Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath recently sat down with a Turning Point USA executive to chat about planting the group’s “Club America” chapters in every Texas high school. Because when you think “unbiased, apolitical public education,” your mind definitely jumps straight to the organization famous for its Professor Watchlist and culture-war merchandise table. The meeting happened just days before Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick promised a cool $1 million of campaign cash to make the dream come true—because nothing says “grassroots student movement” like an infusion of political PAC money.
Turning Point’s guy emailed Morath with links to Florida and Oklahoma’s efforts, where state leaders have basically said, “Try to stop these clubs and we’ll kneecap your accreditation.” Truly inspiring stuff. Meanwhile, no one will answer the Tribune’s calls, texts, or emails—either because they’re busy building freedom-loving youth brigades or because nobody wants to admit this whole plan is happening in real life.
The timing is especially rich: this all comes weeks after Morath launched investigations into hundreds of teachers for making “inappropriate” comments about Charlie Kirk’s death. Legal experts called it a blatant political overreach, but Morath insists it’s just a routine enforcement of the educator code of conduct—nothing to see here except your standard Texas education chief policing teachers’ tweets while meeting privately with national conservative groups.
Now Turning Point USA swears they’ll have a chapter in every Texas high school. Every. Single. One. Because that’s what students are apparently begging for—less algebra, more political clubs backed by the lieutenant governor and run by the same people who think your English teacher’s Facebook likes threaten the Republic.
If this is the “future of public education,” remind me again why we bother pretending the commissioner is supposed to be apolitical?
