Who Should Set Academic Standards ?

There has been an ongoing battle here in Texas since the right-wing seized control of the State Board of Education (SBOE). The battle is over just what Texas school children will be required to learn in their schools. In the past, academic standards for schools in the state were devised and proposed by academics and teachers, and given a final approval by the elected State Board of Education. That is no longer true.

Instead of just overseeing and approving academics standards, the current SBOE (pictured) has decided it should take part in actually writing much of the curriculum themselves. This started as an effort to inject creationism into science classrooms. While the teaching of evolution was not banned (thank goodness), the SBOE has developed a pamphlet on creationism which is to be distributed with the science books (if they can find the money in the deficit-plagued state budget).

But it didn't stop with the science curriculum. The past few months have seen the SBOE indulge in rewriting much of the social studies curriculum to fit their own warped right-wing view of Texas and United States history and government. This ridiculous rewriting of American history caused a furor and some states, like California, even passed a law to make sure their own students were not taught using the textbooks containing the Texas SBOE propaganda efforts.

One of the organizations that has been in the forefront of the fight against injecting right-wing propaganda and fundamentalist religion into the classroom is the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) -- a faith-based organization dedicated to religious freedom, civil liberties and quality education.

The TFN decided to find out just what the people of Texas really thought of the SBOE's actions. To that end, they asked Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to conduct a survey of Texans. The GQR poll was conducted from May 4th through May 12th of this year of 972 likely voters (and has a margin of error of 4.0%).

I was pleasantly shocked at the survey's results, especially since Texas is one of those states that has recently been dominated by right-wing Republican policies and leaders. In spite of this, it looks like most Texans are not happy with the SBOE's rewriting of academic standards and would prefer those standards be set by professionals. Consider the following numbers:

WHO SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR WRITING CURRICULUM AND TEXTBOOK STANDARDS?

Teachers and Academic Scholars..........72%

Elected SBOE..........19%

Don't Know..........9%

Even more remarkable is the fact that this belief that teachers and academic scholars should set the academic standards crosses political lines (and the majorities exceed the margin of error in all political divisions). Here is the breakdown by political affiliation:

BELIEVE TEACHERS & ACADEMIC SCHOLARS SHOULD SET STANDARDS

Democrats..........84%

Independents..........76%

Republicans..........63%

Those numbers might make some think the SBOE right-wingers are in trouble in November. Sadly, that is probably not the case. First, not all SBOE members are up for re-election this November. Second, there is no effective opposition to some that are up for re-election. The best that could be hoped for is that Democrats win one or two seats on the SBOE (and the demonization of Democrats in this heavily Republican state could even prevent that).

Probably the best that can be hoped for this year is for a slim majority of moderate Republicans and Democrats to win and be able to prevent the worst future excesses of the right-wing contingent on the SBOE.