Pastors for Texas Children, a pro-public education group, is warning that the creation of a “parallel private system of education” funded with tax dollars — through vouchers or other schemes — would violate the Texas Constitution and harm the religious schools proponents of such a system want to fund. That warning came in a brief the group filed on Tuesday […]
Education
Redefining ‘Religious Liberty’ into Nothing?
Religious-righters are twisting and redefining “religious liberty” so much that the term itself is in danger of becoming almost meaningless. Fortunately, a growing number of mainstream religious leaders from around the state are calling out the nonsense. The latest battleground: public subsidies (such as vouchers) for religious schools. The rabidly anti-gay, religious-right group Houston Area Pastor Council, which also goes by […]
Texas Group Worries International Baccalaureate Program Is Turning Students into Leftists
The folks over at Texas Eagle Forum, the state chapter of Phyllis Schlafly’s far-right organization, are worried that “leftist” ideology is infiltrating the state’s public schools through the widely respected International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Seriously. Writing in the group’s May newsletter (which is now available online), Texas Eagle Forum Vice President MerryLynn Gerstenschlager wrings her hands over students […]
Don’s Rewriting History … Again
Former Texas State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy isn’t done distorting history. While McLeroy was on the board in 2010, he and his colleagues gave Texas schools new social studies curriculum standards that downplay the primary role slavery played in the Civil War. Now, as a former SBOE member, he’s rewriting the role he and other […]
Oh Please, Don, Let Us Roll Our Eyes at You Even Harder
On Thursday Donna Bahorich was appointed the new chair of the Texas State Board of Education. In this Houston Chronicle story on Bahorich’s appointment, a former chair, Don McLeroy, left the following comment: I find it ironic that it its Mr. Ratliff, and the Texas Freedom Network(By the way, thank you for not including them […]
