What’s at Stake?
For an obscure elective body, the State Board of Education has been making a lot of headlines, often by creating controversies where none should exist.
From improperly placing management of our Permanent School Fund (an endowment for Texas public schools) in the hands of personal friends to disregarding and disrespecting the recommendations of professional educators, our State Board of Education gets an “F” in leadership.
What is the State Board of Education?
Th
e State Board of Education is an elective body composed of 15 members. Members are elected from districts. In comparison, Texas has 32 Congressional districts and 31 State Senate districts, so a State Board member represents more than twice as many people as a member of Congress or a State Senator.
What’s wrong on the State Board?
Republican incumbent Ken Mercer is widely regarded as one of the extremists on the State Board. With more than half his campaign funds coming from a wealthy proponent of private-school vouchers, Mercer defeated a more moderate Republican in the 2006 primary and had no Democratic opponent in that general election.
As a board member, Mercer frequently denigrates teachers and educators while advancing his own agenda, such as including Fox News talk-show host Sean Hannity in the social studies curriculum or injecting religion into the study of science. He is joined in these efforts by others, including an attorney who is openly opposed to public education and a dentist who believes and teaches that the earth is only a few thousand years old.
Our State Board of Education has lost sight of its mission to provide leadership for our public schools. While the board’s dominant faction distracts the board by fighting irrelevant battles in the “culture wars,” Texas schoolchildren are falling behind. We cannot afford to allow this sorry situation to continue any longer.
Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a professor at Texas State University, wants to get our public schools back on track and help make Texas a leader in education. That starts by returning the focus of the SBOE to education—not politics or religion.
Extremism on the State Board: Ken Mercer
- Writes numerous editorials distorting the facts about recommendations from professional educators.
- Tossed out years of work by English teachers on a new curriculum, then chortled, “they got a very well deserved spanking.”
- Wants Sean Hannity and James Dobson included in social studies texts.
- Boosts private-school vouchers while serving on a board entrusted with overseeing our public schools.
- Half of Mercer’s 2006 campaign donations were from voucher backer James Leininger.
