By Jeff Biggers
Posted: Updated:
While coal mining families in West Virginia and across the country mourned the fourth anniversary of the tragic Upper Big Branch coal mine disaster last week, hailed by US Attorney R. Booth Goodwin II as “a conspiracy to violate mine safety and health laws,” the Illinois state legislature rolled out the red carpet for Big Coal and voted to keep a notorious “coal education program” for schools that has been widely denounced by former coal miners and educators as inaccurate industry propaganda.
It’s really hard not to get jaded about the state of corrupt coal politics in Illinois.
Sadly enough, last fall former coal miners and citizens groups from southern Illinois, working with national education organizations, waged a successful campaign to take down the state’s cringe-worthy “kids coal” website — but environmental groups in Chicago caught up in the twisted state Democratic politics didn’t even bother to contact them.
Last week’s episode in the “coal education” fiasco, called out five years ago for unleashing dime-bag coal pushers into our classrooms, places Illinois into the shameless ranks of last decade’s Kansas board of education decision to teach creationism.