Gov. Rick Perry says Texas will not compete for billions in education dollars in the federal “Race to the Top” program. It’s just another pitch to the secessionists, of course. So, Texas schools will go without money that could be used to education children. Instead, kids will be sacrificed to the extremist nonsense that has filled Perry’s tea cup of a head.
The money comes with guidelines of course. So the “Race to the Top” program was denounced by Perry’s education commissioner, Robert Scott. Scott called it, comically, a step toward the federal takeover of Texas schools.
Both Perry and Education Commissioner Robert Scott have harshly criticized the program’s rules, and Scott suggested that one provision was a harbinger of a federal takeover of public schools.
The decision not to apply fits nicely into the anti-Washington narrative that has dominated Perry’s gubernatorial primary against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. It provides him another opportunity to tell the Obama administration that Texas doesn’t want its intrusion in state matters.
In a letter to Perry, state Rep. Garnett Coleman, a Democrat and one of the most knowledgeable leaders in Texas on matters of education and health policy, urged the governor to apply for the funds. Democrats here don’t agree with some of the scoring guidelines — incentive pay and charter school expansion. I don’t either. But the good the money would do far outweighs the downside.
Perry’s actions have nothing whatsoever to do with what’s best for Texas children. Perry has become Sarah Palin in pants, and he’s just pandering to the idiots. Perry knows about as much about education as Palin knows about Russia. I guess he can see a school from the porch of his $10,000 a month taxpayer-paid luxury mansion in West Austin.
That’s the thing about the wingers. Where’s the Tea Party protest against Perry’s profligate lifestyle financed with their tax dollars? It’s nowhere because consistency doesn’t come in tea bags. It comes from thoughtfulness and moral intelligence.
Perry and his confederates, an apt term for his gang if ever there was one, are said to be preparing to run the well-coiffed Perry for President. So he can’t be outdone on the Right by Palin or anyone else. That means punishing the children of Texas, putting them even further behind the rest of the country.
I often wonder why the Right is do desperate for everyone to be like them. Ruining the schools is just their plan to pull it off. Then everyone might become as ignorant as they are.
Related Articles:
About Glenn W. Smith
Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”
Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.
In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.
As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.
Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.
Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.
As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”
Glenn, it is obvious from the typos and other un-edited boo-boos, that you were mad as hell when you wrote this. And you should have been. And so should we all. Perry is a dunce, a charlatan, a hypocrite and a liar. If Sen. Hutchison will just start taking some moderate, reasonable positions on the issues dear to Texans, and get on the offensive, she will get the nomination and we will be rid of Perry.
Yea, I didn’t see this till after midnight and I wrote fast before going to bed so it’d be up first thing this morning. I have, readers, corrected my sleepy errors in the piece above.
Depressing, yet not shocking either. The GOP prefers to keep folks dumb rather than educate them.
The dumbing-down agenda of the Right doesn’t receive the attention it should. There’s a reason education suffers under the GOP: an educated, engaged citizenry is the last thing the Right wants.
Serious question, please. Is Perry really this rightwing? I’m not from Texas so am not exposed to the day-to-day stuff but he always just seemed without substance but I don’t remember him being such a loon. Has he decided that the t-gaggers (not a typo) will take him all the way to the WH?
I’m assuming he’s following the convention GOP advice: secure the right wing, you can always move back toward the center. That goes for his re-election and his presidential bid. He’s never had a problem pandering to the right, but starting with his 10th amendment and secession talk, he’s become loonier and loonier in his rhetoric. Perry is really just corrupt, meaning he’s kinda the hired hand of big Tx contributors — homebuilders, tort reformers etc. This new cultural warfare, while always there, has never been this pronounced. Perry’s an empty hat, and he’ll say whatever takes, believe whatever he has to believe.
I sure like that photo of the little wacky schoolhouse, and it is quite descriptive of the guv’s approach to Texas education, which might be described as “No school left aligned”.
Prediction: at some point in the campaign Perry will garner news coverage for trying to wear a pair of loaded six-shooters into the capitol building, “to demonstrate his Second Amendment rights”…
This politician doesn’t just scrape the bottom of the barrel, he does it with a very sharp, fancy scraper. It’s probably an Abercrombie & Fitch scraper.
Quite apart from the morality/policy aspects of this decision, I find it incomprehensible that Perry would regard a rejection as helping him in the Republican primary.
I am personally praying that Perry will win the Republican primary. Hutchinson will be much harder to beat.