Don't Mess with Texas Education

As recent developments have shown, evolution denialist elements of the Texas State Board of Education (SBoE) are about to try and screw over the Texas science education standards which are due their 10-year review in 2008. This report makes it clear that there is an effort underway by some Texas Education Agency (TEA) administrators and some members of the SBoE to distort and diminish evolution instruction in Texas public schools by requiring that the "weaknesses" and "controversies" of evolutionary biology be presented. These are strategies which the Discovery Institute advocates and they dovetail with their Intelligent Design Creationism advocacy as part of their objective to subvert science education in public schools.

We are at a critical juncture in this process since there is currently a conservative majority on the SBoE and half of the SBoE seats are up for (re)election. At least seven members of the fifteen-member SBoE support the Discovery Institute's "teach the controversy" and teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution strategy. I urge anyone willing to defend science education in Texas and eligible to run for election to the SBoE in their district to unseat some of these folks and help bring sanity to science education in Texas. Please help us avoid the inanity of another Dover-like federal trial over the teaching of religious pseudo-science.

The districts up for (re)election in 2008 are:

SBOE       Name                         City
District
2          Mary Helen Berlanga (D)      Corpus Christi
6          Terri Leo (R)                Spring
7          David Bradley (R)            Beaumont
8          Barbara Cargill (R)          The Woodlands
11         Patricia Hardy (R)           Weatherford
13         Mavis B. Knight (D)          Dallas
14         Gail Lowe (R)                Lampasas

To enter the election you must file an application for a place on the ballot with your respective party by Jan. 2, 2008. The filing fee is $300. The primary election will be on March 4, 2008, the general election will be in November, 2008.

Republican Party (512)477-9821
Democratic Party (512) 478-9800

For more details on the election process, go here: http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/demorrep.shtml

For more on the Chris Comer story, go here: http://www.wikio.com/news/Chris+Comer.

Barbara Forrest on the Chris Comer affair: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/ForrestComer.pdf.

Read Judge Jones's opinon on the Dover trial here: http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf