Perry Appoints Cargill Head Of State Education Board
Gov. Rick Perry has named Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, to chair the State Board of Education.
Her appointment comes as the Senate adjourned without approving Gail Lowe, her predecessor. Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville and chair of the Senate Nominations committee, said in March that was because Lowe did not have enough votes for confirmation on the floor. Since the governor appointed Cargill during the interim, she will not go through the Senate confirmation process until lawmakers return in 2013. Her term is set to expire in February of that year.
The former science teacher consistently votes with the board's ...
Comments (30)
Stephen Lloyd via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I had a science teacher, a geologist by trade no less, in middle school who was a creationist. People like this make no sense.
Stephen Lloyd via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I also don't understand the downside of learning about minority groups. I guess these people don't want students having informed opinions. They just want an army of ignorant bigots like themselves.
Frances Demps via Texas Tribune on Facebook
They'll be writing new science standards this year, so Perry's making sure to stack the deck. They've already screwed up social studies. I wonder if Texas is the only state in the Union where students are not supposed to be taught that the U.S. is a democracy. Instead, students will learn that U.S. is a constitutional republic. Despite being advised otherwise,they've removed "democratic" and all it's forms from the social studies standards. Complete jackasses!
Jamie Lewis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
SIGH
Michael Cosper via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And they wonder why people are losing confidence in the public school system and do not want to pay to preserve it anymore. This is also by design I think.
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Definitely by design to screw up public schools so they can push private schools. That way more of Perry's cronies can line their pockets. UGH!
Frances Demps via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The truly unfortunate part is that because students are tested on the standards that's exactly what teachers must teach.
David Rutledge via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Where are all the conservatives who were crying "Foul" concerning Obama's recess appointments?
Sarah Stephens via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh great!
Robert von Bruce via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Of COURSE he did.
Karen Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Frances Demps, Here is some interesting info.
Karen Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
http://www.williampmeyers.org/republic.html
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@ david Rutledge - they were too busy getting their handouts and marching orders from the Koch Brothers.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What a patheitic excuse for an educator. She is a BIG joke!
Luisa Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
what are her credentials? you don't mention where she studied "science."
Luisa Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
from the picture, she looks a bit anal and concerned, like most of the suit n tie wearin GOP, always a bit constipated and constricted from pantyhose and ties
Frances Demps via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Hey, Karen Cummings, thanks for posting the link. Good read.
Del Murphy
Barbara Cargill, science teacher. That is right up there with Bill Clinton lecturing on the virtues of chastity to a girl's scout troop or Jeff Skilling teaching business ethics.
I can't wait for Cargill to explain how it is the universe is less than six thousand years old when we look at stars billions of light years away.
Thank God she is no longer in the classroom, we have abysmal enough science education.
Sharon Richard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Sheesh.
Pat Wood via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Does it occur to anyone else -that maybe they want to keep the public as dumb as possible? What better way to keep folks stupid than to dumb down science, rewrite history, slant everything backwards to meet some religious/ideological specifications. And then call liberals "radical"---amazing.
Healthy Texan
Nice to see all the Democrats posting their hatred. Why are Democrats so quick to label people they disagree with as bigots and racists? Could it be they are showing their true colors?
Probably.
geoff giblert
Does that mean she will eliminate black history month every february, or that teachers will teach about some other groups the rest of the school year?
Caitlin Gilchrist
Oh joy. Our schools' budgets have been slashed in the name of fiscal conservatism, and now we've got this psycho shoving social conservatism down the throats of our students. And people wonder why we've got one of the worst education rankings in the nation.
Tim Hurst via Texas Tribune on Facebook
More nuts running education in the dumbest state of them all.
Del Murphy
Posting Hatred. Not so much. The haters are folks like David Bradley who hate the public education system they preside over so much they home school their own children. Nice.
schafersman
Barbara Cargill taught public school K-6 science for a few years but quit. For many years she has taught and continues to teach Creationist biology at her church summer school, the Wonders of the Woodlands Science Camp (WOW!). She is a Young Earth Creationist and protege of former Board member Don McLeroy who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old and all species were created by a deity. She deliberately sabotaged the new Earth and Space Science (ESS) course curriculum standards that were written by a panel that included two very qualified individuals she nominated, a university science education professor and an Exxon geophysicist, who both strongly objected to her changes. She was forced to admit under questioning by fellow Board members that she got the ESS changes she proposed from Intelligent Design Creationists Charles Garner, a chemistry professor who has been publicly repudiated by his fellow Baylor University faculty members, and Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, a right-wing Creationist think tank in Seattle. Cargill also voted along with the other Radical Religious Right Republican members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) to repeatedly misrepresent evolutionary biology in Biology standards and historical information about the U.S. in Social Studies standards. She is a contemptible individual who cares more about promoting her religious-right agenda than in the reliable and responsible education of Texas school children. Only someone with as little intellectual integrity as her could appoint her to be the Chairman of the SBOE, but Rick Perry has precisely that attribute. Texas can look forward to two more years of the continuous cultural warfare, ignorance-mongering, religious intrusion, and reactionary political meddling in academic affairs that has characterized the unprofessional and tragicomic Texas SBOE sideshow for decades.
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That's why we're weeding the leftists out, Tim. We've had enough of the nuttery.
Pickles Sorrell
Appointing the Wicked Witch of the Woodlands as Board Chair will come back and haunt Perry on the Presidential Campaign trail.
Kimberly Burkett via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And Perry continues to turn Texas into a national laughing stock with appointments like this. So, she's jacked up social studies and will have her hands at the science adoption next ... That's a lot of Texas brainwashing parents are going to have to undo at home!
Harmony Seeker via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Another creationist appointed to be head of our school board. I am dumbfounded.