Yesterday’s debate over social studies curriculum standards at the Texas State Board of Education mostly illuminated political biases of board members more than it did good education policies. Many conservative board members opposed, for example, restoring civil rights and labor leader Dolores Huerta to third-grade standards because they say she’s a socialist and isn’t an […]
Don McLeroy
Keeping Communism Out of First Grade?
A Wall Street Journal piece today on the Texas State Board of Education’s politicization of proposed social studies curriculum standards notes one particularly outrageous change the board’s far-right faction made (which we have already reported about) back in January. Check out the quote from board member Don McLeroy: Debate about certain provisions has been intense. […]
TFN Featured in PBS Focus on Social Studies
“Need to Know,” a new PBS current affairs program, aired an insightful piece Friday on the debate over social studies curriculum standards at the Texas State Board of Education. Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller, state board member Don McLeroy and Thomas Ratliff, who defeated McLeroy in the March Republican Primary, all have prominent places […]
When Politicians Set Curriculum Standards
Texans are getting a clear view of what happens when politicians, instead of teachers and scholars, make the decisions about what our children learn in their public school classrooms. The knee-jerk contempt that some members of the Texas State Board of Education have for true religious freedom, the expansion of rights and for general reform […]
It Gets Even Worse on Social Studies
State Board of Education member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, is circulating new changes he wants to make to proposed social studies curriuclum standards for Texas public schools. We didn’t think next week’s state board meeting on the standards could get any worse than what happened in March. But McLeroy’s proposed new changes have disabused us […]