Odds and ends: Progressives and Texas Textbooks, plus, is Rand Paul racist?

Think Progress interviewed two progressive candidates for the Texas state school board in the fall and plumbs their opinions on the current controversy. They seem eager to reverse conservatives' attacks on expertise, which I discussed yesterday:

– BELL-METEREAU: It’s turned into a battle against teachers, scholars, and experts in the field, which is just absurd. We should let the experts do the curriculum formation, and the board should have oversight and be looking at some broad general goals, rather than doing hundreds of line-by-line educations.
– JENNINGS: I have a PhD in education, and I know I shouldn’t be writing curriculum for 4.7 million children. So why, people who aren’t even educators, think that they’re qualified to write curriculum is beyond me.  (bold in original)