Mary Lou Bruner thinks President Obama was a gay prostitute, climate change is a Marxist hoax and evolution is propaganda for atheism. And now Bruner is one step closer to sitting on the board that decides what more than 5 million kids learn in Texas public schools (and strongly influences what textbooks are used in […]
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)
Texas Ed Board Candidate: My Claim That President Obama Was a Gay Prostitute Is ‘Accurate’
Mary Lou Bruner, a Republican candidate running for the Texas State Board of Education seat in East Texas, is standing by her claims that President Obama is a drug addict who funded his habit by being a gay prostitute. From an article today on the far-right blog Breitbart: […]
Bruner Isn’t the Only Religious-Righter in Texas Ed Board Race
We’ve already told you about Mary Lou “President Obama Was a Gay Prostitute” Bruner, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the District 9 seat on the Texas State Board of Education. The political activist and retired teacher appears to have the support of a number of religious-right and tea-party activists. But a candidate forum hosted by […]
Right-wing Candidate for Texas Ed Board Isn’t Happy with TFN
We told you last week about the outrageous things Texas State Board of Education candidate Mary Lou Bruner publicly claims on her Facebook page. Among them: that President Obama was a gay prostitute so that he could fund his drug addiction, that Democrats conspired to assassinate President Kennedy, that evolution “is a religious philosophy … supporting the religion of […]
2016 Elections: This Year’s Extremist Candidate for the Texas State Board of Education
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has a regrettable — but reliable — history of mixing the culture wars with public education. And, it seems, almost every election cycle — eight of the 15 SBOE seats are up for election this year — at least one candidate promises to make things even worse. This […]