Educators educate; Abbott indoctrinates

On his pro-voucher tour of parts of Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott keeps uttering a statement with which I actually agree, and so do other public education advocates I know. The statement goes something like this: “Public schools are for education, not indoctrination.”

It’s a strange statement, though, to come from the state’s chief indoctrinator. He really must mean: “Public schools are for education, not indoctrination, unless I am doing the indoctrinating.”

While public school educators are educating, teaching – or trying to teach – the whole truth about our history, society and culture, Abbott is politicizing and privatizing education. He is promoting and signing laws to whitewash the teaching of racism; threatening book bans to pander to people who fear and hate diversity; and potentially endangering the careers of professional educators who resent his intrusions.

This is the real indoctrination of Texas public schools, and Abbott is at the center of it. But he is so full of his own indoctrination that he doesn’t recognize the inconsistency in his own statement. And if he is concerned about tax dollars being spent on schools that indoctrinate, why in the world does he want to send public funds to religious schools?

Clay Robison