State board member wants education chief replaced Board member wants education chief replaced

Plan to rewrite English standards prompts criticism

AUSTIN — Don McLeroy "has created havoc" as chairman of the State Board of Education and should be replaced, the senior member of the board said in a letter to Gov. Rick Perry.

"It is such a shame that after all these years of trying to improve public education in Texas, we are taking steps backwards because of Don McElroy," Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus Christi said in her letter to Perry, misspelling McLeroy's name.

Berlanga, who has been on the 15-member board since 1984, said McLeroy's leadership has been a disaster and asked Perry to replace him with "a moderate conservative who can work with all members of the State Board of Education and the citizens of this state."

McLeroy, a Bryan-based dentist, declined to comment because he had not seen the letter. Perry said he fully supports him.

Berlanga faults McLeroy for the way he has engineered the rewriting of the state's English language arts and reading curriculum, which will go to the board for a final vote on Thursday.

She said McLeroy has ignored board instructions to Texas Education Agency staff by issuing separate dictates and deceived public school teachers, ignoring their recommendations in favor of out-of-state teachers in the development of new English language arts and reading standards.

And she renewed earlier criticisms of McLeroy for inviting experts in topics ranging from special education and dyslexia, but not including Hispanic experts in the development of English standards. "Any intelligent, logical person would have named an expert who had dealt with Hispanic children and language minority children since more than (47 percent) of the 4.5 million students in our public schools are Hispanic," Berlanga wrote.

Even after the board voted two months ago to require Hispanic experts to evaluate the proposed standards, those experts were isolated instead of being invited to work with agency staff, she complained.

Berlanga said frustration led her to ask the governor to name a new chairman for the board that oversees Texas education.

She does not expect Perry to accede to her request, but the governor should, at least, speak to McLeroy about her complaints, she said.

"He can certainly encourage him to change his behavior ... (and) tell him that he can't behave this way anymore," Berlanga said Tuesday. "His tactics, I don't think anyone can change, but he's got to let the teachers speak and don't yell at them and don't be rude."

Berlanga should take her objections to the full board, Perry said, "and the board will appropriately make the right decision."

"I would suggest focusing on the issues that are important to the people of the state of Texas, not on whether I particularly like someone's personality," Perry said.

In her letter to Perry, Berlanga mentioned Perry's interest in running for re-election in 2010 as a reason he should appoint a new chairman.

"Texas has a large population of Hispanics, and (McLeroy) seems bent on alienating this very significant group of voters," she wrote. "He has managed to alienate our Texas teachers. For the sake of our great state do not allow this Master of Deceit to continue his very dangerous game."

gscharrer@express-news.net