Today is the last day for early voting for Tuesday’s primary elections — contests that will help shape the face of public education in Texas for a generation.
Because of redistricting, all 15 seats on the State Board of Education (SBOE) are up for election this year. For the first time, all of the state board’s religious-right candidates have opponents in either the primaries, the general election or both.
Here’s just a sampling of what far-right religious extremists on the SBOE have done over the past five years:
- Censored what students will learn in their history classes
- Rejected established science
- Ignored the recommendations of teachers and respected scholars
Over the next two years, the SBOE will adopt textbooks for science, social studies and math — and those textbooks could be used in classrooms for nearly a decade.
So by exercising your right to vote, you can do your part to bring sanity to the SBOE and get politics out of our schoolchildren’s textbooks and classrooms.
Visit the TFN Education Fund’s SBOE campaign site (tfn.org/sboe2012) to find the resources you need to make an informed decision. And go to VoteTexas.gov to find a polling location and more information on the elections.
Bottom line: Whether you do it today or on Tuesday (May 29), just make sure to vote.
While you’re visiting TFN’s SBOE campaign site, take the opportunity to sign the SBOE campaign pledge if you haven’t done so already.
Also, the Texas voter ID law is not yet in effect. All you need to bring with you to the polls is your voter registration card.
