State Board Takes up Hot Topic

The Texas State Board of Education is stepping into a minefield that needs to be navigated. According to a Houston Chronicle article the board is going to look at

The State Board of Education, an elected body with a history of fierce ideological debates about textbook content, now wants to put its stamp on the curriculum that guides the instruction of 4.4 million Texas schoolchildren.

At its meeting Thursday, the 15-member board is expected to scrap a curriculum revision process dominated by teachers and the Texas Education Agency and discuss a new timetable for revising the English reading and writing standards.

Many on the board want to replace a student-centered curriculum that calls on students to use their own attitudes and ethics to interpret texts with teacher-centered instruction that emphasizes the basics of spelling, grammar and punctuation

Gee, and I thought that is what we were supposed to be teaching them in English class. It is time to get some common sense into curriculum and teach the 3 R's again. Enough of this what do you see, how do you feel. We have developed a generation of students who cannot think on their own, let alone be able to hold an intelligent conversation where it is point, counter point

It was a fight social conservatives on the board lost in 1997, when moderates and liberals adopted the curriculum for all subjects. Now, with social conservatives expected to have a majority on the board for the first time after the November elections, the plan to rewrite the English standards is viewed by some as the opening shot in an effort to put a conservative imprint on the state's curriculum.

Maybe we will get back to teaching subject matter instead of teaching to a substandard test.

"This is really going to be the big battle in public education over the next few years — what is it our students are going to learn," said Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a group that monitors the state board for influence by the religious right. "We could see a lot of textbooks that are based on personal and political beliefs of a majority of the state board rather than on facts that students need to learn."
Quinn said that though it's unlikely that the English curriculum discussion will veer toward any political ideology, the effort could set the stage for 2008, when science standards are up for review.
The board defeated efforts to weaken the discussion of evolution in biology textbooks in 2003, but Quinn said that if the science curriculum is rewritten to include religious-based ideas such as intelligent design, the books will follow suit.

I checked out the TFN Website, and I will let you all draw your own conclusions.

Board member Don McLeroy, a Bryan Republican who is pushing the effort to change the reading and writing standards, denied any agenda to inject religion into the Texas curriculum.
"That's a false thing to worry about," said McLeroy. "You never heard me interject religion into anything, and I'm a very religious guy."

McLeroy said his only motive is to make the learning standards more understandable for teachers and parents. He wants to implement a back-to-basics curriculum that could drive achievement on reading and writing tests.
"Texas standards are not grade-level specific, most of them are noise. They can't be measured and are just a bunch of fuzzy words," McLeroy said.

State law gives the board authority over curriculum content standards, called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS. It is one of the few duties left to the board, which has seen some of its authority over textbooks stripped by the Legislature.
Board member Mary Helen Berlanga, a Corpus Christi Democrat who often clashes with conservatives about textbook content, said she believes McLeroy is leading a "good-faith effort" to help students learn. But she also said as the process moves forward, "we're going to have to be very watchful."
The education agency is revising the standards subject by subject. The board accepted the math revisions proposed by the TEA last year.

One criticism voiced at the session is that the TEKS are too student-centered, often asking students to use their attitudes, behaviors and ethics to interpret texts. For example, students in fourth through eighth grades are expected to "describe mental images that text descriptions evoke" and "compare text events with his or her own or other readers' experiences."
McLeroy calls such standards "fuzzy English" and wants to expunge them from the state's curriculum. He said such standards can't be measured on state tests.
Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, voted in 1997 in favor of an alternate set of standards that was heavier on the basics of spelling and grammar. Critics said the alternate standards would wind up micromanaging teachers by dictating what and how they must teach rather than giving them the flexibility to determine how to reach individual students.

I could sit here and bitch and moan about Texas education, what is missing, and what needs to be done. It would do no good. What I do suggest is you contact the Texas Board of Education, either here or through this page with their individual e-mail addresses. And when you do contact them make sure you are polite and to the point . Basically we need to get away from feel good teaching that does not provide today's students with the skills to survive, let alone thrive in today's world.