Replies

Rick Perry Texas State Board of Ed appointment -- July 20, 2011:

Meet Barbara Cargill, the SBOE's Latest Chief ……..>>>Her supporters say the Baylor University graduate is a mild-tempered, fair leader who is well suited to lead the 15-member board. Her critics say she is a dangerous culture warrior who injects her religious and political agenda into the classrooms of the country’s second largest public school system. But for those who follow the board’s every movement, there’s agreement on one point: For better or worse, Cargill’s tenure will likely bring more of the same.

Cargill’s immediate predecessors in the chair were, like her, a part of the majority-Republican board’s tightly knit gang of six social conservatives.

Because of that, her appointment “doesn’t change a lot,” said Dan Quinn, the spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog of the board and fierce opponent of its social conservatives.

“She has voted in lockstep with Gail Lowe and Don McLeroy in the past," he said. "There's no real space between them."

McLeroy held the chairmanship from 2007 to 2009 and said Lowe and Cargill share many qualities. “She is so similar to Gail with her complete integrity and honesty," he said. "Those two ladies are some of the finest I ever met."

McLeroy suffered the same fate as Lowe during the 2009 legislative session. The Bryan dentist, who lost to current member Thomas Ratliff in the 2010 Republican primary, describes Cargill and Lowe as some of his best friends. He said Cargill was “the scientist on the board” and that she was known for independently investigating all the issues that came before it.

The board’s longest-serving current member, David Bradley, echoed McLeroy. “She does her homework,” said Bradley, who consistently votes with Cargill. “Sometimes she would make light of the fact that when I get to the meeting I'm just opening my agenda for the first time.”

He also praised her modesty, a quality he said would serve her well as chairwoman. “I don't think you'll ever find her using the word 'I,'” he said. “She blushes at the drop of a hat, quicker than Gail Lowe. So the guys on the board have to be very careful.”

Cargill’s critics point to her role in the rewrite of science curriculum as evidence that she has used her position on the board to promote her own political and religious beliefs. She was instrumental in pushing the new science standards that students "analyze, evaluate, and critique" evidence for scientific explanations for theories like evolution — a move praised by the Discovery Institute, which supports research challenging what its website refers to as "neo-Darwinian theory." During the debate on science curriculum, she also passed an amendment that added the discussion of different scientific estimates on the age of the universe to the standards. <<<<………………

Rick Santorum home schools his children but he does not stand alone on this important issue.

Rick Perry has been advocating for homeschooling families for a very long time.

_________________________________________________________

............”Perry and Santorum are now fighting a virtual tug of war over Iowa’s evangelicals. Reuters reports that Iowa’s evangelicals are moving over to Santorum, because he’s been actively lobbying the homeschool network, and preachers there like him. They like him so much, they want Bachmann to either drop out entirely, or fold her campaign into his. With the departure of Bachmann’s campaign chairman Kent Sorenson over to Paul’s campaign, and the loss of her political director Wes Enos, it would seem it’s time for Bachmann to throw in the towel. Does this mean that she misheard God?

It’s a sticky situation that evangelicals are in. They are splitting the GOP vote to the point where Obama might just win. FOXNews has been very vocal with that fear, but who knows? Only God knows.”

http://www.goddiscussion.com/88208/splitting-the-evangelical-vote-santorum-perry-and-bachmann/