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Religion & Law

: Thoughts in a Haystack

Slapstick Education

By John Pieret

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David Bradley is a clown.

However, Bradley, the current vice-chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, is a bigoted and dangerous clown:

"Do you know what the Democrat for State Board of Education supports?" reads the handout, which was disseminated at a recent gathering of the Golden Triangle Republican Women and trumpeted earlier this year at a Republican senatorial convention.
The handout features a 2004 newsletter article documenting the scandalous details: In 2003, [Laura] Ewing was one of nearly 20 social studies educators who traveled to Africa and India to study (gasp!) Islamic history and culture, with plans to develop curriculum for Texas schoolchildren in sixth-grade world cultures classes and high school-level world geography and history. ...
Need more proof? Bradley's ad features a photo of Ewing, former teacher, social studies curriculum specialist and Friendswood city councilwoman, caught red-handed, posing in front of the Taj Mahal!

Of course, Ewing's trip was as part of a group of social studies educators and arranged for by Bradley's fellow Republican, Gov. Rick Perry, with the University of Texas and the Aga Khan Foundation. Furthermore, Bradley voted, in his first term on the state board, for the state curriculum standards that call for students to study other cultures and religions that the trip was to assist in preparing and carrying out.

Asked what bothered him so much about Ewing's trip, Bradley said:

"I think Islamic curriculum is about the furthest thing that we need to be introducing into Texas classrooms," he said, adding a bit later, "I think people are real sensitive about Islamic studies, given recent events in the United States."...
"I think we need to spend a whole lot more of our time and energy on reading, writing and arithmetic," he told me. "And, you know, if there's time to spare, the students might be able to spend a little time on some electives. But we're doing a very poor job on reading, writing and arithmetic to be spending time, money and effort on other curriculums."

This goober thinks that, in our world today, understanding science and people in the rest of the world are luxuries rather than essential survival tools.

Thinking that makes him dangerous, trying to keep others from teaching those skills by appealing to hatred and ignorance is evil.
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Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on October 28, 2008 (boomark / email).