Early this month, Texas Republican delegates met in Fort Worth to approve their 2012 platform, notable parts of which take aim at the state's education system.
In the section titled "Educating Our Children," the document states that "corporal punishment is effective" and recommends teachers be given "more authority" to deal with disciplinary problems.
Additionally, the document states the party opposes mandatory pre-school and kindergarten, saying parents are "best suited to train their children in their early development."
The position causing the most controversy, however, is the statement that they oppose the teaching of "higher order thinking skills" -- a curriculum which strives to encourage critical thinking -- arguing that it might challenge "student's fixed beliefs" and undermine "parental authority."
The party also notes its encouragement of legislation that prevents "non-citizens unlawfully present in the United States" from enrolling in public schools, a stance that federal officials have previously deemed against the law.
You can't make this stuff up... Texas leads the nation in conservative-based stupidity... God help the students who manage to graduate under this knuckle-dragging regime. Employers will look at their diplomas and degrees and burst out laughing....
No surprise, but the huffpo has taken it out of context. Here's what the platform REALLY says: "Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
Outcome based education in general is a system of making the students 'discover' the facts for themselves. Knowledge based education is a system that presents the facts to the student for them to learn and assimilate with their current knowledge.
The Texas republicans are specifying a preferred teaching method, which also includes instruction in logic and critical thinking.
Don't mistake this as my agreeing with the platform - there's a bunch of garbage in there. Matter of fact, there's enough in there that I wonder why the Huffpo decided to pour this out of context outrage of the day into LJ's ear to be barfed up on this forum.
"Whatever you are, be a good one." ~ Abraham Lincoln
Democracy4Sale wrote: Funny thing, but I don't see any of your spin contradicting the original post and the contents of the GOP Platform document...
But carry on... God, I love this...
You're just being dense - which is no surprise to anyone reading this.
I was just clarifying that they were not against teaching the skill of critical thinking as the article implies. They are against using the "Higher Order Thinking Skills" (HOTS) cirriculum, and are in favor of Knowledge Based cirriculum instead - which also includes instruction and development of critical thinking skills.
"Whatever you are, be a good one." ~ Abraham Lincoln
