My Platform: What the Texas State Board of Education Needs
I’ve been speaking with groups and refining my platform for months, and it’s clear that we must restore three important values to the State Board of Education: community, economy, and respect.
Community
The
first concept of community kept coming up as I talked with teachers, parents, students, and educational leaders. We need to put students, teachers, and the local community back at the center of education. The State Board of Education has been micromanaging school curriculum for almost twenty years. The results have been disastrous, putting us last in high school graduation rates in the US. Teachers and students are tied to a grim routine of preparing for tests most of the year, under the threat of firing or loss of school accreditation. Teacher creativity and independence are stifled and students suffer the consequences. The goals for education have been transformed from an enriching growth experience to a crippling process of teaching to the test with dumbed-down texts personally edited by a group of eight extremists on the State Board of Education. We must put teachers, students, and local communities at the center of education.
Economy
T
he second idea of economy has several parts. First, we must follow the money—how it’s being wasted, who’s paying for candidates and why, and how education should support the economy and higher education. An eight-member majority of the fifteen-member board squanders millions of dollars on a weak curriculum, inadequate textbooks, and useless initiatives like abstinence-only education, which has been proven ineffective and even harmful. Some of these extremists don’t even believe public education is constitutional, and they receive campaign funding from rich donors who want to undermine public schools in Texas and elsewhere around the country. We need a Texas State Board of Education that makes public schools an engine of the economy, coordinated with higher education and the real world of work and local communities.
Respect
The
final point of my campaign is to restore respect, an essential value for all people. Right now, my opponent ignores this fundamental principle, and the board’s oversight process is broken. He brags about giving a “spanking” to teachers and scholars testifying before the language curriculum review committee. Saying that hard-working professionals should be spanked is a terrible insult. This nasty talk and disrespect for the women and men who testify before the board has to stop. We’re not going to have that kind of talk on the future Board of Education. We must restore a reasoned, civil, deliberative process that coordinates legislative bodies, public schools, universities, and the world of work. Let’s stop the nonsense now!
