Evolution vote already hurting students / LJWorld.com

Archive for Saturday, November 12, 2005

By Matt Patterson

November 12, 2005

Considering the quick turn-around that occurred last time the teaching of evolution was challenged in Kansas, I doubt that the newly approved controversial changes to the state science curriculum will last all that long. Enough moderate voices have been raised, and change seems likely to come with the next state school board election in November 2006.

Unfortunately, the damage could be all-too imminent for some. In particular, students from Kansas who apply to selective colleges out of state may suffer the results of curriculum changes before science teachers alter a single word they say in the public high school classroom.

Many colleges and universities around the country consider geographic diversity in their admissions process. A dynamic college campus brings students of all stripes together. Think of what a classroom discussion would be like if everyone involved had the same political beliefs and the same socioeconomic background, came from the same region, and espoused the same attitudes. Discussion would be pretty dull. Colleges on either coast are happy to get applicants from the Midwest. I wonder, though, how selective colleges are going to view applicants from the state that includes in its science curriculum ideas and attitudes that are not based on the scientific method, in short, material that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, science.

Already in the letters to the editor in The New York Times there has been talk of a remedial science requirement for students who come from states with problematic science curricula. The trouble is that selective colleges - from St. Olaf to Skidmore to Harvard - don't offer many remedial courses. These colleges are for students who excel. Can you excel when what you are being taught is, according to globally accepted professional standards, fundamentally erroneous?

Some might argue that the changes made to the Kansas science standards are not deep enough or broad enough to create true and lasting damage. True, an intelligently designed student will see through the flaws of the curriculum and still comprehend the rigor and discipline that genuine science requires. In this case, though, the true damage is in the stigma that will accompany this student's application to college.

Given the national attention that has been paid to this issue, it is going to be a long time before Kansas students overcome this stigma. In the meantime, I recommend that public high school students applying to selective colleges consider writing their college essay on why they oppose the recent changes made by the State Board of Education.

These students have something to prove.

- Matt Patterson is director of college counseling at Bishop Seabury Academy.