We just sent out the following press statement after the State Board of Education’s vote today on ethnic studies courses in Texas public schools: The Texas State Board of Education today voted 12-2 to call for publishers to submit instructional materials next year for locally developed elective courses in Mexican-American, African-American, Asian-American and Native American studies. […]
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)
Far-Right Opponents of Ethnic Studies Courses in Texas Turn to Race-Baiting
Far-right activists are furious that the State Board of Education on Wednesday moved to make it easier for Texas public schools to offer elective courses in ethnic studies. Now some of those extremists have launched a racially divisive and deeply offensive campaign to stop the board from implementing that plan. This image from the Facebook page […]
A Teachable Moment for the Texas State Board of Education
Four American presidents are coming to Austin this week for the Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library on the University of Texas campus. The event, which lasts from Tuesday to Thursday, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This anniversary year is, as educators say, a […]
Tea Party Victor in Texas Senate Race Supports Private School Vouchers, Teaching Creationism in Public Schools
You might think it would be difficult for the Texas Republican Party to lurch even further to the political right. But you would be wrong, especially when it comes to public education. Wealthy real estate and car dealership magnate Don Huffines’ narrow defeat of incumbent state Sen. John Carona in their Republican Primary last month […]
When It Comes to Attacking Public Schools, Ohio Rep Has Nothing on Texas Pols
Folks in Ohio are upset after a Republican state legislator there criticized public education as a failure because, he says, it’s socialism. But he’s got nothing on the anti-public education fanatics we elect here in Texas. Ohio state Rep. Andrew Brenner wrote about public schools in a blog post on March 3 titled “Public education […]
