A Teacher Responds to Criticism from the Right

In May we reported that a member of a social studies curriculum writing team was complaining about an “overrepresentation of minorities” in the curriculum standards. That member, Bill Ames, is a political activist appointed by Don McLeroy, who at the time was chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. Now a teacher, Kimberly Griffith, who […]

Read More…

Off the Cliff

The bizarre (and long discredited) claims that President Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen keep coming from the far right. So is Texas-based Vision America, a religious-right organization headed by Rick Scarborough in Lufkin, now jumping off the crazy cliff? Seems that way. In an e-mail — signed by Scarborough — to supporters today, the organization […]

Read More…

Another Look at David Barton

Chris Rodda, writing for Daily Kos, explains why giving David Barton any influence over a public school curriculum is a very bad idea. As you know, the Texas State Board of Education has appointed Barton to a panel of so-called “experts” guiding the revision of the state’s social studies curriculum standards. Barton founded and heads WallBuilders, a […]

Read More…

When Genius Passes You By

Who knew that all the world’s best climate scientists and their research could be proven wrong by a fringe political activist from Minnesota? We told you in May that Don McLeroy, still chair of the Texas State Board of Education at the time, wanted to appoint to the social studies curriculum “expert panel” a political activist […]

Read More…

SBOE Right-Wingers in a Snit

At their meeting in Austin yesterday, far-right members of the Texas State Board of Education complained that the news media had blown out of proportion calls by conservative “expert” curriculum reviewers (appointed by those board members) to  remove liberal historical figures like Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall from social studies curriculum standards. Terri Leo, R-Spring, and her […]

Read More…