The top conservative activist on the powerful Texas Board of Education, who rejects evolution and has pushed for a revisionist right-wing U.S. history curriculum, is on the way out, after a moderate candidate defeated him in a tight primary last week . . .

Creationist-Cum-McCarthy-Booster Incumbent Rejected By Texas Republicans | TPMMuckraker

He said during a 2008 debate over science standards: "Is understanding of evolution 'vital' to the understanding of biology? No."

Wow. Just wow. It's no wonder Texas science education is in the crapper with guys like this on the board. We rank 50th in percent of population over 25 who have a high school diploma, 46th in SAT scores and 49th in teacher pay. Being a Creationist (a person lacking basic scientific understanding) should disqualify anyone from sitting on a board of education.

Welcome to "Idiocracy". Anti-intellectualism combined with religious fervor in the hands of a few people who have influence over the education of millions of children will inevitably create a generation of people who are less educated than those that preceded them. If the trend were allowed to continue, we'd end up with the complete destruction of the public education system, which is already on the ropes in many places around the country.

Hopefully moderates and progressives can halt or reverse the trend before it is too late.

Text books should only contain facts, not beliefs, not opinions. I am astonished that this is not the norm. It is terrifying to think that our children are at the mercy of the board of education,and their "beliefs." Our children are being brainwashed unbeknownst to their parents, who send them to school everyday thinking they are receiving an education,when in fact they are being force fed religious beliefs and politacal opinion. These are the subjects that should be left to the parents at home. Public schools can not be allowed to influence our children in this way against their will and their parents.

The concern is that children are often told to listen to their teachers, "they know what their talking about." Not to mention teachers are forced to teach the text book no matter what. And many children are not encouraged to question the teacher's authority or think for themselves. So basically the religious have found a way to recruit and convert thousands of people in one fail swoop. I find this most disturbing. And there has to be a way to prevent this and protect our children.

Well said Michelle! I am very passionate about education! I take the responsibility of education for my 6 year old very seriously. I have a friend that is a Professor of Education at Trinity University, we have had extensive conversations about "the education system". She summed everything to one simple statement " any education system is a direct reflection of the society it is in". Oops, I forgot...I live in Texas She suggested that I moved to a more "foward-thinking" State. However, beause I am altruistic, and inherently strong willed, I am willing to try to make a difference here. This topic warrants an actual "meeting" with people that are interested to exchange ideas and possible actions to start making a difference. Whether we have children or not, the consequences of producing more numb zombies are dire. "A nation is known by the men and women it looks up to as great."- Sri Radhakrishnan (formerly Vice President of India)

Personally I think we need to abolish the idea of even having a board of education. Texas should and would be much better off in establishing a scenario in which only the professionals in each given area are allowed to vote upon what the subject matter should be. Why should it be outlandish that biologists decide what is in biology textbooks? I just can't fathom why anyone would want to keep this system in which politicians with an ax to grind are allowed to dictate what they have little understanding about.

Personally, I like the idea of a standards board at the national level, set by panels of specialists in the various curricula. American schools and by extension American children are falling behind in the world, and it is the pervasive, arrogant, nationalistic attitude that is holding us back. If America is going to compete in the global economy, education in our country has to strive for a higher standard, and the idiots at the school boards - especially those here in Texas, need to pull their heads out of their collective asses.

Looks like it was passed!

http://www.nytimes.co...

Choice bits:

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schalfly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

...

Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians were interned in the United States as well as the Japanese during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”

...

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among the conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

This is absolutely infuriating.

Time for a lawsuit I guess...

I love how half of the Republicans on the BoE are carpetbaggers too.