Don McLeroy will no longer be the chair of the Texas State Board of Education, according to Texas Freedom Network.This is a good decision, but it is probably not good news, since there are several other hard-line Creationists who are liable to be on the shortlist to be appointed as the new Chair by Governor Perry.
Additional: Reports in Austin American-Statesman and Houston Chronicle.
On 28 May 2009 I transmitted a post to the AERA-L discussion list titled "Science Education in Texas #2" [Hake (2009)] which contains some commentary on the deposed Don McLeroy.
ReplyDeleteThe abstract reads:
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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Science Education in Texas,” John (Texas) Clement stated that the resignation of Chris Comer, Texas Education Agency's director of science curriculum, was old news and cited a 2007 report by Steven Schafersman, President of the Texas Citizens for Science. I quote an even more complete and up-to-date report by Sandhya Bathija (2009), which indicates that (a) Chris Comer's lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency was dismissed on 31 March 2009 by a George-W-Bush-appointed U.S. District Judge; and (b) Texas school board activists may well prevail in infusing creationism and intelligent design into Texas schools, as well as schools throughout the U.S. The latter because many publishers tend to cater to the curriculum mandates of Texas, evidently the second-largest state purchaser of textbooks in the U.S.
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To access the complete 14 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/nb3bem.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 2009. “Science Education in Texas #2,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/nb3bem. Post of 28 May 2009 21:01:29 -0700 to AERA-L, Net-Gold, & PhysLrnR. The abstract is also online at http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/2009/05/science-education-in-texas-2.html with a provision for comments.