Voters can end dysfunction at State Board of Education

[sonias]

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/voters-can-end-dysfunction-at-state-board-of-233157.html">Austin American Statesman 2/14/10
Voters can end dysfunction at State Board of Education
EDITORIAL BOARD

It's always tempting to sleepwalk through elections for the State Board of Education. In truth, we've all done that. After all, we're not voting for our local school boards or choosing the people who will represent us in the Legislature or city hall. We ask ourselves what difference it makes if this or that person serves on the 15-member board we know so little about?

It can make a big difference, and that is why we urge voters to pay attention to these elections. Consider that the education board has the authority to steer Texas public schools — including your public school — to greater success with its power to set academic standards and curriculum, choose textbooks, make policies and manage the $22 billion Permanent School Fund. And that is why it is so painful to watch the continued dysfunction of a board that could move schools — and therefore Texas — forward if it got its act together.

Instead, the board largely has become a national embarrassment that serves to promote stereotypes of Texas as a backward state more focused on basic skills than technology and advanced sciences — a state preoccupied with pushing a cultural agenda with requirements that schools teach the biblical theory of creation (or intelligent design) alongside evolution.
(snip)
While reviewing standards for social studies, board members recently made an embarrassing decision to remove a popular children's author, who they mistook for someone who wrote about Marxism.

Then there is the fact that some current board members have made clear their distaste for public schools, electronic textbooks and ethics rules banning cronyism in the management of the school fund.

Yes we can end the dysfunctional SBOE and clean up this board. Get rid of the crazies. Like Howard Dean likes to say "You have the power!"

In SBOE District 5 the Democratic candidate that won the AAS endorsement is Rebecca Bell-Metereau.
http://www.voterebecca.com/ This is my SBOE district and I'm backing her too.

District 5 spans portions of Travis, Bell and Bexar counties along with Hays, Burnet, Caldwell, Llano, Blanco, Comal, Gillespie, Guadalupe and Kendall counties.
The current crazy occupant of this seat is Ken Mercer. :crazy:

In SBOE District 10. The current crazy occupant is Cynthia Dunbar who is moving to another crazytown. :crazy:
District 10 spans Williamson, Bastrop, Fayette, Lee, a portion of Travis, along with Milam, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Dewitt, Burleson, Washington, Gonzales, Waller, Austin, Colorado and Lavaca.
Our Democratic candidate in District 10 is Judy Jennings
http://www.votejudyjennings.com/

:kick: for outing the crazies and restoring sanity to the SBOE!

Yes we can!

Sonia

[onestepforward]

1. I like it!

I'll do what I can! :patriot:

[tbyg52]

2. I'll do my bit in District 10!

:hi:

[sonias]

3. We're all in this together

We can stop being the national embarrassment of the country, at least on this one education board.

:hi: tbyg52!

Sonia

[mbperrin]

4. Bob Craig in district 15 has actually been pretty good.

He voted against reintroducing the strengths and weaknesses and seems to genuinely want teacher input.

[sonias]

5. Well I guess you have no choice

Looks like you don't have a Democrat running in that district. You can either hold your nose and vote for the R primary winner - Bob Craig or Randy Rives or vote for the Libertarian John Pekowski. I don't envy you your decision.

District 15 (SBOE)
* Craig, Bob (R) *
* Rives, Randy (R)
* Pekowski, John (L)

Sonia

[mbperrin]

6. Rives is a fundy nut who was on the local school board here before he

became even too much for the Baptist mafia here. I was astonished to see him resurface.

So strange to have all these Republicans here in Ector County. I can remember when they could all meet in a phone booth, nothing but converted John Birchers, and that was just 25 years ago. My grandfather, an IWW organizer for the oilfield here in the 30s, is spinning in his grave. Just makes my head spin.

[sonias]

7. Rives must be tea party then

He's answering the "call" of the crazies. They all think the queen talks to them personally. :crazy:


Sonia

[ernesttubb]

9. Craig is okay

Actually, Craig is a decent choice. He's one of the three sane Republicans trying to hold the seven crazies at bay.

[sonias]

10. Ok or not he's not on the D primary ballot

Come November I guess Craig will be the best candidate in that SBOE district. It's just hard to give an R a pass on this board.


Sonia

[Justitia]

8. I have put the word out to family & friends in SBOE 5. Wish I could vote out Leo! -eom

[sonias]

11. State Board of Education's Cultural Warriors in Trouble

Dallas Observer 2/18/10
State Board of Education's Cultural Warriors in Trouble

Buzz kill: Oh, no, no, no. This can't be correct. Could it really be that the young Earthers, the intelligent designers and assorted Christian right-wing whackjobs who have made the Texas State Board of Education such a reliable source of amusement could be facing...extinction?

Speaking as someone who neither has nor likes children, Buzz urges the state's GOP voters: Please don't get all moderate on us. Please, please support your local crazies on the SBOE. What's more important here, people: quality, modern education for 5 million Texas school children or the entertainment value of watching elected officials debate whether the planet is older than a box of Twinkies on the back shelf of a convenience store?

OK, some of you responsible grownups may not see it our way. Dan Quinn, communications director for the Texas Freedom Network in Austin, which has been keeping tabs on the state board's religious right element for years, sounds downright pleased that, between resignations by hard-liners and challenges from moderates, this March's GOP primary will provide voters a good shot at slicing into the power held by the board's religo-conservatives.

Two of the hard-line gang of seven Old Testament conservatives on the 15-member panel—Ken Mercer of San Antonio and Don McLeroy of Bryan—face stiff opposition in their primaries. Tim Tuggey, a lawyer from Austin, is facing Mercer in District 5; legislative consultant Thomas Ratliff from Mount Pleasant will square off against McLeroy in District 9. Locally, moderately conservative incumbent Geraldine "Tincy" Miller faces a challenge from educator George M. Clayton, whom no one seems to know much about. (We played phone tag with him.)

Humor. I really loved the line about the "young Earthers facing...extinction" :rofl:

[sonias]

12. Meet the Flintstones - (we're a majority intelligent design state!)

Texas Tribune 2/17/10
Meet the Flintstones
Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

The differences in beliefs about evolution and the length of time that living things have existed on earth are reflected in the political and religious preference of our respondents, who were asked four questions about biological history and God:

• 38 percent said human beings developed over millions of years with God guiding the process and another 12 percent said that development happened without God having any part of the process. Another 38 percent agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago."

• Asked about the origin and development of life on earth without injecting humans into the discussion, and 53 percent said it evolved over time, "with a guiding hand from God." They were joined by 15 percent who agreed on the evolution part, but "with no guidance from God." About a fifth — 22 percent — said life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.

• Most of the Texans in the survey — 51 percent — disagree with the statement, "human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." Thirty-five percent agreed with that statement, and 15 percent said they don't know.

• Did humans live at the same time as the dinosaurs? Three in ten Texas voters agree with that statement; 41 percent disagree, and 30 percent don't know.

Thank you SBOE - you lowered the bar. We've become a bunch of morons in this state. Mission accomplished. :grr:

Sonia