McLeroy wrong choice for SBOE
May 3, 2009
A three-year process to rewrite English language arts and reading standards ended in controversy last May when board members voted on a text that was cobbled together at the last moment.
Written by Editorial, The San Antonio Express News
The Texas State Board of Education, under the leadership of Chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, has become a dysfunctional threat to public schools and a national embarrassment.
A three-year process to rewrite English language arts and reading standards ended in controversy last May when board members voted on a text that was cobbled together at the last moment.
Members received a lengthy, never-before-seen document — slid under their hotel doors — one hour before they convened to vote on the new standards that will guide Texas public education for a decade.
The board performed equally abysmally in adopting new science standards this year. McLeroy led the effort to ignore the testimony and research of leading scientists and educators from Texas and across the nation.
In place of their recommendations, the chairman and a minority of board members pushed a thinly veiled creationist agenda.
Given this record, it's not surprising that more than a dozen bills are circulating in the Legislature to strip the state board of its statutory powers or change the way it is elected or selected.
The problem, however, is not necessarily with the powers the State Board of Education has. It is with the people on the board exercising those powers.
None of these measures would be under consideration in Austin if the board had been led and acted responsibly over the last two years.
If the East Texas residents of SBOE District 9 want to continue to use the ballot box to inflict Don McLeroy on public education, that is their prerogative.
His chairmanship of the State Board of Education is, however, made by appointment of the governor.
That appointment is subject to confirmation by the Texas Senate.
Incomprehensibly, Gov. Rick Perry has nominated McLeroy to lead the board again. The Senate should strongly reject this nomination.
McLeroy has demonstrated he is unfit to lead a body that crafts public education policy for this great state.
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