How the right wing views public education

The ultraconservative party platform adopted last weekend by the takenoprisoner delegates to the Texas Republican Convention is predictably full of the profamily, profree enterprise, proguns, redwhiteandblue rhetoric we have come to expect of such documents. And, of course, it is rounded out with a lot of antitax, antigays, antiimmigrants, antiUnited Nations language as well.

It will go unread by at least 99.99 percent of Texans, and, collectively, it represents the viewpoints of a rapidly shrinking minority. The platform writers, nevertheless, must have had a grand ol’ time venting their spleens at the Grand Old Party’s biennial bash.

The 29page document includes four pages of recommendations for public and higher education, which should be required reading for teachers who still may not understand why the political process is important to them or whether they should even bother to vote.

Here are a few lowlights of the rightwing’s wish list:

# Put more restrictions on local property taxes, repeal the state franchise tax and require a twothirds supermajority for the Legislature to pass any tax increase. In other words, cut spending on an already underfunded public education system.

# A teacher pay raise? Forget it. See above.

# Expand the powers of the State Board of Education over curriculum and textbook content and put the education commissioner and the entire Texas Education Agency under its authority. Some conservatives obviously think history needs even more rewriting.

# Give Intelligent Design and other unnamed “political philosophies” equal billing with evolution in science classrooms.

# Provide “teacher incentives through monetary and recognition awards.” This sounds like an unfunded merit pay plan. Maybe they mean an occasional pat on the head.

# Cut back on bilingual education, just as Texas’ Hispanic population is mushrooming. If a kid can’t speak English after three years, too bad.

# Quit teaching multiculturalism, even as Anglos are becoming a minority in Texas’ public schools.

# Encourage “parental school choice…in public, private or parochial education.” Translation: private school vouchers.

# Oppose mandatory preschool and kindergarten and urge Congress to repeal governmentsponsored early childhood development programs.

# Restrict sex education to abstinence only and give parents veto power over that.

# Promote corporal punishment in the schools.

# Abolish the tenure system for university faculty.

# Don’t issue any school bonds unless at least 25 percent of registered voters participate in the election, meaning there wouldn’t be much school construction for the foreseeable future.

6 Comments

  • Soon, we will have the option afforded parents in South Carolina where children are allowed to be kept out of schoolsanctioned African American history activities at the request of their parents. Some kids grow up knowing very little or nothing at all about their state’s slave trade history. This in a state that has nothing marking the famed attack on Fort Wagner by the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts, the first black, all volunteer combat unit in the Civil War. Their courage against insurmountable odds inspired the formation of more black units. Some of those men would remain in the Army and become part of the 9th Cavalry, which was posted along the TexasMexico border and the Texas frontier, where they were known as Buffalo Soldiers, a name given them by Comanches. Their contributions to this country, from their suicidal charge of Fort Wagner to their protection of Texans, should not be forgotten. We only shame ourselves by ignoring the history of those who fight in our nation’s uniform.

  • Sadyour comments and mindset that is. If you ever scratch your headwondering what is up with the booming growth of home schoolers and private school enrollmenttake a moment to read your writings.

  • You do not have to have private vouchers to have school choice. Belgium takes the tax dollars and assigns those tax dollar to the actual chld/parent. The parent then decides where to send their child to school. I have written Rick Perry and Dan Patrict regarding this idea. We need to take the money from the School “system” and give it to the parents to educate their child. If a parent has a choice then the school has to perform or the parent and child will move to another school. CHOICE is the answer. We are the ONLY FREE country that tells a parent where to send their child to school. How crazy is that??? Isn’t schools about education and by the way I SUPPORT WHAT THE DEPT OF EDUCATION DID REGARDING SOCIAL STUDIES. This is OUR HISTORY, not a cultural history…. We fought wars to have OUR HISTORY! Anyway, the money the state pays for your child would be assigned to you to make the choice of schools. That is true freedom of education!!!!!!

  • Hope some day you realize that not all teachers are Democrats, Liberals, leftwing, etc. Some of us are Libertarian, some Republicans, some independent, some have decided homeschooling our children… So please, do not use the ‘Advocate’ as a platform for ideas that are no shared by all of us.

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