The Texas Freedom Network issued the following press release today: The president of the Texas Freedom Network today called on state lawmakers to investigate ethics concerns swirling around the Texas State Board of Education’s management of the Permanent School Fund and to reconsider their failure this spring to let voters decide whether the board should […]
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)
Money and Politics at the Texas SBOE, Part II
(Click here for Part I of this series.) The Texas Freedom Network and other observers have long been puzzled about why Rick Agosto, a San Antonio Democrat, has often sided with the State Board of Education’s far-right faction since his election in 2006. He has done so even when all other Democrats — and even […]
Money and Politics at the Texas SBOE, Part I
Earlier this year the Texas House voted overwhelmingly to shift authority over the Permanent School Fund (PSF) from the State Board of Education to a panel of financial experts. Senate Republican leaders, however, let the measure die without even a hearing. Now they may have good reason to regret that decision. On Sunday the Dallas […]
Legislative Heroes
The Texas Freedom Network was grateful for the strong efforts of Texas legislators who worked in Austin this year on critical issues such as responsible sex education, medical research and public education. We had some important victories and some disappointing setbacks. But along the way we worked with legislators who fearlessly championed mainstream values and […]
The Good Book Goes to School
Two years ago, the state of Texas passed a law encouraging — but NOT mandating — elective Bible courses in public schools. (TFN and other religious and civil liberties groups worked very hard to make sure this new law included a few common-sense safeguards that would prevent teachers from turning such courses into Sunday school […]
