As the State Board of Education prepares this week to vote on which new social studies textbooks to approve for Texas public schools, we are encouraged that publishers are making a number of changes to problematic passages in their texts. In each of these instances, publishers are responding to serious concerns by scholars working with the Texas Freedom Network and coalition partners.
Climate Change
Reviewers at the National Center for Science Education identified textbook passages from four publishers that would mislead students about the real and growing threat of global climate change. The passages included inaccurate information on climate science and promoted climate change denialism. Three of the publishers, including major publisher Pearson Education have submitted revisions correcting those problems. The fourth publisher, McGraw-Hill, has indicated that it will revise a particularly problematic passage in its Grade 6 World Culture and Geography textbook, but we are waiting for details. Taken together, these changes would represent a major victory for science education over the political arguments of climate change denialists.
Islam
