Texas Needs a Better Education System

As it stands today, the education standards and curricula used in public schools across the state of Texas are set by what is known as the State Board of Education. The board consists of fifteen elected members, one from each of the fifteen districts in the state. Elections are partisan. You might already see the problem here. Elected officials associated with specific political parties making decisions about what our kids learn and what they don’t? Even with no outside evidence, I’d say this sounds like a recipe for disaster.

And indeed it is. According to the Texas Comptroller’swebsite*, Texas ranks 49th in the country in verbal SAT scores and 46th in math scores. We’re 36th in high school graduation rates and 33rd in teacher salaries. These are among a great many issues that Texas faces in the realm of public education.

Moreover, the party connections in the board have led to some very controversial decisions about what content is taught in Texas. Over the past couple of years, the board has written Thomas Jefferson almost completely out of history, stressed the Christian values of the founding fathers (despite their documented secular influences), fought to remove evolution and questioned the separation of church and state. All of this has arisen from voting along party lines in what was a ten Republican, five Democrat board.

Decisions like this are doing nothing to help Texas students while doing everything to disguise the truth. Evolution is observed to be true. The historical contest of the founding fathers’ writings proves that they were directly influenced by the scientific/secular revolution in Europe of the same time period. These facts cannot reasonably be contested by a group which is in charge of our children’s education.

Texas does not need science and history as taught by politicians. Texas needs science and history as taught by scientists and historians. I propose that the Board of Education be replaced by a panel of experts in the fields of literature, mathematics, science, history, art, business, etc. who would be better informed about what should and should not be taught in public schools. Maybe then Texas would find itself on track to improve its national education rankings.

*Combs, Susan. "Window on State Government." Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Accessed July 27, 2012.

Gun Control and Tragedy

The recent Colorado tragedy in which twelve people were shot to death and another fifty-eight injured has left in its wake dozens of recovering families and millions of disturbed Americans. It has also reignited the gun control debate on the national stage, something the blogger TexasFred was quick to pick up on. In his recent article*, TexasFred critiques a news post by the Associated Press (AP) which detailed some of the current controversy. Specifically, the AP pointed out that the shooting suspect James Holmes had access to his large array of guns, ammunition and other weapons by buying off the Internet.

TexasFred’s response? An immediate attack of the AP as “an instrument of the LEFT,” claiming that the story made “every gun owner in America [look] like some kind of dangerous, murdering psycho.” Don’t mind that the original article made no such claim or insinuation. Whatever gives TexasFred a soapbox to yell from.

TexasFred then spends the remainder of his rant explaining that the only reasonable explanation for Holmes’ actions is that he suffered a sudden outbreak of insanity. No evidence for this broad claim, no link to an article explaining Holmes’ symptoms of insanity which might show this to be the case. Rather, TexasFred makes an assumption about the nature of the incident and sticks his fingers in his ears. For those of us who plan on watching the case unfold with open, objective minds, we will just have to wait to see whether TexasFred’s guess was correct or not.

However, let’s assume for the sake of argument that TexasFred was right. Maybe people like Holmes just suddenly snap, with no outward symptoms beforehand. Maybe the average person has some chance of turning into a mass murderer at any moment. Isn’t this an argument for gun control? Doesn’t this seem to suggest that it should not be within a person’s rights to buy assault rifles, multiple hand guns, shotguns, a large supply of ammo, and other weapons all at once? If this sort of incident is just a probability away, maybe we should do something to make it less likely.

That being said, I personally believe the takeaway here, the one which TexasFred missed entirely, is that gun purchases over the Internet should be extremely limited or banned outright. If Holmes had been forced to purchase his weapons from a store, face-to-face with another human being, perhaps that employee could have suspected something and the whole tragedy could have been avoided. That’s a story we’ll hear less and less of, however, if TexasFred and his anti-gun control friends have their way.

*TexasFred. "Colo. shooting suspect used Internet for arsenal." The TexasFred Blog. Posted July 23, 2012. Accessed July 24, 2012.

The Right to Sue and Texas Health Care

In a recent article* by Alex Winslow of the Texas Watch, the claim is made that Perry is defending taking away the rights of Texas citizens to support special interests within the health care industry. Specifically, a ballot proposition which made suing health care providers more difficult was approved in 2003, and Winslow says that this measure is dragging Texas health care through the mud. He brings up an important point: Texas’ health care is indeed broken, as studies and surveys have shown. We certainly have a long way to go before our health system reaches national standards. He also claims that “[n]umerous academic studies by independent organizations and legal scholars prove that it is a fallacy to claim that taking away the legal rights of individuals will benefit the public at-large.”

What studies though? Winslow declines to say. In fact, he gives not a single citation or link to an outside source in the entire article. Are we then to take what he says on faith? Do these claims even make sense? Let’s examine the latter point: Taking away individuals’ rights never benefits the general public. This is a rather broad claim, and we can defeat it through a simple example. Suppose murder were legal. Or theft. Or falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. Giving any of these “rights” to individuals would certainly detriment society. Therefore, Winslow’s claim cannot be correct (probably by being too vague), and it would behoove the reader to read the aforementioned studies, if only the author would cite his sources…

Winslow also relies on our failing health care system as evidence that the proposition is hurting the general public. However, the health care system is a complicated machine, composed of many parts and influenced by many laws. Unless he can give us some specific evidence that without this proposition we would be better off, it is far from clear that we are in our current predicament because of the approval of the proposition.

Finally, Winslow states that the proposition protects special interests rather than the general public. However, who exactly those interests are is left out of the article entirely. In fact, even the content of the proposition itself is never explored. All the reader knows is that it in some way made suing people in the health care industry more difficult. This could apply to doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance providers, and/or others. It might only affect cosmetic surgeons, or life-saving operations, or some very specific treatment that is used by exceedingly few of us. How is the reader to judge what the consequences of the proposition might be if they do not even know what it says? The answer is they aren’t.

Overall, the article was entirely unconvincing because of its reliance on uncited sources and its failure to explain the content of the proposition in question. If Winslow seeks to persuade his audience in the future, I recommend he bring some facts to the table.

*Winslow, Alex. "Taking away right to sue when wrong has been done isn't helping Texans." Austin American-Statesman. Opinion. Published July 17, 2012. Accessed July 20, 2012.

A Chance for Change in Our City Government?

Under the current system, Austin’s City Council is composed of six members which are elected citywide along with the Mayor. According to an article in the Austin American-Statesman*, that could change in the coming months. A petition signed by nearly 33,000 Austinites was brought to City Hall yesterday, proposing that the City Council include ten members rather than six, and that each member be elected by a different geographic district of Austin. Council members, however, are in support of a different plan, a hybrid which would include eight district seats and two citywide seats. At present, both plans are scheduled to be on the ballot in November. Petitioners say the hybrid plan is a distraction aimed at splitting the vote so that their plan will not get the required 50% approval. They claim the hybrid was created and is supported by the Real Estate Council of Austin, which funds council members’ citywide elections, something those candidates would not be able to afford on their own.

The story of council replanning is a complicated one, and its ending is in our hands. Go read the article for yourself and decide what is best for our city.

*Toohey, Marty. "Petition with 30,000 signatures calls for 10-district City Council plan." Austin American-Statesman. Local News. Published July 16, 2012. Accessed July 17, 2012.