The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Betty]

The news has become little more than a combination of what I'm supposed to be afraid of today and entertainment tonight.

[scaeagles]

Indeed.

[scaeagles]

Apparently the boycott is spreading - to girls basketball teams.

That's a great way to gain support and protest the AZ law.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Reason #263 that the phrase "Texas State Board of Education" is an oxymoron: Texas school board member Dunbar, who home-schools her children and says sending them to local schools would be like “throwing them in the enemy’s flames"...

source

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Shouldn't it be mandatory that a board member have a child in the public system?

There's some awful stuff in that article, but this jumped out at me.

...and rename the slave trade to the "Atlantic triangular trade.”

Wow.

[katiesue]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Shouldn't it be mandatory that a board member have a child in the public system?

They're usually a position that's voted on so if the public wants someone in who's kid isn't in the school that's up to them.

My hometown I think two of the school board members had kids who went to a private christian school. They voted to segregate sex ed - because you know what'll happen if you teach boys and girls about sex in the same room? They had to hire more teachers it was lame.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Shouldn't it be mandatory that a board member have a child in the public system?

Mandatory? No. But as a general qualification for who I might prefer people vote into the office I'd put, "Not a self-professed enemy of the very institution they are campaigning to lead," high on my list. I can certainly understand someone who homeschools their kid, but would want to improve the public system. But that is clearly not board member Dunbar's goal.

[Alex]

From her point of view it seems to be. She's keeping her kids out of it until it has been changed into an institution more to here approval.

And no, being a parent of a child in a district should not be a requirement. Being a parent does not grant magic insight into the task of education. In fact, I could see it being viewed as a conflict of interest. Kind of like saying you have to own an oil well before you can be on a mineral resources board.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

From her point of view it seems to be. She's keeping her kids out of it until it has been changed into an institution more to here approval.

Certainly. But I draw a distinction between wanting reform and being openly hostile.

It's not that fact that she homeschools that bothered me, it's the fact that she homeschools and considers public school "the enemy".

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Certainly. But I draw a distinction between wanting reform and being openly hostile.

While I disagree with why she's openly hostile, I don't think there's necessarily a conflict for being so. If she were to get her way and the entire curriculum were changed to one that was no longer at odds with her Christian faith, I'd certainly hope that any reform minded people who made it onto the board would be openly hostile to the school system and if I had any I'd keep my kids out of it until that change were achieved.

Though I'm curious how she views her reforms as eliminating the unconstitutional nature of public schools. There's an argument there to be made (though it ignores 150 years of civil reality; though if Clarence Thomas can hold the view that the 8th Amendment should be frozen in 1787, rolling back views of government role in education back a 100+ years isn't so odd) but tinkering with the specifics of curriculum does nothing to address it.