Texas isn’t the only state that is constitutionally challenged. In fact, Mississippi is giving us a run for our money when it comes to (willful?) ignorance about what the First Amendment means. Earlier this summer, our friends at Advocates for Youth brought us the disturbing tale of an abstinence-only rally/evangelical prayer meeting sponsored by the […]
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)
Blogging from the Social Studies Hearing III
2:25 – The board broke for lunch after David Barton’s comments. Next up will be comments from representatives of the social studies curriculum writing teams. 2:48 – The board is going through each grade level, listening to the curriculum writers. Nothing particularly controversial. 2:52 – Curriculum writers are using this opportunity to defend themselves against […]
TFN Insider at the Texas SBOE
TFN Insider will be blogging today from the Texas State Board of Education hearing on proposed new social studies curriculum standards. The Dallas Morning News provides a good preview of the expected debate over the standards. Money quote: “Unlike science, where most of the debate was over evolution, the list of items to be discussed […]
Help Review the Social Studies ‘Experts’
The so-called “expert” reviewers appointed by the Texas State Board of Education have turned over their written reviews of the first drafts of the new social studies curriculum standards. While we work through these reviews, let us know what you think about them, too. The reviews are here. The first drafts are here. Among the things […]
Don’t Buy the Lie
From a message being circulated to a far-right e-mail list in Texas today: “(T)he teen pregnancy rate is certainly not the fault of abstinence-only sex education programs but is instead the outgrowth of prolific contraceptive sex education programs.” The facts say otherwise: Texas has one of the highest teen birth rates in the country (and […]
