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The Archives
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07.06.10Is There Any Hope?Traveling throughout the twelve counties of District 5, we see firsthand some wonderful work in our schools. Public school administrators and teachers have been getting a bad rap from those who refer to the hardworking people who teach our children as “educrats.” The teachers, principles, superintendents, and school trustees we meet say that their job is hard but rewarding. Teachers we talk to are tired of being blamed for low results and some feel pressured to “teach to the test.” Everyone is concerned about the high dropout rate in Texas. In spite of these problems, though, there is hope. You ...
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06.02.10School Bullies: Texas State Board of EducationAfter bullying the minority of sensible members into submission, extremists on the Texas State Board of Education managed to distort, water down, and politicize the curriculum. Now they complain that people have gotten the facts wrong in describing the latest version of Texas curriculum standards. It’s true that many people are confused about the current state of affairs, after hundreds of deletions, additions, and last-minute revisions. Who is responsible for this confusion? I lay the blame squarely on the radicals who threw in inflammatory and unreasonable suggested revisions all along the way–from wanting to remove Cesar Chavez, Barbara Jordan, and Thurgood ...
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05.24.10Texas SBOE: One From Your Team, One From Our TeamPeople have protested, petitioned, and wrung their hands about the May Texas State Board of Education meeting. What struck me most clearly about this board, beyond the ideological mania that motivates them, was their utter incompetence in running a meeting, conducting analysis, or making logical decisions. It’s amazing that these people actually have jobs out in the real world. Anyone who carried on a business in such an illogical and inefficient manner would have a difficult time keeping it afloat. This group of ideologues is hopeless, and attempting to conduct a reasonable dialogue with them is doomed to failure. Only the ...
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04.25.10I Have A NightmareAfter this past week of teaching and campaigning for Texas State Board of Education, I had a nightmare about a woman saying no Democrats could win in Texas. In my nightmare, I screamed that we were working as hard as we could and how could she just sit on the sidelines and be so negative. My dream’s message is clear: We need help! The next board will pick the textbooks, and it’s essential that we elect an educated, reasonable majority to implement the will of the people of Texas to give students a 21st century education. It’s going to take ...
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04.17.10Is Public Education History? Toast?A number of people are so frustrated with public education that they advocate home schooling as a solution to the kind of problems we have in Texas and around the nation. One of the most infamous members of the Texas SBOE, Cynthia Dunbar, home-schooled her children, and she calls public education a tool of "perversion." Ms. Dunbar will be retiring from the board at the end of the year, but her opinions will live on. She represents a powerful faction, and just because she will be out of sight, her views should not be out of our minds. Public education ...
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04.15.10Texas SBOE: Plagarism and PaybackFormer Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education Don McLeroy plagiarized his contribution to curriculum standards on "American exceptionalism" from Wikipedia. Rick Perry's appointee, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott, called the board's recent curricular outrages mere "payback." For Democratic SBOE candidates, these actions look like another gift from our opponents. We just need to stand back while these guys shoot themselves in the feet. We also need to thank the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus for holding hearings where Dr. Michael Soto, Trinity University Professor and candidate for District 3, pointed out McLeroy's inaccurate interpretation of the sources from which ...
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03.01.10It’s Time for EducationAnti-intellectual extremists and their publicity organs continue to devalue teachers and education. Public schools have received so much criticism that some students and parents view education as a waste of time. This is a terrible loss for our young people, our economy, and our society with disastrous potential for our future. Radical conservatives on the State Board of Education have fueled this perception that public schools are not worthwhile. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has fractured, and many traditional Eisenhower Republicans are embarrassed and disturbed by the emerging extremism. However, Texas no longer needs to be a national loser in the battle ...
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02.28.10Has Texas Seceded From the Union?Rick Perry famously claimed his personal willingness to secede from the union, but sometimes I wonder if Texas hasn’t already seceded. Look at what has happened to the two-party system. Texas, with two Republican senators, is marginalized in national politics, and roughly half of the state has no voice for our views at the national level. With Perry as governor for so many years, a single person has now dictated most of the major appointees in the state. Within the Republican Party, people no longer strive for compromise in a range of opinions. Rather, in a phenomenon called social norming, they ...
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02.25.10Hurt Feelings?Science and Social Studies Are Not About Feelings Extremists on the Texas State Board of Education are apparently very sensitive, and they want to engineer the curriculum so that none of it hurts their feelings. Continue Reading...
