There we were this morning, gathering info for our State Board of Education 2014 elections page when we stumbled upon the website, and then the Facebook page, of SBOE District 3 candidate Dave Mundy, R-Gonzales.
Mundy, the general manager and editor of the Gonzales Cannon newspaper, acknowledges that as an SBOE member he would have no legislative power over certain things. Let’s for the sake of argument say that one of those things is Texas secession. But if he did have powers over certain things, he would use those powers.
Which is why he signed the below pledge (click to enlarge) from the Texas Nationalist Movement.
Mundy has no opponent in the Republican primary next March. He will face incumbent Marisa Perez, a Democrat, and Libertarian Steve Hernandez in the November general elections.
I wonder if Mr. Mundy is still fighting at the Alamo, as well as the Civil War.
where do they find these ppl? oh, right…
Far, far right, as a matter of fact.
He probably neglects the bit about being “subject […] to the Constitution of the United States” in Section 1, not to mention giving scarce attention to Article 1 Section 4 (and how that itself is further constrained by Article 1 Section 1, per the US Constitution’s Article III and the Torcaso v Watkins case).
Even though the far far right might like to secede it’s my understanding that the secession option has long ago been invalidated. So, good luck Mr. Mundy, you’re welcome to spend your money and spin your wheels on that issue. It ain’t gonna happen.
Uh??? I would bet my last nickel that the star symbol on that certificate came from Texaco. Look at it closely.
I love the automatic conclusions you guys jump to and your quickness to engage in stereotyping. Tolerant lot, aren’t you?
This is 2013, not 1836 or 1860. Different issues, but you might remember that Cornwallis and Santa Anna also declared that secession was “illegal.”
Of course, the issue of independence has little to do with the SBOE, save that I will fight against any and all efforts to further federalize the Texas education system, particularly stealth implementation of the Common Core Standards.
You progressives have been in charge of the public education system for 45 years now … and Johnny can’t read.
Stereotyping? We simply alerted folks who might not know that you advocate secession. We also don’t see that tolerance is an issue here. Did we suggest you don’t have a right to advocate secession? Perhaps you’re not tolerant of people who think secession talk is ridiculous. And as for who has been in charge of the public education system, you seem woefully uneducated about who has run Texas government (and the State Board of Education) for the past two decades. They sure haven’t been “progressives.”
Thanks for the rational tone, Dan. Quite frankly, I’m not used to hearing that from TFN types.
We’re not going to agree on the need for Texas independence, hence I’m not going to try to sway anyone on the subject. It’s a mainstream issue, and there are several other Texas Nationalists and allies seeking office this year who will carry that argument into the Legislature.
Progressives haven’t been POLITICALLY in charge of the Texas education system, but they are wholly in charge of academia. Hence, the attempts by the regional ESCs to circumvent the authority of the SBOE and the legislature to implement Common Core via CSCOPE.
“Republicans” have been politically in charge, you’re quite correct. Unfortunately, those Republicans have been Old Guard types like the Bushes and Ratliffs, who walk in lockstep with the outcomes-based education movement. When Dubya picked up Ann Richards’ system and forced it down Texas’ throat in the 1990s, it was the conservatives who argued that the system was — as Bush himself called it — “mush.” We were shouted down by the Republican mainstreamers and the Democrats, and George thanked everyone by giving them No Child Left Behind when he went to Washington (or, as we in the conservative movement call it, “No Administrator Without a Six-Figure Salary”).
The progressive movement has given us no fewer than six full-blown (that I’ve been able to identify, anyway) “education transformations” since 1968, and if you’ll look very closely, there’s hardly a stitch of difference between them save the pricetag. And none of them work.
Example: “Project-Based Learning” is the new miracle cure for education being bandied about. PBL was first introduced in 1973; what they’re talking about now is the EXACT same thing. I know, because they tried it on us when I was in school, and it didn’t work.
We know that “more money” is not the cure for Texas’ education problem. And we already know what works: old-fashioned methodology: phonics, spelling and skills and drills — not role-playing and group therapy. The question is, why do we continue to allow the same marketeers to keep fleecing us over and over and over again?
Dave,
Since you want to be on the State Board of Education, I’ll humbly encourage you to get out and talk to classroom teachers. You’ll likely discover that much of what you read from hair-on-fire bloggers and assorted political activists about things like “Project Based Learning” and CSCOPE is nonsense. I’ve never seen an educator present Project Based Learning as a “miracle cure for education.” It’s simply an educational tool that works for some students but not for all. Some teachers use it, while others don’t. You’ll also learn that CSCOPE has nothing to do with Common Core. It is entirely focused on the Texas curriculum standards. When you adopt the rhetoric of anti-PBL and anti-CSCOPE fanatics, you can sound rather foolish — and, frankly, like a scary conspiracy theorist — to a lot of people. I don’t intend that as a cheap insult. Talk to teachers all over your SBOE district as you campaign. You might be surprised by what you learn. And it will encourage other folks you meet on the campaign trail to engage in a rational discussion with you. As for your advocacy of secession, please continue talking about it. Voters should know.
I’m from Gonzales, and we are NOT voting for Mundy. He has no clue about what’s really going on in our Texas educational system.