Remember last month, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott appointed a homeschooling Christian mother to head up the State Board of Education?

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, not to be outdone, just appointed someone to his State Board of Education who never attended a public school in his life, only having a fundamentalist Christian “education.”

Here’s what we know about 28-year-old Matthew Brown (above), a graduate of Pensacola Christian College:

As public education activist Larry Lee noted in a post on his education blog, Bentley “has appointed someone to state board of education with no known involvement ever with public schools (did not attend them and says his kids will not) and who led the battle in [March] to defeat a school tax vote in his home county and wants us to believe this is the best candidate in seven counties to make decisions about a statewide system with a $4.1 billion budget and 90,000 employees.”

Brown’s former job wasn’t in education, either. He was a design engineer at the Baldwin County Highway Department.

How does that qualify him to make education decisions?

Because Jesus, that’s why (and how *dare* you question the governor’s wisdom).

This is an appointment you make when you don’t give a shit about public policy and only want to score points with your party’s base. It’s like appointing Sarah Palin to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. (Or, you know, anything else for that matter.)

Somehow, Alabama’s governor found a way to make a school system with an already awful reputation even worse.

(via Stuff Fundies Like. Image via Shutterstock)



