Members of the Texas State Board of Education aren’t the only politicians pushing the national campaign to turn public schools into tools for indoctrinating students with right-wing ideology. A columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel looks at how that campaign is unfolding in other states. In Florida, for example, lawmakers are pushing a bill that would require […]
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 McLeroy and His 'False Ideas' about Science — Total Defeat
“False ideas are the greatest obstacle to progress. Evolution, the idea that all life is descended from a common ancestor, is a false idea.” — Don McLeroy (@DonMcLeroy) November 26, 2014 “False ideas are the greatest obstacle to progress. Evolution, the idea that all life is descended from a common ancestor, is a false idea.” […]
The Textbook Vote Is in – Here's What We Accomplished
It’s over. The State Board of Education just approved new social studies textbooks and they’re headed to classrooms. So where do we stand? Perhaps the biggest headline of this whole saga: the important changes made to the books thanks to TFN’s work with scholars and activists like you: REMOVED: climate-change denial REMOVED: biased depiction of […]
Live-Blogging the Texas Social Studies Textbook Vote
9:13 – The State Board of Education (SBOE) is set today to vote on which proposed new social studies textbooks to adopt for Texas public schools. Publishers have been submitting changes to their textbooks since the public hearing on Tuesday. The last batch of changes — listed on more than 800 pages from publisher WorldView […]
The Political Circus at the Texas State Board of Education
The State Board of Education’s adoption of new social studies textbooks this week appears to be turning — all too predictably — into another political circus that shuts out the public as well as scholars and other experts. Board members, including Chairwoman Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, continue — in private — to pressure publishers into […]
