Washington DC

Two states chalked up radically different results last week in local voting over the teaching of evolution in their schools. Darwin's theory was being pitted against intelligent design — the concept that an intelligent creator shaped the course of evolution. Evolution lost one battle and won the other.

On 8 November, the Kansas State Board of Education narrowly approved a set of standards for science teaching, backed by supporters of intelligent design, that highlight “gaps” in evolution theory. “I think this is a huge victory for students in Kansas,” says Casey Luskin, a programme officer in policy and legal affairs at the Discovery Institute, an intelligent-design think-tank in Seattle, Washington.

On the same day, in Dover, Pennsylvania, district elections ousted eight of nine school-board members who support intelligent design. Last year, the board brought in a requirement that, at the start of biology lessons, teachers read pupils a statement criticizing evolution and endorsing intelligent design. A group of parents sued the school district over this, and a federal judge is now deliberating on the case (see Nature 437, 607; 200510.1038/437607b).

Eight members of Dover's school board lost their seats to supporters of the teaching of Darwin's theory. Credit: AP/C. KASTER

As science educators in Kansas and Pennsylvania respond to the situation (see ‘Science advocates tackle fallout from school-board votes on evolution’), the election results underscore the highly decentralized nature of US education. Unlike most European countries, which set their curricula through a central education ministry, the United States has no established national standards, says Jay Labov, a senior adviser for education at the National Academies in Washington DC. Elected education boards set the standards in each state, and local school districts — each with their own elected board — determine how the standards are implemented in the classroom.

In the case of science, most states have voluntarily adopted a set of guidelines laid out by the National Academies in 1996. All but one of the 50 US states (Iowa) have adopted the standards wholly or in part, says Labov, and their 16,000 school districts decide how to teach them. “Under those circumstances you can imagine that such a document is treated in different ways,” he says. Such was the case in Kansas, where the academies-approved guidelines were altered to open the door for intelligent design.

A recent analysis shows how differently the teaching of evolution is treated across the United States. Education Week, a national journal for teachers and educators, reported in its 9 November issue that most states mention evolution in their scientific standards, but surprisingly few specify key evolutionary concepts. Only 22 states mandate the teaching of mutation and natural selection, for example. Four states fail to mention evolution at all.

“It's disappointing but not surprising,” says Wayne Carley, executive director of the National Association of Biology Teachers in Reston, Virginia. “We as science educators bear some of the responsibility for this.”