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Publishers will submit textbooks in April for all socials studies and history courses from Kindergarten to Grade 12. Grades K-5 Social Studies Middle School Courses
High School Courses
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We want to remind you of a fast-approaching deadline.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has begun the process of appointing individuals to review new social studies textbooks the State Board of Education (SBOE) will adopt in 2014.
The deadline to sign up is January 24.
It’s critical that truly qualified individuals serve on the review teams and counter far-right efforts to politicize the textbooks. That’s especially important because the new textbooks must cover controversial curriculum standards that distort the history of slavery, civil rights, separation of church and state and other sensitive topics.
Click here to apply to serve on one of the official social studies review teams (PDF).
Please share this post anyone you think might also be interested in serving on a review team.
To help us ensure that TEA and SBOE members give your application the serious consideration it deserves, it’s very important that you let us know that you have signed up to serve on a review team. Send an email to [email protected] and let us know you have applied.
Don’t let far-right SBOE members and their supporters whitewash our history and use social studies textbooks to promote their political agendas.
Now don’t you worry your pretty little head TFN. We ain’t gonna let nobody insert Religious Right, John Birch Society, Ku Klux Klan, or Tea Party propaganda into Texas social studies textbooks.
What’s that you say? We are American citizens too, and we have a right to get our bi-assed views into textbooks.
Well, as far as i’m concerned, you are not American citizens—not really—citizens of some other planet maybe. Just remember this. Education is serious business, and we few adults out here (like the staff of TFN) who have not taken leave of our senses know that you do not put silly stuff in social studies textbooks.
For example, George Armstrong Custer was a stupid and reckless military leader who got himself and all of his men killed because his ego made him take leave of his senses. He should in no way be upheld as a great American military leader in high school textbooks because we need military leaders who are sane, smart, and capable of realistic planning and execution of maneuvers. Sure, we can respect the uniform he wore because it was an American uniform—but not the man inside it. The real American heroes at the Little Big Horn were the ordinary soldiers who knew their leader was a nit-wit and held their ground anyway. The other heroes were the American Indians who pulled together an intertribal coalition to defend their land from invaders. Real Americans are not inclined to let invaders (even technologically superior ones) walk all over them without a fight.