When the Texas Freedom Network puts out an approving statement about an action taken by the State Board of Education, you know something strange is going on. Here was the TFN statement: “Today we saw Texas kids and sound science finally win a vote on the State Board of Education.
And “liberal Austin bloggers.” That’s me. Mercer issued a press release, which, I assume, also went to his mailing list, under the following headline: Democrats recruiting a “Republican” to run against Ken Mercer ( San Antonio, Texas) – Well the liberal Austin bloggers let the political cat out of the
The choice came down to Barbara Cargill and David Bradley. Perry should have picked Bob Craig, of Lubbock, a respected member and a moderate. Cargill will get to occupy the chairman’s seat until the Senate refuses to confirm her in 2013, as it has chosen to refuse to confirm the
You have to hand it to the far-right faction on the State Board of Education. They never seem to run out of bad ideas. This one is really terrible — a $100 million loan program for facilities for charter schools. The constitution vests in the SBOE the responsibility for managing
I mean, where’s Bill White? The State Board of Education is in a meltdown that is getting worldwide publicity, and the best he can do is say that if he is elected governor, he would name a new chair. Big deal. He ought to be saying: This is Rick Perry’s
This "tick-tock" report comes from my colleague Katy Vine, who has been following and writing about the State Board of Education for Texas Monthly. 12:31 – Here we go. Bob Craig makes a motion to add “impact of Enlightenment ideas” back into a standard altered in March to remove references
The State Board of Education may decide today to push back the arrival of new science textbooks to 2013. No, it’s not because the publishers dared to mention evolution. It’s because of the budget crunch. By delaying the arrival of books, the Legislature can pay part of the money in
Not one to give up just because he has been booted from office by the voters, former State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy has proposed new additions to the social studies curriculum, which is up for adoption by the full board later this month. First I'm going to summarize
You might want to think twice about including a vindication of Joe McCarthy's anticommunist activities, based on the revelations of the Venona papers, in the proposed social studies curriculum standards, for two reasons: (1) It was stupid. (2) It was wrong. The current issue of The Weekly Standard, a conservative
Thanks to my colleague Katy Vine, who follows the drama of the State Board of Education, for calling this blog post in the Houston Press to my attention. Here's the post in full: The Houston ISD employees who were asked to draft a resolution asking the State Board
She is leading in every county in the 16-county district. She is beating Russell better than 2 to 1 in her home county of Williamson. More than half of the precints are in. She leads by 7,000 votes and by 15 percentage points. Russell is done, and so is the
Today I received a robo-call from former state senator and lieutenant governor Bill Ratliff urging Republicans to support Marsha Farney in her race for State Board of Education against Brian Russell. Ratliff’s brief message made the point that Farney had showed her commitment to public education by sending her children
Not former lieutenant governor Bill Ratliff. His son, Thomas. Ratliff says that the general release is timed for 8:30 a.m. but that it may be released any time this morning before that. It's 12:50 a.m. Here's the text of the release: AUSTIN - On the heels of a legislative session
As expected, Senate Democrats — with Eddie Lucio present, not voting — blocked the confirmation of Bryan dentist Don McLeroy as chair of the State Board of Education. At least, everyone seemed to expect it but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who announced after the vote that McLeroy was confirmed, until
I declared on a recent Friday podcast that Don McLeroy’s confirmation as chairman of the State Board of Education was officially dead this session, but this afternoon Senate Nominations sent the controversial Bryan dentist’s confirmation to the Senate floor for a vote. So, to quote Billy Crystal’s character in “The
