Don McLeroy has some explaining to do. Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka reports this revealing quote from McLeroy, a Republican seeking re-election to the Texas State Board of Education, at a recent campaign debate: “One of the first real breaches of limited government was public education.” What in the world? Someone who has been on the […]
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)
Mercer Flunks the Truth Test (Again)
Let’s not beat around the bush. Texas State Board of Education member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, has problems with the truth. During yesterday’s debate with his District 5 opponent in the March 2 Republican Primary, Tim Tuggey of Austin, Mercer once again mischaracterized the facts about the social studies curriculum writing teams and how those […]
District 5 SBOE Debate Videos Now Online
Video segments from today’s Republican and Democratic debates between candidates for the District 5 seat on the Texas State Board of Education are now available online here. It appears that an audio file of Wednesday’s District 9 debate between Republican incumbent Don McLeroy and his opponent in the GOP primary, Thomas Ratliff, is not yet […]
NYT: How the Texas Right Hijacks Education
UPDATE: See more about the New York Times Magazine cover image here. The New York Times Magazine has just published online a major piece about the Texas State Board of Education and its role in promoting far-right efforts to hijack public education in America. The article will also appear in the Sunday Times’ print edition. […]
Talking Points
From today’s TFN News Clips: “We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of […]
