At this point, it is useless to get mired in the specifics of the damaged curriculum, after the board’s “death by a thousand cuts.”
Sorry, Rebecca Bell Metereau, but this is exactly wrong. Call me crazy, but it’s impossible to have an intellectual conversation concerning the fate of future intellectuals if you refuse to address “the specifics of the damanged curriculum.” And if you’re not going to have an intellectual conversation, you might as well nominate yourself for a place on the SBOE.
via Burnt Orange Report: School Bullies: Texas State Board of Education.
3 comments ↓
I think that Rebecca’s point in that piece is that the SBOE has not listened to any of the people who have commented on the changed curriculum, and it is now time to get new people elected. There cannot be a new discussion with the old board they do not listen. Rebecca would add a breath of fresh air to the board and it is essential to get her and Judy Jennings elected in the Fall.
We can have an intellectual discussion about specifics in the curriculum, but, as we have seen, extremists on the board keep changing the wording. I believe this is a deliberate tactic to get everyone bogged down in arguments over details and confuse people about exactly what is in the latest version of the curriculum. I am asking supporters to focus on winning in November, not to cut short discussion, but to remain focused and strategic in our efforts. I will be glad to discuss particular points with you, if you would like to email me any questions, but I would like even more to hear from people about how we can win in November. I don’t imagine we would differ that much in our views on particular points in the curriculum.
Rebecca: I’m sure we wouldn’t differ much on particular points in the curriculum. Yes, changes in the wording must be highlighted and appropriately scorned, as I tried to do in a recent post: http://www.bookbread.com/2010/06/07/the-twilight-of-textbooks-in-texas-final-thoughts-on-the-state-board-of-education/
I think the best way to bring attention to these issues is to do things akin to what the Texas Tribune has done–by providing and distributing the dire data of our state’s public school system, as they have here: http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/may/31/texas-tribune-data-apps-update/. If voters were made more aware of the empirical results of their own school districts, perhaps they would be less hesitant to change the status quo of the SBOE.
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