See you in two years for the textbook fight

Damning with faint praise: “It could have been so much worse.”

The final votes on Texas K-12 science standards are done. “Strengths and weaknesses” didn’t make it in (yesterday), and neither did a lot of other non-scientific amendments. But things got watered down.

I must remember to write an email to Rick Agosto, the Republican who voted against arguably the most non-scientific language and who must have received incredible pressure not to do so. Interestingly, he represents the northern half of the county our university is in, although the university resides in Mary Helen Berlanga’s district.

• Evo.Sphere live blog
• Texas Freedom Network live blog (missed this one previously, sorry)
• Thoughts From Kansas live blog (broken into several pieces; this is the first)

And here, perhaps, is a good summary of the entire anti-intellectual, unprofessional, disrespectful nature of these events... Don McLeroy, quoted on the Texas Freedom Network and Thoughts From Kansas blog:

I disagree with all these experts. Somebody has to stand up to these experts.

...wow.

A man charged with an important supervisory role of a massive education system says he doesn’t value expertise. Experts are the enemy.

Isn’t one of the points of education to create experts?

How can we make expertise and skills and professionalism respected again?

Textbook adoption in two years. But it looks like there won't be too many more posts with the “Texas science standards” label in the near future.