Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
TFN President Kathy Miller, on the State Board of Education’s vote to adopt the Texas education commissioner’s recommended list of science instructional materials and the failure of special interest groups and activists off the state board to force publishers to change their instructional materials to include arguments against evolutionary science.
Today we saw Texas kids and sound science finally win a vote on the State Board of Education. Now our public schools can focus on teaching their students fact-based science that will prepare them for college and a 21st-century economy. And our schoolchildren won’t be held hostage to bad decisions made by a politicized board that adopted flawed science curriculum standards two years ago. Moreover, today we saw that the far right’s stranglehold over the state board is finally loosening after last year’s elections. That’s very good news for public education in Texas.
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The Austin American-Statesman editorial board to new Texas State Board of Education Chair Barbara Cargill, after she blamed the media for making “a mockery” of the board.
With all due respect, ma’am, your board has done a good job of that all on its own.
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry, attempting to distance himself from the extremists he’s agreed to share a stage with during next month’s prayer rally in Houston.
I’m sure that through my elections in the past that there have been some groups that have endorsed me publicly, that I appreciate their endorsements, but their endorsements of me doesn’t mean I endorse what they believe in or what they say.
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Former Texas State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy, on new board chair Barbara Cargill. The new SBOE chair recently characterized the debate over science as a “spiritual battle.”
(Barbara Cargill is) the scientist on the board.
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Texas State Board of Education member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mt. Pleasant, reacting to a video of new board chair Barbara Cargill in which she questioned the religious beliefs of other board members by saying there are only “six true conservative Christians on the board.”
To be honest I could care less if she thinks I’m a conservative or a Christian. I don’t do either one for her.
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Rev. Kelly Allen of University Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, telling the Texas State Board of Education that students are done a disservice if religious faith rather than science influences the classroom lesson.
True religion can handle truth in all its forms. Let us not be afraid of the wisdom of science. Evolution is solid science.
