Houston Chronicle, Liberals “Crying” Over Another Loss at State Board of Education
Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express News Editorial Board and Austin liberals, face it, you’re not mainstream and you don’t speak for “mainstream” Texans. That’s why your narrow views continue to get rejected by a majority of Texans through their elected representatives at the Texas State Board of Education.
The recent passage of the resolution on “Balanced Treatment of Religious Groups” in textbooks, seeking to prevent discrimination against religion, was another stinging loss suffered by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and yes, the Texas Freedom Network. This is the latest example of how these groups are completely out of touch with the beliefs and concerns of Texans.
These three groups were all heavily against the passage of a simple, yet detailed resolution that has the goal of teaching accurate information about all religions, and eliminating the Pro-Islam/anti-Christian bias that the author and others show evidence of, in such resolution.
By the way, the resolution talked about textbooks approved for use starting in 1999-2003, and some of those textbooks may still be being used in Texas classrooms today. Why? Because SBOE rules do not allow for resolutions on textbooks that are supposed to be the ones being used in classrooms. So you can’t criticize current books, so the criticism was based on the most recent flawed books that could be discussed, as well as textbooks used in other states. And if the resolution could have included such criticism, there’s strong evidence of problems in our current textbooks as well. Not even employees at TEA know for sure, though, if these 1999-2003 textbooks have been completely removed.
The Houston Chronicle could not wait to pile on and join the losing side and accuse the SBOE of engaging in politics and claiming the SBOE effort was not supported by facts. Yet the Houston Chronicle itself did not supply facts to support it’s own claim. The Houston Chronicle relied on politics themselves to support their position, relying on the flawed report of the extreme liberal group, Texas Freedom Network, and then pointing to the election results of the presenter of the resolution, Randy Rives. Why not just produce a link to the resolution with the details and facts that back up the claim?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/7220827.html
Shouldn’t all this be irrelevant? Facts are facts and if Randy Rives and others show facts and detail to support their conclusion that a pro-Islam/anti-Christian bias exists in Texas textbooks, it shouldn’t matter what election he was involved in. But since the Houston Chronicle brought up Rives’ election history, why didn’t they bring up the fact that he was the president of his local school board, Ector County I.S.D. in the Odessa area? I guess that would make it look like he knows a thing or two about education.
Here’s link to the resolution. Antidiscrimination Resolution
And if the Houston Chronicle was so interested in facts, why didn’t they cite to a professor or educator who testified against the resolution at the hearing last week? Because no such professor or educator presented such testimony. In fact almost every person and group who testified, testified in favor of the resolution, except for the ACLU, AUSCS, and TFN.
And why didn’t the Houston Chronicle tell you that Texas Freedom Network is a liberal group which has no expertise in education matters? They spent time telling you that the Board members who supported this resolution were “conservative”, so where’s the equal treatment? How do we know that Texas Freedom Network is liberal, you may ask?
Let me just say this, Texas Freedom Network was founded by Cecile Richards, who is the current president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and a former deputy chief of staff for Nancy Pelosi.
Need I say more?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/7220827.html
And wait until you read the super spin in the San Antonio Express News op-ed by Veronica Flores-Paniagua. Be careful when reading, you might get dizzy. There are even less facts in this bizarre hit piece. According to Flores-Paniagua, Texas should “tolerate” inaccurate and biased information in textbooks. I disagree.
Click here to see how Flores-Paniagua was concerned about bias and accuracy when it helped her beat up conservative SBOE members and prop up liberal SBOE members. This article by her is also flawed as it fails to mention that the LULAC was already listed specifically in the social studies standards, and the vote in question was calling for them to be added an additional time. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/demographic_projections_make_fallacy_of_sboe_direction_clear_94638214.html