During last week’s public hearing on proposed science standards, evolution deniers on the Texas State Board of Education insisted that they had no intention of promoting “intelligent design”/creationism in public schools. Stephen Meyer, co-founder of the anti-evolution Discovery Institute in Seattle, echoed the claims of the board’s anti-science faction. They just want kids to learn […]
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)
Dunbar: Mistruths and the War on Science
It’s been interesting how easily evolution deniers rely on and even promote falsehoods to bolster their attacks on teaching sound science. While live-blogging the Texas State Board of Education public hearing on proposed public school science curriculum standards last week, we noted a good example of this. In case you missed it, we thought we’d […]
Live Blogging: Texas SBOE Science Debate
Texas State Board of Education members are beginning debate on new public school science curriculum standards. The board will likely take a preliminary vote (or votes) today on whether to amend the draft standards submitted by teacher writing teams and then post them for public comment. A formal vote on posting the standards comes on […]
Live Blogging: The Texas SBOE vs. Science III
5:49 p.m. – We’re entering the home stretch (maybe). Charles Garner, a creationist chemist from Baylor, is up. “There is an effort to redefine theories and how they distinguish from hypotheses” that’s not accepted by everyone in science. We certainly agree that there has been an effort to redefine scientific theories, but that effort has […]
Live Blogging: The Texas SBOE vs. Science II
4:04: Ralph Seelke is up, introducing himself as the grandson of a Texas cotton farmer and holding a doctorate in microbial genetics. Seelke has been a common face for the Discovery Institute in testifying against evolution in various locales. Seelke says he wants students to challenge what they learn, to ask: “How do they know […]
