In March the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) ambushed teachers and others who have been working to revise social studies curriculum standards for the state’s public schools. TPPF charged that the curriculum writing teams — made up of teachers, academics and others — were drafting standards that left out important historical figures such as George Washington […]
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)
A Look at the Texas Social Studies ‘Experts’
We reported in April that the creationist faction on the Texas State Board of Education was moving to pack a key “expert” review panel for the social studies curriculum revision with like-minded ideologues. (See here and here.) We now have the names of all the “expert” panelists. As with the science “expert” panel, it appears that […]
McLeroy: Still Arguing, Still Wrong
Don McLeroy, recently ousted as Texas State Board of Education chairman, is once again defending new science curriculum standards that dumb down instruction on evolution in public schools. Writing in a Bryan-College Station Eagle op-ed, McLeroy says “only science belongs in science class.” But he then launches once again into a series of creationist attacks […]
Listen to the McLeroy Debate
Far-right pressure groups are still screaming about “religious discrimination” as the culprit in the Texas Senate’s failure last week to confirm Don McLeroy, R-College Station, as chairman of the State Board of Education. Today, for example, Free Market Foundation Focus on the Family-Texas is again making that absurd charge: We are outraged that SBOE Chairman, Don […]
McLeroy Gets GOP Challenger for SBOE Seat
When it rains, it pours. Last week Don McLeroy failed to win Senate confirmation of his nomination as Texas State Board of Education chairman. Now he’s picked up what could be a very stiff challenge to his re-election next year. Paul Burka at Texas Monthly is reporting that Thomas Ratliff, son of former lieutenant governor […]
