Texas Gov. Greg Abbott picks homeschooler to chair State Board of Education

Anti-intellectualism at it's finest or can a balance be struck? 

The issue is not homeschooling versus traditional schooling per se but, that someone may have an agenda that is detrimental to a child's education as a whole.  An issue Amanda Marcotte notes for Slate:

Bahorich is one of the quieter members of the board, largely going along with the board's radical right-wing agenda, which has included voting to approve history textbooks that claim Moses helped shape democracy, show sympathy with Joseph McCarthy, and argue country music is culturally relevant but hip-hop is not,,,.  But the school board battles that Republicans have been waging in Texas have nothing to do with improving the quality of the state's public schools. Most of these efforts are about making the education experience less educational, by injecting conservative propaganda into history class and religious dogma into science class. Texas is bent on undermining public schools, not fixing them. This appointment only serves as further proof.

An individual with a background with homeschooling might, conceivably be a good candidate - as in fixing issues that caused them to choose that option - but not if that person denounces the public school system. Nobody belongs in a job they don't believe should exist.

According to Texas Public Radio, Bahorich homeschooled her own sons before sending them to a private high school.

The Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog group, warned that Bahorich would “put culture war agendas ahead of educating more than 5 million Texas kids.”

“If Gov. Abbott wanted to demonstrate that he won’t continue his predecessor’s efforts to politicize and undermine our state’s public schools, this appointment falls far short,” Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said in a statement. “The governor has appointed as board chair an ideologue who voted to adopt new textbooks that scholars sharply criticized as distorting American history, who rejected public education for her own family and who supports shifting tax dollars from neighborhood public schools to private and religious schools through vouchers.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott picks homeschooler to chair State Board of Education

Laredo Morning Times - LMTonline.com - > Archives > Front > News > Texas board approves textbook review rule changes

The Texas Board of Education imposed tighter rules Friday on the citizen review panels that scrutinize proposed textbooks, potentially softening fights over evolution, religion's role in U.S. history and other ideological matters that have long seeped into what students learn in school.

Tension over the issue has been building for years in the country's second most populous state, where the textbook market is so large that changes can affect the industry nationwide. Critics complain that a few activists with religious or political objections have too much power to shape what the state's more than 5 million public school students are taught.

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"It won't eliminate politics, but it will make it where it's a more informed process," said Thomas Ratliff, a Republican board member who pushed for the changes, which he said "force us to find qualified people, leave them alone, and let them do their jobs."

The new rules were unanimously approved.

An outspoken conservative on the board, David Bradley, said he did his best to insert language mitigating what was approved. But he said "liberals are really trying to make it difficult for Christians and conservatives to have a voice in public education."

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The catalyst for revamping the citizen review panels came last summer, when ardent evolution skeptics — including a nutritionist and a chemical engineer — caused a tumultuous fight by challenging a proposed biology textbook that they claimed contained too much information on natural selection, Charles Darwin's theory on how life on earth evolved.

Friday's changes will take effect before the board tackles the potentially thorny adoption of new social studies textbooks later this year.

Ratliff refused to predict whether the changes would avoid the raucous culture war debates that thrust the board into the national spotlight in the past. But he said the education board has come a long way.

Laredo Morning Times - LMTonline.com - > Archives > Front > News > Texas board approves textbook review rule changes