Texas politicians oppose "higher order thinking skills"

I hope this is fake but I worry it is not.

“Texas Republican Party Calls For Abstinence Only Sex Ed, Corporal Punishment In Schools”

My favorite nugget:

The position causing the most controversy, however, is the statement that they oppose the teaching of “higher order thinking skills” — a curriculum which strives to encourage critical thinking — arguing that it might challenge “student’s fixed beliefs” and undermine “parental authority.” 

Yee-fucking-haw. We are doomed.

Addendum: I went to the source.  Visit the homepage of the Texas GOP Convention and you can download a copy of their platform statement.  I didn’t read the whole document, but found this:

“Knowledge-Based Education – 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.”

Based on this, one of the ways in which the Texas GOP has been misrepresented is that they state opposition to a certain kind of teaching philosophy, and not “thinking” itself, but the meat of the criticism seems to stand.  Since the platform statement is intended to be the ‘doorbuster’ that gets people fired up about what these politicians are going to do for them, this is some scary shit.  Granted, based on past and current performance, the opposition isn’t any better, but sheee-it.  So seldom have politicians been so honest.