Perhaps Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy is finally getting close to the truth.
“There is nothing conservative about what we did in English. Nothing conservative about what we did in science,” McLeroy said of the board’s record.
On this, the Texas Freedom Network and McLeroy can agree. Much of the damage done to public education by the state board over the past four years hasn’t been caused by conservatives on the board.
No, the relentless assault on the education of Texas schoolchildren, on the integrity and professionalism of classroom teachers, and on respect for true expertise has come from a faction of extremists who control the board. Those extremists have turned issue after issue into divisive and completely unnecessary “culture war” battles in which they politicize classrooms and portray their opponents — including other Republican board members — as “radical leftists” who hate Christians. They have even attacked the faith of their opponents, suggesting that they are not really Christians at all. In short, the faction’s record has been intolerant and extreme, certainly not conservative.
And McLeroy, as ringleader of that faction, has celebrated the triumph of politics over the education of Texas schoolchildren, insisting that education “is too important not to be politicized.”
We’ll find out on Tuesday whether Republican primary voters in Texas agree with him.
I sure hope Rebecca Bell-Metereau wins the Democratic Primary in her district. Ken Mercer deserves a real fight with a true heavyweight contender. The kids of Texas need an experienced educator like her to represent their kids. Have you ever thought about that? Whoever is elected will not be representing the people who voted for them. The elected individual will be representing their kids and the best interests of those kids. And for those who might be worried about the “Christian factor” in the Bell-Metereau family, Rebecca’s husband is a professor in good standing at a Christian college in Texas. It may be a little know fact, but it is true.
I would agree that the word “conservative” is totally misused in political speech today. I don’t think William F. Buckley or even Barry Goldwater would give most of these creeps the time of day.
Far too much effort has been spent trying to describe the antics and mind sets of these religious extremeists. They are completely resistant to any evidence contrary to their dogmatic beliefs. We can only hope that this primary will present some acceptalble candidates for the general election. However it really ticks me off that their misbehavior has been so very visible and the legisalture has been so timid in their actions toward rotten eggs on this board. Their attempts to sabotage the curriculum standards and mismanaging their fiscal responsiblities should make a legitimate case for impeachment.
All bills directed toward correction never got out of committee showing the power of this dictitorial admidistration. SOS,
please!!
This is definitely a battle that moderates on both sides can come together to win; Leadership directing the state’s children should never be left to those that would use them as pawns in a culture war so narrow-minded that very few people would not be seen as enemies, eventually.
I am particularly astonished by how cravenly the religious right has proven to be, in it’s use of abortion as a rallying cry, they practically rub the horrendous teen-pregnancy percentages into everyone’s faces. It’s just common sense; If you want less abortions, you must instruct teenagers on how to protect themselves, because lawd knows…the kids sure ain’t bein’ very ‘abstinate’. These extremists have seen the numbers; They know that what they preach is a failed effort, but they’ll never concede. Never.
The correct term is not “conservative”; it is “reactionary”.