has been far too sidetracked for the last five years by the evolution issue. In 1999, the state school board drew international attention to itself by removing the teaching of evolution from the state’s science curriculum. The circus that ensued has had a lasting and negative impact on the state’s reputation and its ability to focus on other, more important, educational issues.

There’s one easy way for the state school board to turn that around. School board members can review science standards now and affirm the 2001 action that returned evolution to the state science curriculum. Unfortunately board members last week chose another course guaranteed to make evolution a key issue in the next election.

Board members who support the teaching of evolution supported a full review of the standards. Evolution opponents, including Ms. Morris, wanted only a limited review because they feared a repeat of the 1999 controversy.

The compromise reached last week was to delay a review of the science standards until after the November 2004 elections. That means students will have to wait for an updated curriculum in the fast-moving area of science and ensures that the stands of board candidates on the evolution issue will be a hot campaign topic.

It also may ensure that Kansas voters will pay more attention to state school board races than they did in 2002. Voters spoke loudly at the polls in 2000, casting out conservative opponents of including evolution from the curriculum. Hence the 2001 reversal of the science standards. But in 2002, voter interest lagged again, and two Republican primaries in northwest and southeast Kansas produced conservative candidates that advanced to the general election with nothing but write-in opposition and easily won board seats.

Morris is right; it’s unfortunate that the state school board is so closely defined by its stand on the science curriculum. Evolution apparently is the only issue that gets the attention of Kansas voters even though philosophical splits on the board affect many other aspects of public education.

Many voters may not understand the impact of the federal No Child Left Behind Act or many other issues that affect Kansas schools, but they know how they feel about evolution, so that’s how they pick their candidates.

It is a silly issue. Kansas and its school children would be much better off if it were decided and laid to rest once and for all.