Tag Archives: school board

  Historical Apoplexy

Colorado District Decides It’s OK With Real History After All, Keeps AP Classes

Hey, Kids, you won one! Now get back to studying!
Finally some Nice Time from the War On Advanced Placement U.S. History! The Jefferson County school board in Colorado has decided to cancel its plans to review the APUSH framework, apparently deciding that it didn’t want to be in the same anti-education club as Georgia and Oklahoma. Jefferson County had made news four months ago when students walked out of several Denver-area schools to protest the board’s plan to review all curricular material to make sure it would “promote patriotic material, respect for authority, and the free-market system.” That proposal was eventually watered down to eliminate the more censorship-y parts, and now the board has decided to drop even that review. It will go ahead and implement the College Board’s revised framework for APUSH, which became a rightwing Culture War fetish in several states after the Republican National Committee decided the new standards didn’t love America enough. Read more on Colorado District Decides It’s OK With Real History After All, Keeps AP Classes…
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  And Lawyers Are Like Pipe Bombs Or Something

California School Board Must Read Bible At Meetings Or The Terrorists Win

Don't mind me. Just sitting in. Hey, kids, want some loaves and fishes? I have extra
The school board of Chino, California, is being sued by the mean old Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) just because it likes to open its meetings with a few prayers to Jesus. Plus some proselytizing during board meetings, and, OK, offering Bible classes taught with materials from a church, too. Members of the board are pretty sure they’re just doing what George Washington and Jesus want, which is to make sue that God isn’t excluded from public life. At a meeting last week, during which the board voted to seek an attorney to volunteer to defend the case, one board member compared the lawsuit to the recent terrorist attacks in France, because of course the First Amendment is a lot like an automatic rifle. Read more on California School Board Must Read Bible At Meetings Or The Terrorists Win…
  And Yet The Wu Tang Klan Continues To Get A Free Pass

Non-Racist Texas School Board Member Posted SO MUCH KKK Stuff Online

This never ends well
We suppose this counts as good news, at least in the end. Chris Harris, a member of the Hooks Independent School Board in Texas, has resigned after posting multiple racist images and messages to Facebook last week. He later explained that he wasn’t racist at all; he just got a little worked up in a Facebook discussion of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, which is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Harris posted this image in the discussion thread: Read more on Non-Racist Texas School Board Member Posted SO MUCH KKK Stuff Online…
  All This Fuss Over A Few Clumps Of Words

Arizona Voters Abort Biology-Textbook-Censoring School Board

Grab yer razor blades and white-out!
So here’s one more bit of Election Nice Time: turns out that even in hyper-conservative Gilbert, Arizona, a bedroom community to the Phoenix metro horrorplex, it is in fact possible for a conservative school board to go to far. And it looks like the Gilbert School Board’s decision last week to razor out a page from an Honors Biology textbook in the high school — because it mentions the abortion pill — is what counts as too far: the good people of Gilbert elected two new members and reelected an anti-censorship member, replacing the Tea Party-leaning majority on the board with a new majority that is firmly against slicing out a page from a biology textbook out of fear that high schoolers will learn that abortion exists. There were other tensions between the board and the community, too, but the textbook censorship seems to have been the last straw. Read more on Arizona Voters Abort Biology-Textbook-Censoring School Board…
  Attack Of The 50-Foot Straw Man

Fox’s Gretchen Carlson Tells Protesting Colorado Punks To Love It Or Leave It

Hey, Kids, you won one! Now get back to studying!
Fox News lady Gretchen Carlson has just about had it with these radical extremist Denver-area high school students and their unruly protests over proposed changes to the history curriculum. The walkouts have continued all week, and have spread to additional schools. And by golly, Gretchen is angry that these kids would dare to object to the school board’s simple wish that they learn patriotism and respect for authority. Read more on Fox’s Gretchen Carlson Tells Protesting Colorado Punks To Love It Or Leave It…
  Founding Fodder

Colorado Students Ditch Class, Refuse To Love America

George Washington crossing the Red River
Students at several Denver-area high schools walked out of classes Monday and Tuesday to protest a proposal by conservative school board members to make the district’s Advanced Placement U.S. History classes more patriotic and America-loving. The board, sharing widespread concerns that revisions to the AP US History framework will be nothing but liberal propaganda, recently proposed a committee that would make sure school curricula only taught Goodthink: Read more on Colorado Students Ditch Class, Refuse To Love America…
  congratulations graduates: science is a lie

Wingnut School Board President Uses Graduation Speech To Audition For AM Radio Show

