Texas school board member posts image to Facebook of KKK member labeled "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." Claims not to be racist. Ooookay.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

 A Texas school board member is facing disciplinary action over his racist Facebook post. 

Chris Harris, an elected member of the Hooks Independent School Board, posted a viral image of a Ku Klux Klan member with the caption, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.” 

He apologized for the post after receiving negative feedback in the comments, reported KTAL-TV. 

Harris said he realized the post was inappropriate and offensive, but he insisted he was not racist. 

His Facebook profile no longer appears to be active, and he declined requests for additional comment.

Okay look I am trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, but seriously, if you are not a racist then what in the hell would possess you to post this image?

And if he thought his Facebook friends would find it funny, then doesn't that sort of mean that his friends are probably racist too?

Oh I know, he has one black friend.

They ALWAYS have one black friend.

So my question is, does your black friend know you're racist?

Arizona school board member complains that Biology textbook violates her "religious rights." Decides to cut out offending pages. A little thing we call "censorship."

Courtesy of The New York Times:  

The textbook, the one with the wide-eyed lemur peering off the cover, has been handed out for years to students in honors biology classes at the high schools here, offering lessons on bread-and-butter subjects like mitosis and meiosis, photosynthesis and anatomy. 

But now, the school board in this suburb of Phoenix has voted to excise or redact two pages deep inside the book — 544 and 545 — because they discuss sexually transmitted diseases and contraception, including mifepristone, a drug that can be used to prevent or halt a pregnancy. 

A law passed two years ago in Arizona requires schools to teach “preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption” over abortion, and the school board decided that those pages were in violation of this law — even though the Arizona Education Department, which examined the book for compliance, found that they were not. 

The controversy has turned into a referendum on the 2012 law, with supporters saying the textbook content cannot be removed fast enough and opponents crying foul for any number of reasons: technical, ethical, pedagogical. But the Gilbert school board is moving forward, trying to figure out how to remove the material in question — by way of black markers or scissors, if need be — despite resistance from parents, residents, the American Civil Liberties Union and even the district’s superintendent. 

“It comes down to, it’s the law, and we need to be in compliance with the law,” said Julie Smith, a member of the Gilbert Public Schools governing board and also a parent who raised concerns about the book. “If people don’t like the law, they need to take it up with their state legislator. I don’t write the law. It’s my job to uphold it.”

The offending pages.

By the way that Julie Smith woman is apparently the driving force behind this censorship.

And here are her reasons why:

Ms. Smith, the school board member and parent, said she had been driving her family home from church back in January when her son told her about what was in the textbook. “I almost drove off the road,” she said. 

“I’m Catholic; we do not contracept,” Ms. Smith said. “It is a grave sin.” By including those pages in the curriculum, she added, “you have violated my religious rights.”

"We do not contracept?"  Well considering this woman's heavy handed parenting style that's probably too bad.

As for violating her religions rights? Well nobody's religious rights should have any impact whatsoever on what is taught in a public school classroom.

And in my opinion if science classes are taught in a factual manner than they should violate somebody's religious beliefs almost daily.

By the way you know that removing these pages, or using a sharpie to black them out, is going to do NOTHING to stop students from accessing them. It's called the internet folks, and if the kids want to read them (And after this you they all will.), then by gosh they will do exactly that.

Attempts by conservative school board members in Colorado to teach revisionist history to AP students is turning angry Republicans into Democrats.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

"For the first time in my life, I will probably vote a straight Democratic ticket." 

That realization came as something of a surprise to non-practicing attorney Wendy McCord, who has always thought of herself as a Republican. The mother of two children in Jefferson County's public school system, McCord told The Huffington Post that she has been politically transformed by the actions of the new conservative majority on the county school board, which presides over the state's second-largest school district. 

Here in Jefferson County, a bellwether battleground that is almost evenly split between Republicans, Democrats and independents, a local educational controversy is resonating with county voters who otherwise might not have been engaged in this year's elections. Frustrated Republicans like McCord could be the deciding votes in Colorado's gubernatorial race, in which Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) faces a strong challenge from former Rep. Bob Beauprez (R), as well as its Senate race, in which Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is in danger of being unseated by Republican challenger Rep. Cory Gardner. 

The battle began last November, when three conservative candidates for county school board swept into office, establishing a majority on the five-person board. The newly-elected board members hired their own attorney and proceeded to clash with teachers and parents over issues such as pay, charter schools and kindergarten expansion. The move that garnered the most national attention, however, was a proposal for a new Advanced Placement U.S. history curriculum that would de-emphasize civil disobedience and disorder while emphasizing patriotism, citizenship and "respect for authority." To protest the proposal, thousands of students left their classrooms and held demonstrations in solidarity with their teachers, who called in sick.

I have already covered this Colorado debacle both here and here.

At the time of those two posts I was frustrated that conservatives were once again trying to hijack public education, and also encouraged by the fact that the teachers and students were standing up to them.

But now it looks like the whole thing may be backfiring in a big way. Which of course is good for everyone.