Below is a comparison of quotes from the Texas SBOE District 11 candidates in the 2014 General Election. The unquoted comments throughout are my own and serve to point out our differences. As the general election voter guides come out, you’ll see these differences time and again.
Pat Hardy (Republican Incumbent):
“Deciding with the help of practitioners and experts in the field on the ideas and concepts that will best serve our students in a global society is step one.”
I, for one, believe the “global society” is holding us back. If our system of education were successful, they would be following us.
“In HB5 the Legislature charged the State Board with defining new courses and graduation requirements. Future issues are the social studies textbook adoption and the revision of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for both Career Technology Education and English Language Arts. Via technology I would like a greater numbers of educators and community members involved.”
Make no mistake about it, “Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills” is Common Core with a Texas brand. Via face-to-face contact, I would like to see educators and parents in collaboration.
Eric Mahroum (Republican Primary Challenger):
“The state board of education needs to set high standards when adopting curriculum standards for courses. We must help prepare our students for the real world workforce as well as college.”
Again, no universal standards. We don’t need to prepare them for the workplace and college. We need to teach them how to learn, innovate, create, explore, imagine. Only then will they realize their true vocation.
“End-of-the-year testing does not ideally assess student progress in a timely manner; such testing hurts numerous school districts and unnecessarily penalizes teachers who have dedicated their time creating valuable lesson plans for students.”
So, more frequent testing is the solution? I oppose state mandated standardized testing at any frequency.
Nancy Bean (Democrat)
I couldn’t find any voter guide data, but I pulled this from her website:
” …we want our children to be educated as individuals and citizens who, like all great Texans, can think for themselves. Accountability is not found in high stakes testing sucking 500 million from our educational dollars. Accountability is not found in standardized testing which substitutes filling in bubbles for learning. Accountability of education is all Texans contributing to self-governance and community problem-solving. Accountability in education is all Texans engaged in productive work and meaningful vocation. Meaningful assessment is formative and responsive to the deficits and strengths of individual students in the classroom. Professional educators know how to do that.”
Wow, great stance on standardized testing – not unlike my own. Where we seem to differ is in the importance of parental involvement:
“Children who attend a quality pre-kindergarten are more likely to graduate high school. And we know that high school graduates have higher employment rates and earn an average of $10,000 more a year than those who do not finish. Pre-K graduates are also more likely to own their own home and far less likely to be incarcerated.”
While I do not question her statistics, I suspect that, rather than the pre-K curriculum, it was the parents being actively engaged in their children’s education that influenced their future success.
Particularly concerning is her presentation of “universal prekindergarten” as the solution to “reclaim the promise of public education for all Texans”:
“If Oklahoma can provide universal prekindergarten (emphasis from the original), then Texas surely can.”
Ok, maybe she opposes standardized testing, but here, she seems to support standardized (Common Core?) curriculum.
Craig Sanders (Libertarian):
You’ll find this in the upcoming General Election League of Women Voters election guide.
“I am adamantly opposed to any sort of statewide curriculum. In my experience, you absolutely cannot apply the same curriculum successfully to all students. The curriculum should be managed on a local, preferably classroom, level – with parental involvement.”
The last three words there is the key. When teachers work directly with the parents, or when the teachers ARE the parents, we have better results.
“I would put an end to standardized curriculum and testing. We didn’t build a great nation by following a global standard. We did it by setting the standard. We’re choking the creativity out of our students and stifling the effectiveness of our teachers with one-size-fits-all curriculum and how-do-we-compare-to-[fill in your most envied country here] testing.”
Again, our students shouldn’t be measured based by how well we follow someone else’s plan, it should be measured by how they are following ours.
If your preference regarding your children’s education is Liberty – Your Liberty, the choice is clear:
Craig Sanders
Libertarian Candidate
Texas State Board of Education, District 11
http://www.FreedomFromEducation.org