Oh, for Pete’s sake! During the weekend’s budget debate in the Texas House, state Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, offered an amendment that would have directed colleges and universities to spend at least 10 percent of their funds to teach courses on “Western Civilization.” As to what those courses would include, well, you be the judge: […]
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)
Give Us ONE Good Reason
Why wouldn’t you want a state entity to operate more efficiently and transparently? That is a question that no one had a good answer for Tuesday evening as the House Committee on Public Education took up HB 862, legislation sponsored by state Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, that would place the Texas State Board of Education […]
Lying to Pastors
Is it too much to ask that far-right ideologues at least not lie in their efforts to politicize clergy and their houses of worship? Next month pastors attending a so-called “Government Transformation Summit for Visionary Leaders” in San Antonio will have the pleasure of being treated to another disingenuous and absurdly distorted lecture on civil […]
The Religious Right’s War on Unions
The war against unions and working class Americans that’s raging in Wisconsin and other states isn’t just a campaign being waged by economic conservatives and wealthy special interests. Check out this fascinating essay on how the religious right is using the Bible to attack everything from unions to the minimum wage and the progressive income […]
Travis DA: No Problem with Ratliff on SBOE
Far-right members of the Texas State Board of Education are steamed that Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, defeated their ally Don McLeroy, R-College Station, in the March Republican primary last year. Since at least last November, they have been insisting that Ratliff’s status as a registered lobbyist makes him ineligible to serve on the board under […]
