FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Today the State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to revised science curriculum standards that mostly align with compromise language offered by teachers and scientists on a state-appointed curriculum writing team. If approved on a final vote Friday, the revised standards would largely remove curriculum standards the state board added in 2009 in an effort to undermine instruction on evolution in science classrooms.
Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller has the following statement on today’s vote:
“No one has ever had a problem with requiring students to identify or examine scientific explanations and allowing them to ask questions in their classrooms. That’s how students learn. The issue has always been with politicians ignoring the objections of classroom teachers by forcing them to waste precious instructional time on junk science arguments designed to do little more than undermine student understanding of factual, established science on evolution. We hope the state board will confirm today’s vote on Friday and send a message that the culture wars have no place in Texas classrooms.”
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The Texas Freedom Network is a nonpartisan, grassroots public education watchdog based in Austin.
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