This cartoon from Pearson Education’s Magruder’s American Government is an example of how Tea Party rhetoric shapes discussions on issues such as taxation and government regulation in proposed new social studies textbooks for Texas public schools. The same textbook includes this passage: “In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., taxes are ‘what we pay for […]
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)
Colorado Politician Shows Ignorance Isn't Limited to Texas Education Board
Ignorance and political nonsense clearly aren’t problems just on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). A Colorado Board of Education member this week echoed the ridiculous complaints of her right-wing counterparts in Texas about the new framework for the popular AP U.S. History course for high school students. Critics have charged that the new framework is unpatriotic and […]
Backlash Grows as Right-Wing Censors Push Political Attacks on AP U.S. History Course
The far right’s war on public education has a new target: Advanced Placement U.S. History, of all things. And now efforts to censor what students learn in those courses has sparked a growing backlash from students, parents, teachers and advocacy groups that are worried about efforts to politicize the popular course taken by nearly a […]
What's in the Proposed New Texas Textbooks? Segregation Wasn't All That Bad
What will students learn about segregation if the State Board of Education approves new social studies textbooks publishers have submitted this year for use in Texas public schools? Bowing to the desires of right-wing politicians on the State Board of Education, some of the textbooks give legitimacy to neo-Confederate arguments about “states’ rights” causing the Civil War and the legacy of […]
What's in the Proposed New Texas Textbooks? We Got Democracy from Moses
This month’s public hearing at the State Board of Education (SBOE) highlighted serious problems in the proposed new social studies textbooks for Texas public schools. Scholars working with the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund noted many of those problems in extensive reviews of the new textbooks. We released our scholars’ reports on those textbooks September 10. You can […]
