Tryin' To Make Our Kids As Dumb As He Is - #364

#364 DON McLEROY
EX-MEMBER OF THE TEXAS BOARD OF EDUCATION

Why is McLeroy even on this list? After all, he's a non-factor. He got his ass beat in a primary this year in a conservative district where the people were just tired of his antics and his know-nothingism. Well, because he's a crank who's done unbelievable damage while on the powerful Texas Board of Education for the past 11 years. (The TBE has a huge market for schoolbooks, so big that what IT approves is usuallly what's offered to the rest of the country.)

McLeroy loathed evolution and tried to get it expunged from textbooks, when he wasn't trying the 'equal time' scam to get 'creationism' put in the textbooks alongside evolution.

But he didn't stop there. McLeroy also tried to get some of his 'rustic' opinions on other subjects, codified into textbooks, such as:

1. Asking why kids need to learn 'crazy Chinese words,' in English textbooks during a discussion of Chinese literature. Although he did concede 'chow mein' would be useful, which isn't even a Chinese word

2. Joe McCarthy was basically vindicated by history. (No, he was not.)

3. He evaluates History textbooks by how they cover Christianity,Israel and Ronald Reagan. "He needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes. (Which were later raised by Bush The Smarter and Big Bill.)"



He has some other beauts like saying that minorities should be grateful to majorities because they voted for the Civil Rights Acts.

With thanks to the Washington Monthly, the San Antonio Express, the Dallas Morning News and TPM Muckraker.

S. Olson