More on Don McLeroy, and How Texas Rules Textbooks

In a lovely bit of validation for my “This man must lose his job for the good of the country!” rant of two days ago, the New York Times Magazine has just published a ten page article on Texas education guidelines, with profiles of  Don McLeroy, Gail Lowe, and Cynthia Dunbar.  (Dunbar is perhaps the craziest of them, and briefly gained national attention in 2008 for claiming that Obama was a member of Al-Qaida.  All are still on the board of education.)  The whole thing is worth reading, if only for the portrait it paints of these grotesquely colorful characters.  But the most important thing in it is probably this excerpt from page 2:

But Tom Barber, who worked as the head of social studies at the three biggest textbook publishers before running his own editorial company, says, “Texas was and still is the most important and most influential state in the country.” And James Kracht, a professor at Texas A&M’s college of education and a longtime player in the state’s textbook process, told me flatly, “Texas governs 46 or 47 states.”

This only a local election with regard to who gets to vote in it.  McLeroy needs to go.  There are 19 days left.  Here’s the opposition movement website again: District 9 Citizens for a Smart State Board of Education.