The TFN reports today that angry responses from educators as well as the general public have persuaded them to hold off, at least temporarily, the adoption of an "alternative" language arts curriculum put together by a former teacher and current Christian-right homophobe and ideologue named Donna Garner. Creationist Dan McLeroy, who heads up the SBOE, favored Garner's curriculum, which had already been rejected as too rigid and outdated (in the TFN's words) ten years ago when the governor of Texas was none other than the clod who's been stinking up the White House since January 2001. Had the SBOE adopted it now, it would have utterly derailed a very intensive revision of language arts standards that has been underway for a couple of years, and which has the blessing of educators.
However, this is only a temporary setback for the fundies. The SBOE has put together a subcommittee (with McLeroy on it, surprise surprise!) to further study the matter. Expect the fight to protect students from these troglodytes to continue.
Other than being "too rigid and outdated", what does the ruling have to do with atheism? Did I miss something?
ReplyDeleteLink doesn't work. Too many atheistexperience.blogspot.com's in the href.
ReplyDeletenal: Fixed. Thanks.
ReplyDeletenfnitloop: Well, now that the link to the earlier article is fixed, you can read about Donna Garner's ties to Christian right extremism. The whole SBOE is overrun with fundamentalists determined to wage war on education, and this current dispute is one more example -- alongside the already running battle against evolution -- of their ideological mendaciousness.
I've been away from the blog for way too long. I read the article you linked to--your prior post. It was quite long, but very good stuff.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, I find it funny that someone would be so deathly afraid of gay people. On the other hand, when a public servant, like Perry, can equate them with perverts and molestors, and not even be called to account by the public, then I'm concerned about people being deathly afraid of gay people. That's just a little too Hitler-esque for me. I mean, molestors are criminals we lock away--and whom society is very unforgiving toward (even worse than being labeled a murderer). So, what must it be like to be paired with such people by your own Governor? We'll people at this blog would know, since atheists were included in that same batch by Perry.
That's a bit frightening. Unfounded fears among a few--phobias--as just sad and funny. But when such fears are pervasive, they become truly dangerous.
There are more things I found on the web:
ReplyDeletehttp://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/p/donna-garner-true-sciolist-1.html
http://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/2011/05/true-sciolist-donna-garner-2.html
http://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/2011/07/donna-garner-true-sciolist-3.html
http://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/2011/07/true-sciolist-donna-garner-4.html
http://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/2011/08/donna-garners-latest-flop.html
http://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/2011/08/donna-garners-self-refuting-ideas.html