Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

If your local City Council acted the way the State Board of Education did last week, there would be hell to pay.

That's right, h-e-double hockey sticks.

Goodness knows words like “consensus” are taboo to the board, which is controlled by social conservatives and sets curriculum standards for Texas public school students.

How else can one explain the body's actions when it approved new English reading standards that some board members hadn't even had time to read?

Veteran Express-News reporter Gary Scharrer explained the move to readers this way:

“A three-year effort to rewrite English language arts and reading standards for the state's public schools came down to a last minute cut-and-past job Friday.”

The Associated Press had this take:

“The State Board of Education's debate on new English and reading standards took another turn Friday as members approved a never-before-seen version of the lengthy document that materialized less than an hour before the board was to take a final vote.”

Calling the debate “wacky and terse,” the wire service reported that some social conservatives on the board prepared the curriculum “overnight” after a preliminary, and divided, discussion and vote Thursday.

The AP account of Friday's final 9-6 vote included the following passages about Republican members of the board who voted against the majority of their GOP colleagues:

“I find it's really wild that we can work for three years on a project and then the board is so qualified they can pull it out of their hat overnight,” said board member Pat Hardy of Worth, who, like other board members, received the substituted document when it was slipped under her hotel door less than an hour before their meeting was set to convene Friday morning.

“I'm appalled by the process that we've taken part in,” said board member Bob Craig of Lubbock. There's been “no opportunity to review it, no teacher group is involved, not even the (Texas Education Agency) staff was involved or had seen it.”

The board includes two members from the San Antonio area — Ken Mercer, a Republican, and Rick Agosto, a Democrat, who both voted for the plan.

An effort to reach Agosto was unsuccessful, but Mercer was unapologetic about the actions of the majority.

In a telephone interview Sunday, Mercer said members of a coalition that opposed the majority's view on how grammar and reading comprehension should be taught in schools were trying to reinvent the wheel, rather than starting with a consultant's working document first approved in March.

He also contended that the opposition was rude to witnesses that expressed views different from its, including opposition members hissing, delivering political threats and even sticking out their tongues.

“It's my belief that they lied and they cheated and they got spanked,” said Mercer, who explained that the final version included most of the grammar section produced by teacher working groups in the alternate plan.

I'd offer congratulations on the butt whipping, but, while Mercer's side “won” the political debate, many Texans don't know if their schoolchildren got a fair shake or not.

In the vote's aftermath, a lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators withheld judgment on the new curriculum.

“Nobody's seen it, so it's hard to say for sure what's in there,” Jennifer Canaday told The Associated Press.

If a group of professional educators doesn't know, parents and schoolchildren are in information purgatory.