Exactly what makes the president of the Kansas Board of Education think that he and other state board members know more than local school officials about what parents want out of their public schools?

Board President Steve Abrams asserted that view last week while expressing frustration over the reaction of local districts to the state board’s decision to require the teaching of alternatives to the theory of evolution.

“They (local districts) seem to indicate,” Abrams said, “‘We don’t care what the state board does and we don’t care what parents want, we are going to continue teaching evolution just as we have been doing.'” He extended his criticism to what he classified as pornographic material on required reading lists in Kansas schools, saying the state board “shouldn’t be surprised” at the reaction of superintendents and local boards of education because they also “continue to promulgate pornography as ‘literature,’ even though many parents have petitioned the local boards to remove the porn.”

Excuse us, Mr. Abrams, but your arrogance is showing.

First, the state president’s notion of pornography is not shared by many and include many standard literary works, including “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Additionally, local control of schools is a long-standing principle in Kansas. We value that control because local boards, local administrators and local teachers are the people most qualified to address the desires and values of the constituents it serves.

It is totally unreasonable to contend that 10 members of a state board of education – especially the current 10 members of the Kansas Board of Education – have an infallible understanding of what a majority of parents want to see in their local schools. Their supporters might think the current board majority has that understanding. Is that always true, or does it depend on who is serving on the board?

Further evidence that the board membership doesn’t accurately represent the people of Kansas came last week when Commissioner of Education Bob Corkins and Board Member Connie Morris dropped in on 12 western Kansas school districts. The sessions, which lasted only 30 minutes each, hardly qualify as meetings. There seems to have been little effort to understand the concerns of the individual districts; the primary objective of the visits was to promote the plan of the commissioner and the board’s conservative majority to promote school vouchers and expanded charter schools in Kansas.

And, although Corkins traveled with Morris to western Kansas, he didn’t bother to invite Janet Waugh, a Democrat from Kansas City, to a series of meetings he held in her district. Unlike Morris, Waugh is part of the moderate minority of the board that opposed changes in the state science standards. Her exclusion from meetings in her district certainly supports the idea that Corkins is more interested in promoting a conservative agenda than in representing the state board or even the best interests of Kansas students.

Kansans, of course, will have an opportunity next November to show whether they agree with the current state board, but in the meantime, it’s not unreasonable for them to seek the help of locally elected school boards to make sure their schools accurately reflect their communities’ educational priorities.