To the abundant evidence showing that ideologues and non-historians shouldn’t be deciding what students learn in their history classrooms, add another exhibit: far-right efforts to use our kids’ classrooms to rehabilitate the image of Joseph McCarthy and turn him into an American hero. Sadly, that’s what some members of the Texas State Board of Education and […]
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)
More McLeroy Malarkey, Part 2
Last week, we brought you some choice selections from cryptic, hand-scribbled memos Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy wrote to curriculum writers preparing the latest draft of social studies standards (“More McLeroy Malarkey, Part 1”). Here is Part 2. To the “World History Studies” writing team, McLeroy suggests a few additions to the […]
Putting Ideology Ahead of Progress
Texas voters will consider 11 amendments to the state constitution on Nov. 3. The Texas Freedom Network has taken no official position on any of the measures. But we could have predicted what far-right groups, such as David Barton’s WallBuilders, would say about one: putting more resources into university research. They don’t like it. […]
More McLeroy Malarkey, Part 1
Yesterday we explored the latest strange twist in Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy’s ongoing crusade against the National Academy of Sciences — this time in bizarre, hand-scribbled memos he wrote to social studies curriculum writers who met in Austin last week. Well, McLeroy’s curriculum advice wasn’t restricted to his well-documented problems with […]
Don McLeroy vs. National Academy of Sciences
I’m not sure what the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) did to get on Don McLeroy’s bad side, but the deposed chair of the Texas State Board of Education has renewed his assault on the most prestigious science academy in the world. Only this time, he’s trying to insert his grievance in the state’s social […]
