Tragic Vote By Texas Senate

Donna Garner

The Texas Senate voted not to confirm Don McLeroy as the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. The vote was 19 yeas, 11 nays; but the 2/3 rule meant McLeroy came up 2 votes short.

Senator Jackson and Senator Ogden did a great job of laying out McLeroy's many years of experience on both the Bryan School Board and the State Board of Education, his degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M, and his Medical Doctorate in Dentistry from the University of Texas. Ogden pointed out clearly that McLeroy is a scientist himself and has far more years of science background than most legislators and citizens have.

Those who spoke against McLeroy (all Democrats) bent over backwards to say they were not religiously discriminating against him and then proceeded to do just that.

They kept referring to the controversial articles in the New York Times and Washington Post as if that was a standard by which to judge a conservative SBOE chair who happens to be a Christian. [From the first day that McLeroy was appointed chair by Governor Perry in 2007, the newspapers have publicly vilified McLeroy, saying he was going to get rid of the study of evolution in our Texas classrooms. Wrong. The new Science standards encourage students to study all sides of theories, including evolution. The criticism heaped upon McLeroy was a pack of lies dreamed up by the liberal news media and then propagated by Texas Freedom Network to the Texas Senate. The Democrats "bought the lies." -- Donna Garner]

Senator Ogden said that most of the opposition he heard today revolved around the fact that McLeroy had said "theories are not facts." Then Ogden pointed out that for 250 years Newton's theories were considered to be the gospel until Albert Einstein one day saw a leaf falling and came up with Einstein's theory that contradicted Newton's theories. Then Quantum Mechanics came up with theories that have now contradicted Newton's theories. Ogden said that McLeroy is not necessarily on the fringes of historical and scientific thought just because as a scientist, McLeroy believes that students should study all sides of scientific theories.

Senator Ogden said that the majority of Texans are watching what the Texas Senators do today. He said they want to know if there is going to be a litmus test where Christians should not apply for elected office. He certainly hopes not.

One senator (I did not catch his name) said that from what he had heard, McLeroy was being criticized because he had not allowed an expert to speak at an SBOE meeting. The Senator said, "We did the very same thing last night right here in this Senate chamber." He also said that McLeroy was criticized because of what the newspapers and editorials had said about him. The Senator quipped that the Texas Senate as a whole and many of the Senators as individuals had undergone the same heavy criticism in the newspapers. He said perhaps the Senators were trying to hold McLeroy to a higher standard than they were willing to invoke upon themselves.

The Senate system did not allow McLeroy to speak; and he was not allowed to defend himself against the false allegations made by Senators Shapleigh, Van de Putte, Ellis, Watson, and Gallegos. Senator Patrick said that he had learned in journalism classes to recognize a propaganda technique called "glittering generalities." He said that all of the comments he had heard from the opposition today were glittering generalities and were not credible reasons to vote against McLeroy. He said he had not heard one single argument or fact that indicated McLeroy was an ineffective or dysfunctional leader.

What should we who support the wonderful work of Don McLeroy and the majority of the Texas State Board of Education do at this point? Please contact Governor Perry and ask him not to allow the Senate Democrats, the liberal news media, and Texas Freedom Network to intimidate him.

The new English/Language Arts/Reading standards are excellent and will be coming into the public schools of Texas next fall. The new Science TEKS are considered by many science experts to be world-class standards. The Social Studies standards are in the beginning stages of being rewritten.

Please ask Governor Perry to give the majority of the SBOE members led by McLeroy a vote of confidence by choosing someone from their ranks who espouses McLeroy's same education philosophy. Texas is just now about ready to launch into genuine education reform; Governor Perry must continue to support this effort for the good of our 4.6 million public school children.