Ethics

Perry Names Lowe as BOE Chair

By Ed Brayton

To no one's surprise, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has named a wingnut to head the State Board of Education -- it just wasn't the wingnut we expected. Instead of Cynthia Dunbar, he named Gail Lowe as chairman. How much of a wingnut is Lowe? She was the one who appointed David Barton to the advisory committee on the social studies curriculum. That fact alone makes her unqualified to drive past a school, much less control the curriculum taught inside of it.

She's a young earth creationist, of course. And an advocate of abstinence-only sex education in a state with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country despite 96% of the school districts in the state teaching abstinence-only. So much for that theory. Lowe gets to serve as chairman for the next two years until the Texas legislature meets again.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on July 12, 2009 (boomark / email).