The last gasp of the Kansas anti-evolution school board

By Diane Silver

In January the new moderate, pro-science and -- dare I say -- pro-public education majority will finally take over the Kansas Board of Education. The changing of the guard can't come a moment too soon.

This week the anti-evolution, hooray- for-private-schools old board showed once again why voters made the right move in changing the balance of power.

First, the outgoing conservative majority handed over $42,000 to the Kansas Association of Public Charter Schools. While state education officials claimed they had to give out the grant as part of a federal program, moderate board members said the process smelled a tad fishy. What reeked? Only two groups applied.

What's worse is that this latest grant goes to a group run by a Topeka woman who earlier received another grant from the conservative-led board. Other members of the woman's family and even her friends received money from the conservative board. All of which might lead one to wonder if perhaps it's time to change one's relatives.

Meanwhile, recently ousted board member Connie Morris is getting the most out of the end of her term. She plans to take two out-of-state trips, including one that will occur after she attends her last board meeting.

I am feeling snarky today; I'll admit it. I so wish, though, that I had a job like that. Get fired (as Morris was by the voters), work your last day and then have the boss pay for you to take a little vacation. What a deal!

Morris, by the way, says she will write a report and turn it into the board about what she learns on her trip. She wants, by her own words, to be "a person of intregity." Here's Morris' full quote, and no, I'm not making this up.

"I want to be a person of integrity -- often I miss the mark -- but that's what I strive to be," she said.

By the way, that's smilin' Connie in the photo.