The Texas State Board of Education debate over social studies curriculum standards last spring drew unprecedented coverage from the national media, most of it reasonably balanced. The exception was coverage from Fox News, including commentator Tucker Carlson. Carlson and his Fox colleagues made so many false and misleading statements on-air about the debate that we […]
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)
The Right’s Distortions on Sex Education
Montanans are seeing a classic right-wing distortion campaign on sex education — much like we saw during the 2009 legislative session in Austin. You will recall that last year right-wing opponents in Texas screamed that medically accurate, evidence-based sex education would “promote recreational and gay sex.” Unfortunately, absurd scare tactics like that cowed enough lawmakers to […]
Talking Points
From today’s TFN News Clips: “The big message is that when it comes to children’s health, Texas kids are showing many signs that things are getting worse, not better.” — Dr. Frances Deviney, Texas Kids Count director, discussing a new report that shows Texas has the nation’s third-highest teen birthrate, is experiencing a rise in the […]
New SBOE Campaign Finance Reports
July campaign finance reports show that Democratic challengers in two Central Texas State Board of Education races currently have sizable funding advantages over their Republican opponents — at least on paper. But it’s still very early in the general election campaign, and one of those Republican candidates dipped deep into her own bank account to […]
Common Sense on Sex Education
Texans have plenty of it. Common sense, that is. Not, unfortunately, sex education. The results of the TFN Education Fund’s statewide survey we released yesterday showed that 80 percent of likely voters in Texas agree that high school classes on sex education should teach “about contraception, such as condoms and other birth control, along with […]
