Tonight a Bryan radio station will air a debate between Texas State Board of Education incumbent Don McLeroy and his Republican challenger Thomas Ratliff. The debate can be heard live 6-7 p.m. on KEOS radio, 89.1 FM. The program will also be recorded and available to listeners on the KEOS Web site after the debate. […]
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)
Truth Is Hard for Ideologues
Randy Rives has a new campaign Web site, but he’s got an awful fact-checker. Rives is the former Ector County Independent School District (Odessa) board chair. He’s challenging District 15 State Board of Education incumbent Bob Craig in the March 2 Republican Primary — a race providing the far right’s best chance to win another […]
Texas SBOE: Twisting Facts Again
Texas State Board of Education members have been beating their chests about an Education Week study that gives the state an “A” in curriculum development. At last month’s state board meeting, for example, they used the study to trash critics who have (correctly) warned about the damage the board’s far-right faction has done the last […]
Something’s Rotten Here
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 […]
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 […]
