Is a Chuck E. Cheese manager qualified to serve on the State Board of Education in Texas? How about a candidate who opposes allowing people in “socialist higher education” to write history lessons? Those were just two of the intriguing issues discussed at a recent forum for Republican candidates in the District 11 SBOE race […]
Education
Texas has an increasingly diverse public education system with a public school enrollment of more than 5 million. Unfortunately, that public education system is also the target of right-wing extremists seeking to privatize our neighborhood public schools and push a culture-war agenda in the classroom.
To that end, Texas Freedom Network tirelessly fights for Texas public school students at the Capitol — opposing private school voucher legislation, sticking up for students’ freedoms, advocating for truthful, censorship-free lessons and textbooks, and more. We’ve also conducted groundbreaking research into what is taught in classrooms on subjects like sex education and religion.
Resources
- Teach the Truth: Texans United Against Censorship in Education
- Can This Class Be Saved? The ‘Hobby Lobby’ Public School Bible Curriculum (2014 report)
- Reading, Writing & Religion II (2013 report)
- Sex Education in Public Schools: Progress in the Lone Star State (2011 report)
- Just Say Don’t Know: Sex Education in Texas Public Schools (2009 report)
- The State Board of Education: Dragging Texas Schools into the Culture Wars (2008 report)
- Reading Writing & Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools (2006 report)
- Broken Promises II (2001 report)
- Broken Promises: Charter Schools in Texas (2000 report)
2013 in Quotes: The War on Science
With 2013 winding down, it’s time for our annual review of what we heard from the far right over the past year. We’ll roll those out over the next week or so. Today we review some of the most outrageous things we heard as the right’s war on science and science education rambled on, especially […]
BNTSG at TFN’s EPIC Evening
Here it is, the entire Bill Nye the Science Guy speech at this year’s TFN’s EPIC Evening. Bill was in Austin to help us celebrate the DarWIN for science and to accept TFN’s Stand Up for Science award. Bill was supposed to speak for 20 minutes. He went on for almost an hour. No one […]
GOP Candidates for Texas Lieutenant Governor Advocate Teaching Creationism in Public Schools
During a debate in Waco on Thursday, candidates for the Republican nomination for Texas lieutenant governor said they support teaching biblical creationism in the state’s public schools. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that teaching creationism in public school science classrooms violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Incumbent Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and two […]
Creationist 'Think Tank' Declares Defeat in Texas Textbook Battle — Days Before the State Board Even Votes
On Tuesday morning, the Seattle-based Discovery Institute mourned the failure to undermine the teaching of evolution in new science textbooks for Texas public schools. But that declaration of defeat actually has come days before the State Board of Education‘s scheduled final vote Friday on whether to adopt those new textbooks. We’re not ready to declare the fight […]