From today’s TFN News Clips: “Evolution is hooey.” — Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, eloquent as ever Stay informed with TFN News Clips, a daily digest of news about politics and the religious right. Subscribe here. […]
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)
Finger Pointing at the Texas SBOE
Once again we see evidence that the Legislature made a huge mistake last spring by not letting Texas voters decide whether to strip the State Board of Education of authority over managing the Permanent School Fund. (Republican leaders in the state Senate helped kill that and a number of other SBOE reform bills.) It has […]
What Does He Really Think?
It seems that Brian Russell, anointed by Cynthia Dunbar as her desired replacement on the Texas State Board of Education, doesn’t much like the Texas Freedom Network. And we’re such nice folks. Go figure. Anyway, just a few days before word got out that Russell is seeking Dunbar’s board seat, the Austin attorney and his […]
Dunbar Issues Statement: She’s Out
Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar has now released a statement explaining that she will not seek re-election to her seat next year. She used her announcement to endorse Brian Russell, an Austin attorney and State Republican Executive Committee member, as her replacement. Russell has already announced his intention to seek the seat and […]
American-Statesman Confirms: Dunbar Is Out
According to reporter Kate Alexander at the Austin American-Statesman, David Bradley is confirming that fellow Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar will not seek re-election to her seat next year. Bradley told the Statesman that Dunbar recently began teaching at the Liberty University School of Law in Virginia and commutes from her home […]