Perry's Controversial Choice for SBOE Chair

Governor Perry appointed Don McLeroy, a longtime board member and a dentist from Bryan, to chair the State Board of Education. He is a staunch conservative who has been on the predictable side of every hot issue the board has faced since he began serving on it in 1998.

On the socially conservative stuff, his selection by Perry seemed almost presumptive: why would the Governor not pick someone who had hunkered down in battles over sex education and evolution? As the chair of the SBOE, McLeroy will now set the agenda for meetings and preside over activities like the reassessment of curriculum standards.

The Texas Freedom Network is an organization geared towards countering the extreme religious right in Texas, and Kathy Miller is their president. On McLeroy's appointment:

She noted that in 2003, Dr. McLeroy was one of four board members who voted against proposed high school biology textbooks because he felt their coverage of evolution was "too dogmatic" and did not include possible flaws in Charles Darwin's theory of how life on Earth evolved from lower forms.

"Dr. McLeroy will now be in charge of the board's scheduled revision of the state's science curriculum standards, an area where he has already cast his lot with extremists who want to censor what our schoolchildren learn," said Ms. Miller, whose group frequently battles social conservatives over textbooks and other issues.

A few days ago we were talking about the office of the Governor in Texas and how powerful it is, despite the occasional reporters' assertions during election time that it has less juice than other state offices. This is one example of why who is elected to office really matters. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but observe: through one appointment, Perry has taken steps to shape what all Texas school children learn and how they learn it until someone steps in to change it. Even after someone else is appointed as chair or even if all the ultra conservative members of the board are replaced, how many years would it take to undo what they had wrought?

The decisions made by the governor of Texas have a reach and power that probably exceeds the imaginative scope of the casual observer, because the links and transactions caused by a single appointment or approval create a truly complex web. The coming battles over the science curriculum (and others, as his term endures) at the State Board of Education will lead to some entertaining meetings and a good story or two, but are also likely to have some unhappy and regressive results for the quality of education in Texas, and everything dependent upon that, as well.