Thomas Ratliff’s defeat of creationist Don McLeroy in the 2010 Republican Primary for the District 9 seat on the State Board of Education was an important step toward getting politics out of Texas public school classrooms. Now Ratliff, who currently serves as the state board’s vice chairman, has released a blistering critique of state Sen. […]
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)
Witch Hunt Takes Down CSCOPE
Once again, politics trumps education in Texas. State Sen. Dan Patrick, the Republican chairman of the Texas Senate Education Committee, sounded downright gleeful today in making a surprise announcement that the state’s Education Service Centers will no longer provide lessons in their CSCOPE curriculum management system. “The era of CSCOPE lesson plans has come to […]
You Give 'em an Inch …
… they’ll give you the axe. Or at least try to. From the start, the CSCOPE hysterics have demanded accountability and transparency from whatever they think CSCOPE is. Well, they’re getting it (there was a public meeting today from which we’ll have a report soon). And they’ve gotten it (there was a public meeting last […]
So Where Are They?
For months Tea partyers and other assorted activists on the right have attacked the developers of the CSCOPE curriculum management system for supposedly doing their work in secrecy. They’ve screamed that parents and taxpayers are kept in the dark while the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC) writes lessons that (allegedly) indoctrinate students into […]
Head of Texas Education Board Committee Wants to Teach 'Roles of Men and Women in a Traditional Way'
Apparently, it’s one step forward, then two steps back when it comes to the Texas State Board of Education. Last month we were encouraged when the chairman of the state board committee that will review the social studies materials in the CSCOPE curriculum management system said he wanted that review process to be fully transparent. […]
