Greatest hits from the GOP presidential contender's controversial education record.
— By Tim Murphy
Tim Pawlenty's tenure as governor of Minnesota was largely devoid of the kind of polarizing episodes that give campaign managers migraines. If anything, the knock on the GOP presidential contender seems to be that, with a few exceptions, he's a little too ordinary. One of those exceptions came in 2003, when the newly elected Republican governor selected Cheri Yecke, a little-known Bush administration veteran, to produce new educational standards for what students should—and shouldn't—learn.
The battle that followed put Pawlenty at the center of a culture war conflagration. Members of Yecke's handpicked standards committees dismissed sharing and cooperation as "socialist" ideas, suggested replacing "We Shall Overcome" with "Dixie" in a unit on protest songs, and advocated downplaying the impact of slavery on the nation's antebellum economy—lest it sour students on the virtues of the free market.
The resulting outcry was a major factor in Yecke's removal from office by the Democratic-controlled state Senate, and handed Pawlenty one of his biggest political defeats.
more
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/tim-pawlenty-education-sharing-socialism
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
