Something in the Water in Kansas

Remember good ol' sex education? How many of us never actually had "the talk" with tour parents, and had to depend on the school for correct information? Well, children in Kansas may no longer have that option.

By a 6-4 school board vote, parental permission is now required for students to participate in sex-ed. School board members who voted for the change claimed that it was about giving more power to parents. Of course, those opposed argued that the children whose parents were too lazy to sign the form or never saw the form are the ones who are most in need of sex education. One school board member, Kathy Martin, is pushing for further reform. She wants to require schools to adopt abstinence-only courses. She proposes that schools offer 9 weeks of "abstinence until marriage" instruction at least once between 6th and 9th grade, or risk losing their accreditation. The board will look at her proposal at a later meeting.

What makes this all interesting is that the Kansas Senate recently passed a bill mandating that public schools continue to require sex education that does not use an abstinence-only approach. A similar bill is currently in a house committee.
It looks like Kansas is headed towards a classic showdown between the school board and state legislature... Or possibly legal challenges--local school boards are afforded wide powers.

Just a sidenote: this was the same school board that made changes to policy to treat evolution as "a theory, not a fact" last november.

Good policy, bad policy? Predictions?