Another early hint of trouble brewing in the Texas State Board of Education‘s revision of social studies curriculum standards: attacks on minority contributions to American history and society. And once again Chairman Don McLeroy, R-College Station, is right in the middle of the brouhaha. […]
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)
SBOE vs. Texas Social Studies Teachers
Earlier this spring teachers serving as members of writing teams working on new social studies curriculum standards were blind-sided when someone leaked an unfinished, preliminary draft of their working document to the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). At the public State Board of Education meeting in March, TPPF ripped into these writing teams, claiming that they had “removed or […]
Shameful Lies
Outrageous claims in an effort to win Senate confirmation of Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education reveal once again how vicious and dishonest the far right can be. As we reported Wednesday, the Senate Nominations Committee has forwarded McLeroy’s nomination to the full Senate for a vote (probably next week). […]
Breaking: McLeroy Nomination Moves!
UPDATE: Click here to see video of the committee vote. In a surprise meeting on the Senate floor, the Senate Nominations Committee in Austin has just approved the appointment of Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. It appears that McLeroy’s supporters plan to bring his confirmation to the full Senate […]
About That ‘Dog-Cat’ Thing Again…
During the recent debate over science curriculum standards in Texas, State Board of Education member Ken Mercer argued that science hadn’t found transitional fossils that would back up the science of evolution. He demanded to know why scientists couldn’t show him a “dog-cat” or a “cat-rat,” for example. It made no difference that some of […]
