A better choice for Texas education
I was surprised that Wednesday’s appropriately scathing article by Joshua Avelar, “Trouble for Public Education,” about Gov. Perry’s possible nomination of State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar as chairperson, did not mention that she was due to encounter opposition in this coming year’s election. As it becomes more clear who may become the next Board of Education chairperson, UT mathematics professor Lorenzo Sudan’s decision to oppose incumbent Dunbar in the coming election may soon carry even greater importance.
It is rumored that Perry is seriously considering appointing Dunbar of Richmond as the leader of Texas public education. You would think that after the Senate refused to re-affirm the board’s previous chairperson, the polarizing and under-qualified Don McLeroy, Perry would look for a board member with a more positive attitude toward science and a greater ability to act as a leader and conciliator to become the board’s new chairperson. Instead, he appears to be looking in the opposite direction.
This past year, the board was in the national spotlight when it decided to rekindle the intelligent design debate. If Dunbar is appointed as the board chairperson, Texas will be the laughing stock of the nation, and rightly so. At a time when the country is beginning to realize how poorly our public schools are doing in science and mathematics compared to the rest of the world, appointing an anti-science, creationist lawyer would be a step light-years in the wrong direction.
If Dunbar is nominated and appointed as the chair of the board, which is unfortunately not unlikely, it will take Perry’s pandering to the right to new depths and indicate that Perry and the board have a more deep-seated distrust of science and education than previously thought. After this year’s embarrassment and lack of progress, I say enough is enough. It is important, now more than ever, to replace the unqualified and polarizing figures of the State Board of Education. We need to start here in Austin by ousting Dunbar. Austin has managed to play a major part in the placement of a person in the driver’s seat of our state’s education who thinks that public education is unconstitutional and the secular left’s “deceptive tool of perversion.” Yes, that’s right, Dunbar is our representative.
UT mathematics professor Lorenzo Sadun is running against her in the 2010 March election for the Place 10 seat of the board. If elected, Sadun will be the only professional scientist on the board. Combined with his teaching awards and experience, there are plenty of reasons to do all that we can to see that he wins. Even more so, as a student of his, I have personally been witness to Sadun’s fairness, reason, honesty and sincere love for both education and science. There is no question in my mind that Sadun will bring nothing but clear-headed honesty and knowledge to the board — something which seems to be so desperately needed.
— Stuart Sevier
mathematics and physics senior
The truth about CHIP
I would like to thank The Daily Texan for giving attention to the plight of 1.5 million uninsured children in Texas. Unfortunately, Tuesday’s article by Bryan Lee, “Perry Ignores CHIP Plea,” featured some misquotes and mis-characterizations about advocates’ proposals for Texas children.
First, CHIP and Children’s Medicaid are highly effective health insurance programs. Children do not “get money” through these programs, as suggested in the article, but instead get the ability to see a doctor in a doctor’s office (as opposed to the emergency room, which is far more costly to taxpayers). The “organizational problems” alluded to in the article refer not to the programs themselves, but to administrative issues here in Texas. The 750,000 uninsured Texas children already eligible but not enrolled in these programs encounter excessive red tape here in our state, which prevents their staying enrolled even when they continue to qualify.
Second, an erroneous quote, suggesting that the CHIP proposal rejected by Gov. Perry would have been “easier for some families,” may have left readers with the mistaken impression that these families have alternatives today. They do not. The children whose parents would have been able to buy into the CHIP program under the proposal are those who have no affordable private insurance option through their parents’ employers or on the market and no public alternative. As private health care premiums skyrocket, these lower middle-class children represent the fastest-growing group of uninsured kids in Texas.
Health reform efforts both at the state and federal levels must ensure that we cut the red tape that keeps eligible children from accessing health insurance and make sure every child has access to affordable, comprehensive, quality care.
— Anne Dunkelberg
Center for Public Policy Priorities
Eileen Garcia-Matthews
Texans Care For Children
Anat Kelman Shaw
Children’s Defense Fund
