KU students wanting to teach biology consider leaving state
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/nov/08/ku_students_wanting_teach_biology_consider_leaving/?city_local
[excerpt]
By Terry Rombeck (Contact)
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
It’s still two years until his graduation day at Kansas University, but
Mike Karlin already is eyeing the job market out of state.
Karlin, an education major from Overland Park who plans to teach high
school biology, said he was tempted to avoid the controversy of teaching
evolution in Kansas by landing a job elsewhere.
“It puts teachers in Kansas in a difficult situation,” Karlin said. “It
would make it more likely for me to go somewhere else.”
For Karlin and other KU education majors, today’s vote by the state Board
of Education on the teaching of evolution is more than a hot-button
political and social issue — soon it’ll be part of their livelihood.
The evolution vote is expected to open state science curriculum to
criticism of evolutionary theory while opening the door for more discussion
of “intelligent design” — the belief that an intelligent being caused some
complex features of the natural world.
The debate has been a topic of conversation in a variety of KU classes this
fall, said Jim Ellis, associate professor of teaching and leadership.
Ninth-graders Gus Bova, left, and Cassiti Conklin work on a chromosome
karyotypes exercise in their Central Junior High School biology class. KU
students wanting to teach biology are debating whether to stay and teach in
Kansas.
[end of excerpt]
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