You know what would be a nice change from the usual high school commencement speech? A speech that really lets the graduates know the challenges they’ll face in the adult world, that motivates them to be the change they wish to see, that demonstrates that they can make a difference. For instance, at last Wednesday’s high school graduation ceremonies in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, the president of the Quakertown Community School Board, Paul Stepanoff, used the occasion to rant at the graduates about how climate change is fake and abortion needs to be banned. It really gave the graduates a whole bunch of reasons to become active in local politics and to work to get Paul Stepanoff off the Quakertown Community School Board. Mission: Accomplished! Read more on Wingnut School Board President Uses Graduation Speech To Audition For AM Radio Show…
  aka 'victoria jackson on the brazos'

Texas School Board Lady Sorry She Got Caught Screaming About Muslim Getting Elected

It’s getting to where there is just no freedom at all anymore. Look at poor Jo Lynn Haussmann, a recently elected member of the school board in Keller, Texas, who was only trying to emphasize the importance of voting last week when she posted this important message on her FacePlace account: “Do you realize because SO FEW voters took the time and responsibility to VOTE in the municipal elections – YOU NOW HAVE A ‘MUSLIM’ on the City Council!!! What A SHAME!!!!” See, that is just Voter Education. But since a teevee station aired a screengrab of the now-deleted comment, Haussmann has apologized for it, although it’s not yet clear whether she’ll be held accountable for her crimes against punctuation. Read more on Texas School Board Lady Sorry She Got Caught Screaming About Muslim Getting Elected…
  just say no to science

Pals Of Oil & Gas Industry Will Rescue Texas Kids From Lies Of Environmental Science Textbooks, As Soon As They Find Some

Hey, Science fans! Now that you’ve had a couple days to enjoy that little sigh of relief over that fired Ohio creationist “science” teacher who won’t be reinstated, here’s a new thing to worry about: After another round of State Board of Education textbook hearings in Texas, there’s some good news — looks like biology texts survived challenges from creationists — and some awful news. At the last minute, the Board accepted testimony from Becky Berger, a self-identified “geologist and oil and gas professional,” who attacked the only environmental science textbook up for consideration. According to education watchdog Texas Freedom Network (TFN), Berger “insisted that high schools shouldn’t even teach environmental science classes,” and also claimed that the book up for adoption “is filled with factual errors” on topics like hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Just one teensy problem: [Berger] provided no actual written documentation to back up her claims. None. In fact, she didn’t even provide a list of the alleged errors so that the publisher could respond to her claims. (emphasis in original) OK, but when has “evidence” ever mattered in the Texas educational system, especially for a completely subjective area like the teaching of science? After all, this is a state where the 2012 Republican party platform opposed teaching critical thinking. Read more on Pals Of Oil & Gas Industry Will Rescue Texas Kids From Lies Of Environmental Science Textbooks, As Soon As They Find Some…
  cheaply printed flyers: when internet rumors simply won't do the job

Tucson Hero Saved Gabby Giffords’s Life But Is Unacceptably Gay

Remember how we all were gay for Daniel Hernandez, the awesomest intern in history, who saved Gabby Giffords’s life by applying pressure to her gunshot wounds, keeping her from bleeding out? And how proud we were of his humility and basic decency? Hernandez, who was a student at the University of Arizona at the time, has gotten involved in local politics himself, and now serves on a local school board. And he is now one of four members of that district’s five-member board facing recall elections. We won’t even attempt to make sense of why; as RightWing Watch says, it’s “the kind of byzantine saga found only in local politics.” But some people are apparently not big fans of this guy who literally kept a shooting victim alive with his bare hands, because he is both gay and, for some reason, in favor of gun control. Above is one of the flyers that have reportedly been handed out to parents as they drop their kids off at district schools. The leader of the recall effort against Hernandez says he doesn’t know anything about the flyers. Oh, and also, the leader of the recall effort against Hernandez is the brother-in-law of the school board president. Forget it, Jake; it’s Arizona. Read more on Tucson Hero Saved Gabby Giffords’s Life But Is Unacceptably Gay…
  Pitching Wu

Kansas School Board Candidate Will Solve Budget Problems By Eliminating Evolution

Jack Wu, an actual candidate for Kansas’s state school board, pledges on his very impressive homemade website to do something about the most serious problem facing the schools today: The current public educational system in Kansas and the United States is preparing its students to be liars, crooks, thieves, murderers, and perverts. And how will he address this specific set of issues? My mission, in running for the Kansas State Board of Education, is to throw out the crap that teachers are feeding their students and replace it with healthy good for the soul knowledge from the holy scriptures. Read more on Kansas School Board Candidate Will Solve Budget Problems By Eliminating Evolution…