On Tuesday a number of university scholars spoke out at a State Board of Education (SBOE) public hearing on proposed social studies textbooks for Texas public schools. Among those scholars was Dr. Jacqueline Jones, chair of the history department at the University of Texas at Austin. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History this year 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)
Live-Blogging the Texas Social Studies Textbooks Public Hearing
You can watch today’s public hearing at the State Board of Education live online here. 3:50 – The board hearing just ended. Board members will discuss the textbooks tomorrow (Wednesday). We’ll be here. 3:47 – Cargill and other board members keep arguing that nothing can be done about the flawed curriculum standards adopted in 2010. So in their […]
Proposed Texas Textbooks Get the Facts Wrong on Climate Change, Promote Denialism
When it comes to Texas textbook adoptions, attacks on science seem to be almost an annual affair now. So with the State Board of Education considering new social studies textbooks for Texas public schools this fall, we asked the National Center for Science Education to check what those texts say about climate change. The news is […]
TFN in the News: Review of Social Studies Textbooks
TFN had a busy week. Last Wednesday we released a TFN-commissioned review of social studies textbooks that the Texas State Board of Education will vote on later this year. That review, conducted by university scholars, found plenty of problems with the books, which can be traced back to the seriously flawed, politicized social studies standards […]
'This Planet is Great! — He Says We Qualify for Affirmative Action!'
In case you missed the news, the TFN Education fund on Wednesday released the results of a TFN-commissioned review of proposed social studies textbooks up for consideration by the Texas State Board of Education. The books, which will be voted on by the SBOE later this year, were reviewed by 10 scholars, including Dr. Emile […]
