The national backlash against the Texas State Board of Education‘s politicization of history and social studies curriculum standards is gathering steam. Yesterday a California Senate committee approved a bill requiring that education officials report to legislators and the state’s education secretary any changes influenced by the Texas standards when they review textbook content. California Sen. […]
Textbook Censorship
The Texas State Board of Education decides what every student in Texas public schools will learn from kindergarten through high school. The board does so by adopting curriculum standards and textbooks for public schools in the state.
For decades, far-right politicians on the State Board of Education and their extremist allies have taken advantage of this flawed system to dismiss the advice of experts and scholars. They have instead worked to inject their personal views into textbooks on everything from evolution and climate change to the history of slavery, civil rights, and separation of church and state.
Resources
- Report Reveals Serious Flaws in Social Studies Textbooks
- The State Board of Education: Dragging Texas Schools into the Culture Wars (2008 report)
- Evolution, Creationism & Public Schools: Surveying Texas Scientists (2008 report)
- Culture Wars and the Classroom (2010 report)
- Senate Bill 6: Changes in the Textbook Adoption Process (2011 report)
- Texas Science Curriculum Standards: Challenges (2012 report)
- Science Textbook Review (2013 report)
- Social Studies Textbook Review (2014 report)
David Barton’s Contempt for Teachers
It’s not a secret that pseudo-historian David Barton has no use for the academy. Barton clearly prefers to play like he’s a historian and self-publish his amateur (and heavily politicized) opinions in tract form rather than bother with the whole peer-review process typical in real scholarship. But Barton’s scorn is not limited to college professors — […]
History Profs to SBOE: Please, Just Stop
Warning that the “integrity of the curriuclum revision process has been compromised,” university historians are are circulating an open letter calling on the Texas State Board of Education to postpone final adoption of the new social studies curriculum standards. The letter asks the state board to allow curriculum teams and academic experts to review hundreds of changes […]
Yet Another Historian Corrects Barton
We long ago lost count of the number of times self-styled “historian” David Barton has been caught perpetuating historical inaccuracies or outright lies. (The man is nothing if not prodigious.) But on his radio program earlier this week, Barton delivered a doozy when discussing the Texas State Board of Education’s revision of social studies curriculum […]
Most David Barton SBOE Endorsements Flop
David Barton might be a sought-after political speaker and right-wing propaganda artist, but his record in supporting candidates for office hasn’t been very good this year. Barton, who argues that our government and laws should be based on fundamentalist Christian principles, sent out a mass e-mail in February endorsing a slate of five religious-right candidates […]
