SBOE race includes write-in candidate

" As a member of the workgroup that spent the last three years working on the Texas ELAR curriculum, I can verify that Barbara Cargill has it wrong. The ELAR TEKS adopted May 23 by the majority block of the Texas SBOE was cobbled together at the last minute and passed by eight elected officials who did not even carefully read the document for which they were voting. Ninety-nine percent of the expert testimony and even the contracted standards company president advocated adopting the educator document that Cargill, Bradley, Lowe, Miller, Agosto, Mercer, Dunbar, and McLeroy rejected based on no sound reason or research. They didn’t pass it because they wanted to give the Texas educators a “spanking.” Does a document where reading comprehension was thrown into an appendix (figure 19) in the final moments of the vote sound like a good set of standards for Texas students? Does a document that suggests students should adjust their fluency (completely inaccurate) sound like good standards for the students in your community? Does a document that is not tightly aligned to the college readiness standards sound right for the high school students living in your neighborhood? These board members did not spank the teachers of Texas. We were here long before they took office and will be here long after they are unseated. They have, however, spanked to students of this state by weakening standards that should have been the premier standards for the nation, especially considering the time and money (tax payer money) that went into the hobbled process. Don’t let Ms. Cargill’s rhetorical fool you during this important election. She is not the education leader Texas students, Texas teachers, or Texas communities need during a time when college readiness is essential and many schools have failed to meet AYP standards under No Child Left Behind. Honestly, the majority of these eight rogue board members could not even tell you what AYP is or why it is important to schools and districts. Most cannot even name the schools they represent. This is because they do not represent schools or districts; they represent their own corrupt agendas. I would urge voters in this area to not select the standard party ticket vote. If you care about the education and future of ALL students in your area, vote for the SBOE candidate who listens to the voice of experts rather than to the bullying voices of those who wish to discredit and dismantle public schools. We need SBOE leaders who truly want to be part of a dynamic solution rather than fueling, igniting, and fanning ongoing problems that they help create, including weak, outdated standards that ensure that Texas students will not be able to compete in a 21st Century, global job market. "

" First, interestingly Kassia Micek's article ran the headline "SBOE race includes write-in candidate" but Cargill's picture is prominent. Linda Ellis, a professor of ELAR and a reading specialist, IS the write-in candidate, NOT Cargill. But readers had to get to the second paragraph to discover that. Second, Cargill's "take" on what happened with the ELAR TEKS is a fantasy spun by herself and her radical rogue faction. But in this fairy tale there will be no happy ending for the students of Texas. They will not live happily ever after. Why? Because Cargill and her accomplice, Lowe, like the radical rogues they are, stole away in the dark of night and against the testimony of approximately 100 educators, representing national, state, and local levels, to fit those TEKS to their own personal agendas.Third, Ellis was kind. The document Cargill finally slipped in the dark hours of morning under the doors of the other SBOE members is beyond "flawed." Disjointed, incoherent, misaligned, and not based on the best and most recent research in the field, it is so antiquated it will push ELAR in Texas back to the 19th and 20th centuries. It will not prepare kids for the seismic changes of an advanced world. "

" cathy8105 wrote on Oct 16, 2008 11:35 AM:

" Barbara Cargill's accounts of a "thoughtful document" are totally false. The new ELA TEKS are a mess we will have to suffer through for the next ten years.Mrs. Cargill led the anti teacher charge to create a pieced together document created the night before the vote. In doing so, they ignored three years of hard work on the part of dedicated English teachers. Linda Ellis is a professional in every sense of the word. She will bring integrity and vision to the SBOE. " "

" “It finally got to the point where we needed guidance because we weren’t getting anywhere,” she said about outsourcing the job."

It is hard to get somewhere when professionals work on a different document each time they work. The process in which the workgroup participated can only be described as dysfunctional. And it wasn't the fault of the educators. Each time they arrived well prepared and with good intentions, but each time a new task awaited them that included entirely new documents and advice from the latest group of experts Ms. Cargill and her group summoned. The final document was indeed hastily pieced together, just in time to slip under other board members' hotel doors, hours before the vote. Texas school children and their teachers would have been better served in the end if the board had simply returned to the 1997 TEKS. All attempts educators made to engage in a reasonable process and create a thoughtful document were obstructed over and over again by a some members of the SBOE. "