A Texas Teaching Moment
Why shouldn’t a home-schooling mother chair the school board?
Texas is America’s most interesting state, and the latest example comes courtesy of Governor Greg Abbott, who caused a ruckus last month by appointing a home-schooler to chair the Texas Board of Education.
Donna Bahorich taught her three children from her Houston home from kindergarten through eighth grade. The kids must have learned something because they went on to a private high school and one became a National Merit Scholar. Now they are all engineers: one petroleum, another chemical and the last mechanical.
Newly-appointed Chair of the Texas Board of Education Donna Bahorich PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS/ERIC GAY
But Mrs. Bahorich’s appointment has offended the education barons who claim that she lacks the credential of having taught in a bricks-and-mortar public school. Diane Ravitch, the doyenne of the education status quo, wrote on her blog that, “You can’t make this stuff up. Governor Greg Abbott selected a home-schooling mom to chair the State Board of Education in Texas.”
Texas board member Thomas Ratliff, a fellow Republican, sniffed that “public school isn’t for everybody, but when 94-percent of our students in Texas attend public schools, I think it ought to be a baseline requirement that the chair of the State Board of Education have at least some experience in that realm, as a parent, teacher, something.”
But wait. Mrs. Bahorich has been named to chair the Board of Education, not the Board of Public Schools. The question for state policy should be whether kids learn, not where they do it. Even Mr. Ratliff has now admitted his earlier criticism was a “temper tantrum” and said the board’s new chair is doing a “great job.”
Mrs. Bahorich also isn’t a rookie, having served on the board since the citizens of school district six elected her in 2012. As chair she’ll serve with 14 other members, so the board already has plenty of voices who can represent traditional public schools.
One reason home-schooling has proliferated across America is because so many public schools have failed to educate so many students. Public education could stand more non-traditional voices. We hope Texas state Senators, who must confirm her nomination, give Mrs. Bahorich a chance.A Texas Teaching Moment - WSJ: