Public Schools
-
02.28.10 | Follow the Money, Public Schools, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, Rebecca's Blog, State Board of EducationHas 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 vie for the position of most conservative. Each candidate tries to prove that he or she is even more right wing than the other, and the result is a party that swings further and further toward crazy. Fed by radio talk shows and Fox News, followers live in an odd echo chamber, in which pundits parrot identical phrases for each news story. These party lines make wonderful fodder for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, but what are they doing to our ability to function as a civil society? What are they doing to promote an educated citizenry with a thriving economy?
-
Hurt 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. (more…)
