Texas Freedom Network

2:00 – The state board resumed testimony about a half-hour ago. Various state legislators are currently speaking to the board, calling for a delay in final adoption of the standards until teachers and academics experts are able to conduct a formal review of changes made over the last three months.

2:25 – State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, just schooled the state board on its responsibilities under the law. He calls on the board to delay final approval of the standards until Texans are assured those standards are sound.

2:34 – State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, is speaking to the board now. Rep. Turner peeled the paint off the barn in his speech at the Don’t White-Out Our History rally earlier this afternoon outside the Texas Education Agency building.

3:15 – The board is back on the list of those who signed up to testify.

3:56 – We’ve heard from little more than 10 percent of the more than 200 people signed up to testify today. No word yet on whether the board will cut off testimony at a certain time.

4:04 – A University of Texas student is schooling board members about issues like the struggle for equal and civil rights for men and women.

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11:23 – Kelly Shackelford, head of the Liberty Institute/Free Market Foundation, the Texas affiliate of the far-right Focus on the Family, is up. Shackelford argues that the words “separation of church and state” aren’t in the Constitution. Neither, we might say, is “fair trial,” “separation of powers” “checks and balances” and other basic constitutional principles. Shackelford thinks “separation of church” is being used to “abuse” the freedom of students. He wants students to contrast the intent of the Founders (or what he believes was the intent of the Founders) who wrote the Constitution with the phrase “separation of church and state.”

11:32 – Board member David Bradley calls separation of church and state a “myth.” He notes that the Ten Commandments adorn federal buildings like the Supreme Court.

11:34 – Shackelford: There are people who want to engage in a “religious cleansing” in this country. He argues that students are being punished for expressing their faith in public schools.

11:37 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar: “tremendous confusion” about how the First Amendment should be implemented in relation to religious freedom. It’s hard to disagree — people like Dunbar and Shackelford have worked hard make it confusing.

11:39 – Board member Barbara Cargill: students used to be taught correctly about the First Amendment’s protection for religious freedom (meaning that they weren’t taught about separation of church and state).

11:46 – Rick Green, a motivational speaker for David Barton’s WallBuilders who lost a bid for the Republican nomination for a state Supreme Court seat this spring, was supposed to be next. A speaker named Jason Moore is up instead. Moore is arguing about the importance of promoting “American exceptionalism.” He claims that university professors earlier this year were testifying before the board in favor of socialism as the preferred “form of government” for America. Ummm… Jason, who? He offers no names, of course. We certainly remember no university professors making such statements.

11:57 – Regarding separation of church and state and religious freedom, we think these words from former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion in a 2005 church-state case are appropriate: “Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” One recalls that Justice O’Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Reagan.

12:22 – Board members were permitted to invite one speaker each to address the board early in the hearing. Invited testifiers are now done. Nearly 200 other speakers are on the list of testifiers. We find it hard to imagine that the board will hear from them all before breaking tonight. The board is about to break for a short lunch.

12:28 – Just broke for lunch. Now we’re off to the “Don’t White-Out Our History” rally!

A live video webcast of today’s hearing is available through the Texas Education Agency website.

9:10 – Public testimony on the proposed new social studies curriculum standards just began. First speaker: the Rev. Stephen Broden, who’s arguing that social studies students must learn the Judeo-Christian heritage of the nation. His testimony is right out of the WallBuilders playbook.

9:16 – Board member Lawrence Allen asks Rev. Broden whether he thinks a focus on Judeo-Christian values in the standards would be representative of all faiths practiced in America. Rev. Broden says he does. Really? Hindus? Muslims? People of other faiths?

9:19 – Rev. Broden also argued that the standards currently under consideration — as revised in January and March by the board — appropriately cover the contributions of minorities in America. (Rev. Broden is African-American.) Board member Rick Agosto asks whether Rev. Broden has actually read the standards. Rev. Broden: in a “cursory” way. We should note, by the way, that Rev. Broden is a Republican candidate for Congress in Dallas.

9:26 – Rod Paige, former education secretary under the second President Bush, is up.

9:27 – Paige: “We have allowed ideology to drive and define the standards of our curriculum in Texas. It has swung from liberal to conservative.” (We’re waiting for evidence that the Republican-dominated board and then-Gov. Bush’s education commissioner in 1998 adopted “liberal” curriculum standards.) The swing has been too broad, Paige says.

9:29 – Paige wants the board to reconsider how the standards cover the history of slavery and the civil rights movement: “I’m of the view that the institution of slavery and the civil rights movement are dominant elements in our history and shape who we are today.”

9:30 – Paige acknowledges comments from board members that the standards should be “fair” (“balanced,” we have heard). Yet, he says, history isn’t fair; it is what it is. The standards should teach the facts, he says.

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