Progressive Texas Board Of Education Candidates Promise To Undo Textbook Changes

[Jefferson23]

The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has faced national scrutiny and ridicule in recent months for its right-wing revisions to the state’s social studies and history curriculum. Changes have included requiring students to learn the difference between legal and illegal immigration, examine “documents that supported Cold War-era Sen. Joseph McCarthy,” and study prominent right-wing political figures.

This massacre to the state’s educational system is engineered by the SBOE’s bloc of far-right conservatives, who have little to no background in education policy. Members include Cynthia Dunbar, a Republican who has called public education a “tool of perversion.” There’s also Chairman Don McLeroy, a dentist who has stated, “The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel.”

There’s beginning to be a backlash against these far-right members, however. McLeroy lost his primary to a more moderate Republican candidate, and Dunbar is not running for re-election. Yesterday, ThinkProgress spoke to Judy Jennings and Rebecca Bell-Metereau, two Democrats who are running for SBOE in Districts 10 (Dunbar’s area) and 5, respectively. Both of them stated that the SBOE has lost focus and abandoned other areas of its mission in the quest to politicize the Texas’ curriculum, said that constituents are frustrated with the negative attention, and promised to try to repeal the textbook revisions:

Plans to review the far-right changes:

– JENNINGS: The worst case scenario — if they choose to make the changes that they’re proposing this week, at the absolute least, the science textbooks are up for adoption in 2011, the social studies are up for adoption in 2012, and so the Texas education code requires that textbooks be accurate and they contain all the essential knowledge and skills that are in the curriculum, but there’s nothing that says they can’t contain more. So at the very least, I would work to be sure that the textbooks we approve are inclusive. But, before that, one thing that I will be pursuing in January is to rescind the changes that they make this week, if they choose to push their ideology instead of listening to the teachers and the subject area experts who have worked so hard to provide them with information.


remainder: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/20/texas-education-election/

[seeviewonder]

1. If these cons are actually able to ram

these changes through this week, I doubt they last long before
they get repealed one way or another. Is there some sort of a
checks & balances system for things like this?

[Jefferson23]

2. The checks and balances may be in the form of a challenge by the ACLU.

There does seem to be some hope for more moderate heads to prevail, even a former Bushie seems to recognize the lunacy
of this board.

"Update At yesterday's meeting, former Bush education secretary Rod Paige also urged the board to delay its vote. From TFN's liveblog:
9:27 – Paige: “We have allowed ideology to drive and define the standards of our curriculum in Texas. It has swung from liberal to conservative.” (We’re waiting for evidence that the Republican-dominated board and then-Gov. Bush’s education commissioner in 1998 adopted “liberal” curriculum standards.) The swing has been too broad, Paige says.
9:29 – Paige wants the board to reconsider how the standards cover the history of slavery and the civil rights movement: “I’m of the view that the institution of slavery and the civil rights movement are dominant elements in our history and shape who we are today.” <...>

9:37 – In making decisions about which historical figures to include in the standards, Paige says rely on established historians"

[myrna minx]

3. K&R n.t

[PDittie]

4. Judy Jennings, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, and Michael Soto

If you want to really make a difference in this matter -- as in mitigating the current board's decisions and affecting future ones for the benefit of all Texans (and which of you doesn't want to make Texas a little bluer state?) -- then throw a few coins toward these three fine candidates:

http://www.voterebecca.com

http://www.votejudyjennings.com

http://www.michael-soto.org

Here's video of each candidate from their presser at the Texas Democratic Party HQ yesterday:

http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/10373/sboe-hearings-continue-tweet-donate

[Jefferson23]

5. Very good idea PDittie, thanks for posting. :)