Kline pledges to defend textbook stickers that question evolution

<p>Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has offered to defend placing stickers in school textbooks saying evolution is a theory, not a fact, the chairman of the State Board of Education said Wednesday.</p><p>"I firmly believe that it should be allowed," Kline said of the stickers, which he said he would defend in court.</p><p>Steve Abrams, the chairman of the state board, said Kline brought up the subject during meetings with small groups of board members on Tuesday. Kline told The Associated Press he believes such stickers are reasonable, even though a federal judge in Georgia ruled last month that similar stickers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.</p><p>Abrams said he is not aware of any board members interested in placing such stickers in textbooks.</p><p>Kline's comments came as the board, voting Wednesday along its 6-4 conservative majority, created a three-member panel of board members to hear expert testimony about evolution and its place in the state's science education standards.</p><p>A committee of educators, appointed by the board, is in the process of revising those standards, which currently describe evolution as a key concept students should learn.</p><p>But some conservative members of the board have already clashed with that committee, questioning whether it has properly considered views about teaching creationism or intelligent design alongside evolution.</p><p>The three members of the newly created panel come from the board's conservative majority. All four moderate Republican and Democratic members of the board rejected overtures to join the new panel, saying they did not have the expertise to devise the standards. That job belongs to the committee of educators, they said.</p>