Via Talking Points Memo

The Republican Party of Texas’s 2012 platform has a plank on “Knowledge-Based Education” that reads:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

It also says, “[e]very Republican is responsible for implementing this platform.” Party spokespersons say the plank should not have included the line on “critical thinking,” but that it will remain unchanged until 2014.