How to Stop Texas from Destroying American Education

The textbook wars aren't over; there is still hope for stopping the wingnut freakazoid anti-history Texas is determined to foist on the country.

You can support two members of the reality-based world running for the Texas school board, as explained in the following letters to The Nation magazine:

Austin, Tex.

Complaining about the backwardness of the state that gave America Barbara Jordan, Molly Ivins and LBJ is tempting, but it's more useful to participate in the electoral process. In 2008 most of the board's worst incumbents had no opponents. The extremists control the board because they always run, always get out the vote and always fund their candidates.

Fixing the Texas Board of Education just requires some effort and money. If Rebecca Bell-Metereau (voterebecca.com) and Judy Jennings (votejudyjennings.com) win election, the anti-education faction will be in a minority on the board. The districts are huge and gerrymandered, but they are winnable.

VICTOR YODAIKEN

San Marcos, Tex.

I am running for the Texas State Board of Education, in District 5. All of us must view our public education system as a treasure we must guard and nurture carefully, whether or not we have children in public school. My husband and I sent our two daughters to public school, and we volunteered our time to help improve the quality of education for our daughters and for other people's children as well.

I teach at a public university, and I have witnessed the recent deterioration of my students' preparedness for higher education. They have suffered under a relentless regime of preparing for tests, meanwhile failing to develop critical or creative thinking skills. The Texas Board of Education can turn this trend around if we elect reasonable people in Districts 3, 5 and 10. Texas textbooks' influence is huge. The curriculum and books in Texas must provide the best education we can offer in the twenty-first century.

REBECCA BELL-METEREAU

When your children and grandchildren are studying American history that profiles Harriet Tubman instead of Phyllis Schafly and identifies Joseph McCarthy as the un-American bigot he was, you can congratulate yourself that you made it possible because you supported candidates like Judy Jennings and Rebecca Bell-Metereau.