Texas State Board of Education Chairwoman Gail Lowe has some peculiar views when it comes to teaching students about good citizenship. In her view, labor leader César Chavez and civil rights champion and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall aren’t good role models for that. Right-wing critics want to censor discussion of Chavez and […]
Recent Blogs
Texas Earns an ‘F’ in Science Education Study
We warned repeatedly during the recent debate over science curricuclum standards that Texas was in danger of falling behind the rest of the nation in science education. Now a new study to be published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach confirms our warnings. The study by Louise S. Mead and Anton Mates of the National […]
The Religious Right and Health Care
The Texas Freedom Network has taken no position on national health insurance reform, but we have been fascinated by the torrent of e-mails from religious-right pressure groups opposed to it. Oh, we’re not surprised that the religious right opposes reform — the movement’s leadership has long been in bed with economic and “small government” conservatives (even […]
Onward Christian Bloggers
We have many times noted (one example) disingenuous claims by creationists that their attacks on teaching about evolution in public school science classrooms have nothing to do with religion. Now anti-evolution pooh-bah William Dembski offers more evidence that those claims are little more than misleading propaganda. Writing on his blog Cultural Noise, Paul Murray notes descriptions […]
First Social Studies Drafts Are Encouraging
Once again, Texas educators are pushing back against efforts to politicize the state’s public school classrooms. Texas Freedom Network’s reviews of the first drafts of proposed new social studies curriculum standards revealed some encouraging signs. In most cases, the teachers, academics and other community members on the curriuclum writing teams refused to bow to far-right pressure to […]
