Donna Bahorich, chair of the State Board of Education, is missing a key problem in defending how new history textbooks in Texas public schools cover the experience of African Americans after the Civil War. By focusing just on the textbooks, she ignores how politicized curriculum standards adopted by the state board distort the teaching of history in Texas public schools. […]
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)
Bruner Explains ‘President Obama Was a Gay Prostitute’ Remarks
Dallas-area radio station KERA has landed a new interview with controversial Texas State Board of Education candidate Mary Lou Bruner, in which she explains her accusation that President Obama paid for a drug habit by working as a gay prostitute. Here comes the “logic”: In one Facebook post, she said Obama once prostituted himself. It’s […]
Bruner vs. Breitbart
Controversial Texas State Board of Education candidate Mary Lou Bruner is upset at the media. But not just any media. While it’s not unusual for politicians and activists to blame the so-called “left-wing liberal media” for just about everything, Bruner is, surprisingly, upset at the uber-conservative news website Breitbart. The tiff between Bruner and Breitbart […]
The SBOE Is Taking Up Science Again This Year
Buckle up, science-lovers and other rational Texans. Science is coming back to the Texas State Board of Education this year. The SBOE has announced plans to “streamline” the state’s controversial science standards. And that means evolution will be back in the crosshairs. We’ll have much more information about this process soon, but for now, two […]
Yes, We Have More of Mary Lou Bruner’s Facebook Posts
After we first published Mary Lou Bruner’s social media posts, the Republican Texas State Board of Education candidate out of District 9 defended her comments in a couple of ways. She began by saying, on Facebook, that she was taken out of context. What possible context there could be for insisting that the president of […]
