Category Archives for Don McLeroy

No Mo’ Lowe?

It looks likely that Gail Lowe, who presided over the Texas State Board of Education‘s social studies curriculum debacle last year, has only days left in her tenure as board chair. From the Houston Chronicle: Gov. Rick Perry’s appointments of John Bradley as head of the Forensic Science Commission and Gaile Lowe as State Board [...]

Also posted in Gail Lowe, State Board of Education
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Irony, Thy Name Is McLeroy

Even as a conservative education think tank was putting the finishing touches on a report excoriating the Texas State Board of Education for wrecking social studies standards, former board chair Don McLeroy was speaking to a far-right Education Policy Conference in St. Louis (headlined by Ann Coulter) saying: We have bequeathed a precious legacy to [...]

Also posted in curriculum standards, social studies, State Board of Education
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Don McLeroy’s Swan Song

Donna Garner, the serial e-mailer ideologically aligned with the Texas State Board of Education‘s faction of religious extremists, is distributing to her e-mail list an extended excerpt from what she reports is a speech by state board member Don McLeroy. McLeroy apparently made the speech on October 23 at a Bastrop County Tea Party event. [...]

Also posted in State Board of Education
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More Bad History from Don McLeroy

Right-wing websites are still hailing the Texas State Board of Education‘s passage of a resolution that attacks Islam and falsely claims that social studies textbooks are anti-Christian and pro-Muslim. And state board member Don McLeroy, the dentist from Bryan/College Station, is still pretending to be an expert in history (in addition to science, economics, political [...]

Also posted in Islam, Just Educate, State Board of Education
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Board Takes Up Anti-Muslim Measure

The Texas State Board of Education is about to take up a proposed resolution attacking Islam and claiming that social studies textbooks are anti-Christian. TFN Insider will keep you updated on progress. 9:53 a.m. – We notice that board members Barbara Cargill and Don McLeroy have been going through world history textbooks currently used in [...]

Also posted in Barbara Cargill, Bob Craig, Cynthia Dunbar, Dave Welch, David Bradley, Gail Lowe, Islam, Ken Mercer, Lawrence Allen, Mavis Knight, Pat Hardy, Rick Agosto, State Board of Education, Terri Leo
| 15 Comments |


Promoting Political Theology

It’s educational when religious-right leaders reveal — inadvertently or not — the crass ideological calculations that motivate their agendas. A press release yesterday from Terry McIntosh, a Christian minister who evangelizes Muslims in the Middle East, offers a good example. The press release, headlined “America First,” warns Christians “against the dangers of socialism in the [...]

Also posted in Terry McIntosh
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Gov. Perry Gives Parents the Silent Treatment

The usually voluble Gov. Rick Perry has made essentially no public comment about how the far-right wing of the Texas State Board Education engineered a now nationally infamous rewrite of social studies curriculum standards in May. We believe the governor’s silence represents a fundamental failure of accountability to Texas parents.

Also posted in Gail Lowe, Rick Perry, State Board of Education
| 8 Comments |


Embracing Extremism in the Texas GOP

UPDATE: Now we find out that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is coming to the Texas GOP convention in June. See more at the end of this post. Don McLeroy lost his chairmanship of the State Board of Education last year because he was more interested in promoting his own narrow ideological views than facts and [...]

Also posted in Republican Party of Texas
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America vs. the World?

Yesterday’s debate over social studies curriculum standards at the Texas State Board of Education mostly illuminated political biases of board members more than it did good education policies. Many conservative board members opposed, for example, restoring civil rights and labor leader Dolores Huerta to third-grade standards because they say she’s a socialist and isn’t an [...]

Also posted in social studies
| 9 Comments |


Keeping Communism Out of First Grade?

A Wall Street Journal piece today on the Texas State Board of Education’s politicization of proposed social studies curriculum standards notes one particularly outrageous change the board’s far-right faction made (which we have already reported about) back in January. Check out the quote from board member Don McLeroy: Debate about certain provisions has been intense. [...]

Also posted in social studies
| 25 Comments |