www.mineralwellsindex.com/local/local_story_224122743.h -
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Published on: 8/11/2008
Last Visited: 8/11/2008
Longtime University of North Texas associate professor of English, Dr. Edra Bogle visited Mineral Wells to share her reasons for wanting to shape up the State Board of Education and become one of its elected members.
Bogle, campaigning to be SBOE District 15 commissioner, addressed the Texas Democratic Women of Palo Pinto County and guests Friday.
Bogle outlined for Friday's audience several issues important to her campaign - many related to recent actions and upcoming decisions facing the SBOE.
The SBOE is a 15-member elected board, which adopts rules and establishes policies that govern programs and services for Texas pubic schools.Bogle explained that the board:
• Adopts the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and public school curriculum.
• Adopts textbooks for public schools.
• Determines the use of the permanent school fund.
"We need a lot more local control of education," Bogle told Friday's attendees."So that the lower socioeconomic districts do not have to cheat on the [Texas Assessment of knowledge and Skills] … or find clever ways of making it look like [kids do not drop out.]"
"Local school boards must be able to make decisions about what goes on in their own districts, with coordination but not dictatorship from the State Board," she further elucidates on her Web site.
Adoptin' Englush
Top among her concerns is the recent adoption of English/Language Arts textbooks and curriculum, which she said would determine what students learn for the next 10 years.
According to Bogle, the SBOE had a group of experts study the potential textbooks for three months; however, she said the night before the state board's July meeting in which they would adopt the selected curriculum, a group - including her incumbent rival, Gail Lowe - opted for a different curriculum.
She said this newly selected curriculum was published by a contributor and friend of those in the group.She said the group then gave other SBOE members one to two hours before the board met to adopt the curriculum.
She also called the ELA curriculum "heavily backloaded."She explained that students would study grammar separate from writing, meaning that students might have to memorize grammar rather than immediately applying it in sentences as they learn both subjects.
Bogle said that the SBOE seems to lean toward students learning through memorization rather than through practice in studies like math and other subjects.
She mentioned that the current board removed a third grade math book, which was successful with minority children.She said the textbook encouraged additional approaches besides memorization.Despite a 1995 state law requiring the board to give reasons why they reject a textbook, she said SBOE members gave no reason for eliminating it.
Science, Bible concerns
She told attendees that the State Legislature "decided there should be a Bible study course," but she said it left the curriculum specifics "to the SBOE to spell out what it would be."
...
One of the issues, Bogle explained, is that the SBOE did not spell out the curriculum, like they do with other elective subjects.
"It does not specify what translation of the Bible is to be used … and schools can make it as specific as they want," she said.
The next curriculum for the SBOE to decide upon is science.Despite the Supreme Court ruling that creationism is not to be taught in public schools and "72 Nobel scientists agreed with the Supreme Court," she said there is a movement to teach "Intelligent Design," which could "point out all the weaknesses in evolution and let kids decide.
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"Twenty-two states rejected federal funds from the No Child Left Behind Act so they could teach real sex education," Bogle said Friday.She pointed out that Texas was not one of them.
Texas schools are required to teach abstinence-only education, yet Bogle noted, "Texas ranks first in the number of teenage pregnancies [in the country]."
She cited a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on sexually active high school students.
"The CDC survey [estimates] that 52.9 percent of Texas teens are sexually active," she said.
"Of course abstinence is the ideal," she states on her Web site."Should [teens] be punished for departing from that ideal by a death sentence, through HIV or cervical cancer; or for a likely life of poverty through having an unplanned pregnancy?"
In 2002, Bogle retired from her 34-year tenure as a professor at UNT.In about a year, she became the Denton County Democratic Chair and has been increasingly involved in politics.
This third-generation educator has a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California and a master's degree in Library Service from Columbia University.She indicated that the state board needs more professional educators as commissioners.
For more information on Bogle and her platform for SBOE District 14, visit bogleforquality.com.
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