The SBOE: Contempt for Teachers and the Law

We told you on Monday that the House Public Education Committee had scheduled a hearing for 9 a.m. this morning about the State Board of Education. Ryan Valentine, the Texas Freedom Network’s deputy director, is testifying for TFN today. Here’s an excerpt: Over the past 13 years, and especially in the past 12 months, we […]

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Turning Up the Heat on the State Board of Education

The political antics of the far-right faction that now controls the Texas State Board of Education has been attracting a lot of attention in the press. The faction has managed to make work on everything from adopting mathematics textooks to revising language arts and science curriculum standards strained and controversial. Unnecessary fights over those and other issues […]

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Empty Standards Mean Trouble for Public School Bible Classes

Last year the Texas Legislature told the State Board of Education to create new, specific curriculum standards for high school elective courses about the Bible’s influence in history and literature. That was one of a number of safeguards for religious freedom that lawmakers put into the bill. In March, however, the state board decided it […]

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Were the Founding Fathers Creationists?

Many times we stumble across op-ed pieces that argue in favor of including “intelligent design”/creationism in public school science classes. We usually don’t include them in our Daily News Clips because there are far too many of them and we don’t want to add fuel to their fire. But today is a good day to […]

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Texas Attorney General Cannot Certify Bible Courses Will Be Constitutional

Texas Attorney General Cannot Certify Bible Courses Will Be Constitutional Vague Standards Proposed by State Board of Education Will Put Religious Freedom, Local Taxpayers at Risk, TFN President Says FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 9, 2008 Today the Texas attorney general made clear that he cannot certify that public school courses about the Bible offered under […]

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