contradictory

This contradicts other planks that call for elimination of all federal programs not in the Constitution's enumerated powers. NASA is not such a power.

It is difficult to place NASA in a platform document for a fiscally conservative Texas party. The greater Houston area clearly benefits from NASA's presence. However, far too much of NASA's work either has no direct or even near-term application that will possibly benefit humanity, and even the parts that do benefit humanity are so collosally expensive to be a grossly inefficient way to develop useful technology. Therefore, much of NASA is a make-work program for nerds. If NASA must be in the platform, the plank must oppose much of NASA's current allocation.

The Texas Aerospace Commission should have been decommissioned per the Texas Sunset Commission because it "is not an efficient use of the State’s limited resources." It is ironic for a platform plank to directly support wasteful spending.

This is vague without better definition of what constitutes "critical U.S. interests." Also, if we are going to play the free trade and globalization game, we cannot use different rules for ourselves.

This plank calls for adjustment to a program and also calls for its elimination? Huh?

The Property Value Study is a valid tool to monitor appraisal district accuracy. Certainly Republicans don't want less accuracy?

A 3% cap in Dallas County, for example, would have in fact shifted the net tax burden away from the wealthiest inhabitants. That makes no sense.

In the prior plank, we asked for a drastically simpler tax reform. That will necessarily exclude niche deductions like this.

This is a valid local control issue, and it contradicts with other planks that call for "maximizing" local control.

Phonics is a method to learn reading and is not a basic skill.

"Career and technology programs" are in fact "job training." You cannot decry it and then support it.

There is no credible movement to have mandatory job training.

Outcome-based education is largely misconstrued. It was a lightning rod in the '80s and early '90s because in some cases it was accompanied by reduced standards. OBE is normative in public schools today and has resulted in increased standards.

"Entrepreneurial skills and investment skills" are not basic skills that need to be mandatory parts of public education.

Acceptance of comprehensive sexual education is almost universal. Therefore, prior written consent is usually meaningless red tape. We should not take the Democrat route and keep adding more bureaucratic hassles for parents.

Existing open records laws already allow interested parents access to sexual education curriculum and materials if a district is not forthcoming.

This contradicts other planks that call for maximizing local control.

The first sentence is vague. It is unclear what state-given authority teachers lack, and the Support for Classroom Teachers plank already calls for increased powers to deal with misbehaving students. Any lack of authority is a district-level policy or procedural problem.

Supposely the platform is for "maximizing" local control elsewhere, but yet we want the state to tell the districts what to do?

Textbook content adoption must have checks and balances. Otherwise textbook standards will entirely be created by an unelected committee.

The anti-technology provision is silly and contradicts other parts of the platform that affirm technology.

Furthermore, by limiting textbook authority to the SBOE, this plank contradicts other planks that call for local control.

Let's be frank about what this is about: some see the SBOE as the best hope for replacing science with religious doctrine or presenting a politically-biased, revisionist view of history. They keep trying but always fail.

Textbook pricing problems can be greatly alleviated by eliminating Texas's unusual, centralized control of textbook adoption and purchasing. Let the free market work, let local control work, let local districts purchase their textbooks like the rest of the nation. Fortunately that has already started.

There is no reason to have yet more elected officials.

People without college degrees should not teach in public schools.

Texas Education Code sections 28.008 and 28.009 force districts to take college preparation seriously. This is good. Proposing their removal contradicts with the Knowledge-Based Education plank that opposes "job training" in public schools.