This very short clip from last weekend’s debate between State Board of Education Vice Chairman Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, and state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, highlights how the manufactured “controversy” over CSCOPE eventually oozed out of the right-wing fever swamps. Tea party and other political activists (including a for-profit political consulting company) have absurdly claimed that the […]
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)
Full CSCOPE Debate Now Online
If you missed last Saturday’s CSCOPE debate between State Board of Education vice chair Thomas Ratliff, R-Mt. Pleasant, and state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, here it is in its entirety. On one side, you had an SBOE member who showed up with facts. On the other, you had an ambitious politician running for higher office […]
What’s Happening with the Science Textbook Adoption? – Pt. 2
Late last week, TFN finally obtained an official list of the biology textbook reviewers who attended the in-person review panels in Austin earlier this month. You can see the list of reviewers – along with the products they were assigned – here. We don’t yet know what is contained in the official recommendations these teams […]
What’s Happening with the Science Textbook Adoption?
For those of you who have been following the debate over science textbooks at the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), here’s a simple explanation of where things currently stand: Initial drafts of science textbooks and instructional materials have an uncensored, robust discussion of evolution without any promotion of creationism or intelligent design. Review teams […]
Wednesday AMA with Zack
Update: The AMA is now live and can be found here. We’ll start answering questions at 11:30 a.m. CDT ———————————————— If you’re a supporter of sound, peer-reviewed scholarship in Texas public school science textbooks, we invite you to join us Wednesday for a Q&A with our friend Zack Kopplin. Starting at 11:30 a.m. CDT, Zack […]
