DAVE MCNEELY: Education board brings state unwanted attention
SAN ANGELO, Texas — The State Board of Education’s revision of curriculum standards to reflect the right-leaning opinions of the so-called “conservative” Republican majority that currently dominates the board is the latest example of helping Texas look like Baja Arkansas.
Just as the ecstasy in other states over Gov. Rick Perry’s hint Texas might secede from the United States had died down, and many Texans heaved a sigh of relief after Arizona’s effort to make cops into border control officers had won away our “Kick me!” sign, the State Board’s Hole-in-the-Head gang went and took it back.
While the board majority was bending school curriculum standards well to the right, there were enough TV satellite trucks parked outside the education building to make NASA jealous. The national and international publicity was, shall we say, less than laudatory.
The board majority rammed through changes that included intimating that the Civil War was more about states’ rights than slavery; said that the term “democratic” should be replaced by “constitutional republic” when referring to the United States government; and removed a requirement that sociology students “explain how institutional racism is evident in American society.”
The good news is that the board reversed its proposed removal of Thomas Jefferson, lead author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, from a list of political philosophers for students to study in world history.
Two days before the final vote on May 21, three Democratic candidates for the board showed reporters at state Democratic Party headquarters a foot-high stack of almost 5,000 petition signatures protesting the board’s intentions.
They said they would present them to the board, asking that the proposed curriculum changes be postponed.
Assuming in advance that wouldn’t happen, they said that if elected, in January they