And the Stupid like a cancer grows ...
It is obvious that the owner of a professional sports franchise, say a National Football League team, would only hire a hair-stylist who detests, and has never played football …
It is obvious that the owner of a professional sports franchise, say a National Football League team, would only hire a hair-stylist who detests, and has never played football …
Someone who is qualified for a job is generally
expected to have sufficient capacity, passion, knowledge, experience and
skill that matches or suits the position they seek and makes them
eligible for an office or position. In fact, qualification can be
thought of as denoting fitness for a job through the fulfillment of
necessary conditions such as education, training, and a high degree of
experience in the appropriate discipline. It is obvious that the owner
of a professional sports franchise, say a National Football League team,
would only hire a hair-stylist who detests, and has never played, the
game of football as a general manager and head coach if they wanted
their team to fail miserably. That is an absurd idea, but it is
precisely what two religious Republican governors who want to decimate
their state’s public education system did in appointing evangelical
anti-public education fanatics to run their state’s public school
systems.
There is a predilection among Republican governors
devoted to a theocratic America to transfer taxpayer money set aside for
public schools to private evangelical madrassas to both keep their
residents ignorant and indoctrinate them in 'neo-christian' dogmata and
superstition. This week, Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley
followed Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s lead and appointed
a fiercely anti-public school 'christian' fundamentalist to lead the
Alabama Board of Education to transform the state’s public education
system into a 12-year 'christian' indoctrination camp for Alabama
children. But, one might say, at least the Alabama governor chose an
evangelical freak who has passion, knowledge, and at least a decade of
experience in public education that qualifies him to control the state’s
public education system, but that is not the case.
The 28-year old fundamentalist 'christian', Matthew
Brown, who is running Alabama’s public school system is a highway
designer who attended a 'christian' - and we use the term loosely ... 'college'. He has never set foot in or
attended a public school in his evangelical life. He also believes
public education is an abomination before his dog and says he will never
allow his children to get near a public school. Brown is also renown
for his illegal campaign to defund Alabama’s public education system;
what Alabama governor Bentley considers excellent qualifications to run
the Board of Education. According to Bentley, the leader of the Board of
Education’s fundamentalist christian ‘education’ and hatred of public
schools is consistent with the Republican cabal’s political philosophy
that will allow him to “bring a unique perspective to the Board of
Education.” Last year, the new Education leader was successful in a
drive to cut education funding and defeat an education improvement tax
to purposely put a monumental strain on Alabama’s education resources.
Brown also fits nicely with Republican philosophy because according to
Alabama’s Secretary of State, he violated several provisions of the
state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act like any proper and highly motivated
evangelical Republican.
Regardless Brown’s record of religious bias against
the public education system, and against the advice of his staff and
state education leaders, Governor Bentley appointed the unqualified,
inexperienced, openly hostile 28-year-old in charge of public education
because “Brown is a young man after Bentley’s own heart.” Since being
elected in 2010, Bentley has signed legislation transferring over $30
million a year away from public schools to private evangelical school
voucher programs. Bentley signed another law that allows private
religious charter schools to open across Alabama and gave them sole
authority to approve new religious charter schools over the objection of
local school boards. Plus, despite his new Education chief has no
education experience except attending a 'christian' so-called 'college', Bentley is
enamored with Brown because “he believes in jesus.” That “jesus qualified”
designation is tantamount to allowing an fourth grader to perform brain
surgery because they saw a microscope on television, but in Alabama and
Texas belief in jesus qualifies one to lead the public schools.
The new head of Texas Education Department is as
unqualified as Brown with stellar qualifications amounting to being a 'christian' fundamentalist who home-schooled her children in the biblical
arts. Texas Governor Greg Abbott appointed
the 'christian' home-school mom and (Jerry Fallwell’s) 'Liberty University' and again we use the term loosely ...
'graduate' Donna Bahorich because her experience with public schools is
abhorring public education not founded on bible superstition.
Apparently, Abbott felt the need to replace former evangelical
creationist Don McLeroy because he failed to completely abolish science education in Texas schools. He did, however, approve textbooks teaching
that biblical Moses helped the Founding Fathers write the U.S.
Constitution along with several other gems of 'christian' revisionisms
regarding the role of the bible in America’s founding and history.
The president of the Texas Freedom Network, Kathy Miller said that “If
Gov. Abbott wanted to demonstrate that he won’t continue his
predecessors’ efforts to politicize and undermine our state’s public
schools, this appointment falls far short. This is the person who’s
ultimately responsible for decisions that’ll affect children across the
state. She’s someone who doesn’t understand science or history and whose
own background has little to do with education policy. The governor
appointed an ideologue that guarantees the board will continue to put
culture war agendas ahead of educating more than 5 million Texas kids.”
Even a prominent Republican from Mt. Pleasanton who
is also on the state school board, Thomas Ratliff, was critical of
Abbot’s appointment and condemned the choice of a fundamentalist with
absolutely no experience whatsoever in public education. Ratliff said, “Public
school isn’t for everybody, but when 94-percent of our students in
Texas attend public schools I think it ought to be a baseline
requirement that the chair of the State Board of Education have at least
some experience in that realm, as a parent, teacher, something.”
One pundit summed up Abbott’s choice to lead the state’s Education system by saying, “What
did you expect Abbott to do? Appoint someone who actually knows what he
or she is doing? He doesn’t have that in him. He’d rather screw over
millions of teenagers trying to get an education comparable to what kids
get in other more competitive states than upset his religious base.” Abbott has quickly established a record of not standing up to his “base”
whether they are anti-science and anti-education religious fanatics or
conspiracy-freaks afraid that President Obama is sending the United
States military to overthrow and conquer Texas.
Both Abbott’s and Bentley’s appointments of highly
unqualified religious fanatics with no experience in public education is
founded on their desire to abolish public schools and replace them with
a taxpayer-funded evangelical madrassa system; a two-fold assault on
America. First, misappropriating taxpayer dollars for biblical
instruction is patently unconstitutional, and second, it is another
tactic to wipe out America’s public education system as part of their
crusade toward government by theocracy. A crusade, by the way, that most
in government are terrified of challenging because dog, jesus, and
bible apparently supersede the U.S. Constitution, or government
officials would put a stop to it.
In
Texas’ case, an incompetent religious fanatic as Board of Education
chairperson is a certain means of perpetuating the indoctrination of 5
million children every year to deny history and science and remain as
ignorant and stupid as the current generation. Republicans thrive on
perpetuating incompetence and ignorance in their crusade to keep
Americans in poverty because children without an education are doomed to
low-wage jobs. Even Republicans are well-aware that employers looking
for prospective employees competent in superstition and archaic mythos
are few and far between; except in Texas and Alabama where inexperience
and belief in fairy tales will get one appointed head of the state Board
of Education.
