In TFN News Clips (subscribe here) last week, we included a piece from the Christian Science Monitor about efforts by creationists to pass so-called “academic freedom” bills in various states. The bills provide legal support for teachers who challenge evolution with creationist arguments in their public school science classrooms. Texas has no such law (yet). […]
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)
Darwin Goes to Church in Texas
If you find yourself in a church, synagogue or mosque in Texas this weekend, you might just hear Charles Darwin’s name come up in the sermon (and not to label him a devil!). It’s Evolution Weekend again, and TFN is proud to join The Clergy Letter Project in sponsoring events in Texas congregations. What is Evolution Weekend, you say? […]
Taking the Literalists Literally
Using the Texas GOP Bible platform as a club to attack moderate Republicans is a longstanding tactic of the religious right in this state. So it is no surprise to see Texas culture warriors reciting chapter and verse of the party platform in an attempt to strong-arm State Board of Education members into voting to insert phony “weaknesses” of evolution […]
Just Can’t Help Themselves
The creationists on the Texas State Board of Education just can’t seem to help themselves. Once again one of the board’s far-right members — Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio — makes clear that religious agendas are driving efforts to dumb down science education in Texas public schools. Writing in a San Antonio Express-News opinion column, Mr. Mercer says the […]
Arrogance
The level of arrogance displayed by anti-evolution pressure groups and their activists in the war on science has been astonishing. We have witnessed, for example, creationists openly question the faith of people who see no conflict between their religious beliefs and accepting the science of evolution. (Of course, their rhetoric gets even more heated when they […]
