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). […]
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)
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 […]
More Silliness from Ken Mercer on the SBOE
Ever wonder how a widely used math textbook could illegally promote “New Age religion”? If not, you clearly don’t share the same wild imagination as creationists in Texas do. Texas State Board of Education member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, seems to have taken on the role of chief defender of the board’s creationist faction. Now […]
David Barton: Playing the Victim
David Barton is now complaining that folks who oppose his appointment by the Texas State Board of Education to a panel of social studies “experts” are doing so simply because he’s a Christian and a conservative. We’re not going to let him get away with that blatant mistruth. (Some might rightly call it a “lie.”) […]
