This post is second in a series on the education planks of the 2010 Texas Democratic Party Platform.
This is an unofficial version published in advance of the final version from the Texas Democrats, but I expect very few changes.
EDUCATION
Texas Democrats strongly support our Constitution’s recognition that a free, quality public education is “essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people.” Texas Democrats believe a world class education system is a moral imperative and an economic necessity that requires parents, educators and community leaders to work together to provide our children the skills needed to compete and succeed in a global economy.
Texas Democrats believe all children should be able to attend a safe, secure school and have access to an exemplary educational program that values and encourages critical thinking and creativity, not the “drill and kill” teach-to-the-test policy Republicans have forced on students and teachers. To fulfill this commitment, Texas Democrats continue leading the fight to improve student achievement, lower dropout rates, and attract and retain well-qualified teachers.
Democrats also believe it is essential that all Texans have access to affordable, quality higher education and career education programs, with a renewed emphasis on the importance of a full four year college education, and particular attention to science, technology and engineering.
I don’t know which constitution you’re using, but in the current one, the provision for free public education is the first section of the education article, Article 7:
Perhaps you mistakenly thought the reference to the U.S. Constitution.
Free public education has a long, hallowed and generally happy history in Texas — happy wherever it actually occurs. Especially among Democrats, not so much among Republicans in my experience, the belief is strong that education really is “essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people.”
I suspect that a poll of most Democrats would also discover that the reason Republicans do not like public education and work so hard to end it is that they do not respect the liberties and rights of the people. An uneducated peasantry is easier to subdue. That’s why it was against the law to teach slaves to read in most of the Old South.
Democrats are opposed to all forms of slavery, especially slavery over the minds of man (including especially women).
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Nowhere in the constitution is a free education guaranteed for citizens. The government has taken hold of education and as always they have screwed it up royally with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Public schools are now more a piece of political pork than a place of learning. SAT’s are down, violence, pregnancy,and pedophilia are shooting through the roof and the best you can do is blame Republicans? Please shut up.
Thankfully Government schools are eliminating themselves due to their pandering to the left wing mobsters and by the way it isn’t free it is however very expensive babysitting by unqualified and unacceptible babysitters for which our children are destined to pay.
The Black Swan of the whole government education mess is Homeschooling and Internet schooling. Through these unpredicted phenomena the face of education will be changed forever and hopefully obsolete government schools, now bastions of crime and non-competativeness, will go the way of the buggy whip.
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