In today’s Texas Tribune story about the State Board of Education‘s management of the Permanent School Fund (PSF), much of the focus has been on this inane quote from board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna: “If you sit on the mental health commission, do you have to be retarded? If you sit on the [Texas […]
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)
Talking Points
From today’s TFN News Clips: “If you sit on the mental health commission, do you have to be retarded? If you sit on the [Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission], do you have to be a drunk?” — Texas State Board of Education member David Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna, arguing that state board members don’t need to be finance […]
Editorial Roundup: Ignorance and the SBOE
Especially over the last week, editorial boards at newspapers across Texas have been focusing on the corrosive politics, blind ignorance and rampant incompetence evident on the State Board of Education. Editorial writers are heaping criticism on state board members who are once again wrecking the work of educators and scholars in crafting new curriculum standards — this time for […]
How Censors Think
This month’s Texas State Board of Education debate over proposed new social studies curriculum standards provided many opportunities to see censorship at work. One of the most revealing instances of this came when state board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, proposed adding Margaret Sanger and John Dewey to a list of individuals for high school American history students to study. […]
What a Paine That Might Have Been…
This month’s Texas State Board of Education meeting featured many examples of how poorly informed some board members really are. Over a two-day period, the board picked apart a proposed draft of new social studies curriculum standards that teachers, scholars and other community members had spent a year researching, discussing and debating. Often the amendments […]
