(Note: All quotations are taken from the February 17, 2011 New York Times Op-Ed piece, "Mrs. Bush, Abstinence, and Texas" by Gail Collins.)
Ah, Texas. A land of big churches, big oil, and big problems.
Let me preface by saying that Texas ranks 47th out of 50 states for literacy, 49th in verbal SAT scores, and 46th in math. It ranks #3 in teen pregnancies and #1 in repeat teen pregnancies.
In light of a lagging state economy, the Texas State Legislature wishes to cut roughly "$4.8 billion over the next two years from the schools."
Governor Rick Perry (who you may remember from his secessionist rhetoric from a couple of years ago) has refused to raise taxes to benefit the school system despite that fact that nearly one-tenth of all American children are educated within the state.
This same one-tenth are also faced with impossible birth control options. In the state of Texas, minors cannot obtains contraceptives without parental consent. Texas also spends more money than any other state on abstinence-only sex education programs.
"Abstinence works," said Governor Perry during a televised interview with Evan Smith of The Texas Tribune.
"But we have the third highest teen pregnancy rate among all the states in the country," Smith responded.
"It works," insisted Perry.
"Can you give me a statistic suggesting it works?" asked Smith.
"I'm just going to tell you from my own personal life. Abstinence works." said Perry, doggedly.
Texas also remains a fierce battleground for partisan debates over evolution and the information that goes into much of history and social studies textbooks across the country. The Texas Board of Education is notorious for their attempts to give advocates of intelligent design the opportunity to raise doubts concerning the validity of evolution in science textbooks. The right-wing faction of the board also managed to push through new social studies standards that skews popular (read: correct) notions of history. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently released a report on their findings of the new history curriculum—they gave it a D. According to the TBOE, Joe McCarthy, apparently, wasn't so bad of a guy. Small government is hailed as a key factor in the commercial boom of the early 19th century (never mind the numerous government-funded projects that improved the nation's infrastructure so that transport of said goods was even possible). Their worst crime, though, is their frankly racist and unforgivable lack of fair acknowledgment of slavery and its legacy. Slavery in the territories prior to the civil war is not mentioned (Kansas-Nebraska Act! Missouri Compromise!). Reconstruction attitudes toward freedmen are also nonexistent. Sharecropping, Black Codes, and the term "Jim Crow" do not make appearances. The KKK, too, is absent.
Few things are as dangerous as the overt politicization of history. Though our nation may not be completely innocent regarding that particular sin (American Indians, American excellency/superiority), we live in a country where history is something that ought to be left untouched by the political right or left. To do otherwise is is to be put on the same level as Stalin and Zedong.
Until now, Texas has shown that they are willing to tolerate such behavior. Similarly, they have shown their desire for their children's ignorance of sex, contraception, STDs/STIs, and HIV/AIDS.
It's time to take a stand, Texas. For all of our sakes.
-Anna
Labels: Abstinence, Texas Board of Education