At a public hearing today, the State Board of Education’s social conservative bloc is expected to launch attacks on the church-state “wall” as part of hundreds of changes to the social studies curriculum standards, which could provide the outline for tests and textbooks years into the future. The board expects to take a final vote on the entire curriculum on Friday.
Austin
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Public Education
HuTube: Inside the SBOE Hearing
The show outside this week’s State Board of Education meeting is almost as interesting as the show inside.
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Public Education
TribBlog: History Paige
Former U.S. Secretary of Education and Houston Superintendent Rod Paige this morning asked the State Board of Education to delay adopting its standards, saying they had “swung too far” to the ideological right and diminished the importance of civil rights and slavery. Asked if the board should delay a final vote expected Friday, he said, “Absolutely.”
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Public Education
Lame Ducks Unlimited
Four members of the State Board of Education who are exiting their seats in January are preparing to cast decisive votes this week on controversial curriculum revisions that will alter social studies textbooks for 4.7 million public school children in Texas. But, just maybe, not so fast: Two Republicans who’ll likely win election to the SBOE this fall, and a Democrat who is vying for another soon-to-be-vacated seat, said in interviews that they’d support reopening the standards process if consensus emerged on the newly constituted board.
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State Government
Generation Next
Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, may be 50, but he’s only been in the House for three sessions. He’s part of a youth movement in the power corridors of the Legislature — one that’s less about age than lack of seniority.
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State Government
Workers’ Comp: What’s Next?
Lawmakers are pledging to take a closer look at the Texas Department of Insurance’s Division of Workers’ Compensation in light of allegations by former employees that their higher-ups failed to sanction or remove dozens of doctors accused of overmedicating patients and overbilling insurers. The chairman of the House panel that oversees workers’ compensation says he’s planning a hearing on the matter this summer, and the chair of the Sunset Advisory Commission plans to question the division’s commissioner at a public hearing next week.
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State Government
Unemployment Stimulus Still Available?
Rick Perry made national headlines last year when he announced Texas was turning down unemployment insurance benefits available as part of the federal stimulus package. Attempts by state lawmakers to get their hands on the money anyway ran out of time at the end of the Legislative session, but as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the $555 million is still there for the taking.
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State Government
TribBlog: DPS Emergency Chief Dies [UPDATED]
Jack Colley, head of emergency management for the Texas Department of Public Safety, died of a heart attack Sunday, the department announced this morning. He was 62 and had worked at DPS for more than 12 years.
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Criminal Justice
On the Records: Paycheck U.
Today we’re adding another 17 agencies to our government salaries database, an extra 67,000 workers who collectively earn $2.9 billion in public payroll. The database now has records on more than 550,000 employees working at 62 of the largest state agencies, cities, universities, counties and mass-transit authorities.
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Public Education
TribBlog: The Church Board of Education
When they meet in Austin next week, social conservatives on the State Board of Education — some now lame ducks — may be going even further with amendments challenging the separation of church and state, entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, landmark desegregation cases and the work of muckraking journalists such as Susan B. Anthony and W.E.B. Du Bois. Another amendment amplifies a long-running effort to resuscitate the reputation of communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
