Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller, speaking Sunday on MSNBC’s The Melissa Harris-Perry Show, discussed how textbooks in Texas distort the history of the Civil War. Check out the interview in the short clip below. […]
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)
Don’s Rewriting History … Again
Former Texas State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy isn’t done distorting history. While McLeroy was on the board in 2010, he and his colleagues gave Texas schools new social studies curriculum standards that downplay the primary role slavery played in the Civil War. Now, as a former SBOE member, he’s rewriting the role he and other […]
Oh Please, Don, Let Us Roll Our Eyes at You Even Harder
On Thursday Donna Bahorich was appointed the new chair of the Texas State Board of Education. In this Houston Chronicle story on Bahorich’s appointment, a former chair, Don McLeroy, left the following comment: I find it ironic that it its Mr. Ratliff, and the Texas Freedom Network(By the way, thank you for not including them […]
Gov. Greg Abbott Appoints SBOE Member Donna Bahorich as New Chair
Gov. Greg Abbott today announced the appointment of Texas State Board of Education member Donna Bahorich, R-Houston, as board chair. Bahorich replaces Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands. We just sent out the following press release: Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller is expressing disappointment in Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision, announced today, to appoint State Board of […]
Creationist Group Wants a Tax Break to Discriminate
How far will religious-righters go to use faith as a weapon to harm others? Pretty far — including demanding government help to do it. Answers in Genesis, a militantly anti-evolution ministry, is suing the state of Kentucky for the right of its proposed creation theme park to discriminate on the basis of religion even while getting $18 million in […]
