That seems to be the message from Texas State Board of Education Chairwoman Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas, to state legislators this week. Of course, we haven’t seen the communications between Lowe and representatives of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC), which is sponsoring a public hearing on Wednesday to learn more about the state board’s revision of social studies curriculum standards. But as a press release from MALC today points out, it’s not every day that a group of legislators gets turned down on a request for information from other state officials.
In the press release, MALC’s chairman, state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, noted that Lowe had turned down the invitation to speak to lawmakers about the growing controversy surrounding the board’s work. MALC had offered to reimburse Lowe for the cost of her travel, but that didn’t seem to make a difference, Rep. Martinez Fischer said:
“To be turned down by Chairwoman Lowe is surprising and disappointing. I urge her to realize that over fifty members of the legislature are requesting her attendance at this very important hearing. We all have hectic lives and busy schedules, but she needs to make the time. “
Representatives from the Legislative Study Group, Texas Legislative Black Caucus and Senate Hispanic Caucus are joining MALC at the hearing, which begins at 9 a.m. on Wednesday (Capitol Extension E2.012). But it appears that Lowe and other board members can’t be bothered to defend the way they have vandalized the work of educators, academics and others in crafting new curriculum standards.
On the other hand, lawmakers are set to hear from officials at the Texas Education Agency and representatives from the Texas State Teachers Association, the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, LULAC, the Texas Freedom Network, and the Texas Council for History Education. About a dozen university professors from around the state are also scheduled to speak.
Wednesday’s hearing, by the way, isn’t the only public event planned between now and the May 19-21 state board meeting to focus public attention on the way board members are politicizing public school classrooms. Here are a few others:
- Representatives of Defend the Honor, the American GI Forum, the National Hispanic Institute, the Texas Freedom Network, Tejanos en Accion and other organizations as well as university professors will speak at a “teach-in” about the revision of social studies standards on Sunday, May 2, in Austin. The event runs from 2 to 4 p.m. on the front steps of the Texas Capitol. More information is available at defendthehonor@ gmail.com.
- American Atheists and the Atheist Community of Austin are planning a public rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol at 11 a.m. on May 16. Rally organizers say their focus is to support church/state separation as well as curriculum standards that are fair and reasoned.
- The Texas Freedom Network is planning a rally outside the Texas Education Agency building at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 19. That day the State Board of Education is expected to hold its final public hearing on the proposed new social studies curriculum standards. Come join other concerned Texans call for curriculum standards that are based on sound scholarship, not the personal and political agendas of board members.
C’mon y’all. Gail is an important woman who cannot be bothered with a bunch of “wetbacks” and Uncle Toms down at the state legislature. After all, she was elected by the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant people of Texas.
The leadership of the SBOE has slipped to a new Lowe.
***Rocket Mike Says:
April 26, 2010 at 8:59 pm
The leadership of the SBOE has slipped to a new Lowe.*****
HA HA HA very funny.
Latinos in Texas and Latinos in Arizona–getting the same treatment. Purge them from our history, Purge them from our state. This is only the beginning for the Lowe’s out there.
Slowly the rest of the world is learning how difficult, racist, myopic, and unreasonable is this arm of the SBOE. God help our children!
Gail Lowe’s newspaper, the Lampasas Dispatch Record (rag that it is), has an editorial policy that they will publish all letters to the editor (one per 60 days). I suggest you send these comments to the rag and make them publish them.
Well, Lampasas Dispatch Record or not, I really do think Gail Lowe should go down to Austin and explain to the Hispanic and black legislators why, relatively speaking, their peoples are so unimportant in American history. Personally speaking, if they had done nothing else but invent the taco or cook soul food, those alone would have been worthy of an honorable mention—which is light years more than the Texas SBOE deserves. Our Hispanic and black brothers and sisters have done a lot more for the United States than thoses two things.
Black people built the American South and got danged near nothing in return for it. King Cotton would have been a pauper in rags without the black man and his family. I think we should pause for a moment, right here on TFN Insider, and do something that one rarely ever sees. Here goes. Black people of Texas. Thank you for the blood, sweat, and tears you have shed to make this American nation great. This is your country. This my country. This is OUR country.
The News Hour on PBS. At the end of the show, they have a spot where they exhibit the name, rank, and a photograph of an American soldier who has died fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. I have watched that spot night after night for years now. I have not done an exact count, but it seems to me that every third or fourth photograph is a person of Hispanic origins. It is clear to me that Hispanic folks have paid an unusally high price in proportion to their population numbers to defend THEIR country from right wing religious fruitcakes in the Middle East—only to be dissed by our own Christian fundamentalist Taliban here at home. Now, ain’t that somethin’. Doesn’t that just beat all?