The Texas Senate Nominations Committee will consider the reappointment of Barbara Cargill to another term as State Board of Education chair on Monday. Cargill is the third evolution-denier in a row appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to chair the board. The tenure of her two most recent predecessors — culture warriors Don McLeroy and Gail […]
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)
Told You So: Texas Ed Board Chair Wants Science Textbooks to Teach 'Another Side' on Evolution
We told you this would happen. In 2009, when the Texas State Board of Education adopted new science curriculum standards, we warned that creationists had inserted language they would later try to exploit to pressure publishers into including junk-science arguments against evolution in new textbooks. Barbara Cargill, the Republican state board chair from The Woodlands […]
Mixed Signals from the Texas State Board of Education
We saw signs at today’s State Board of Education meeting that the pendulum might finally be swinging back toward the center on the body that decides what 5 million students learn in Texas public schools. If borne out in coming months, those signs are encouraging for the adoption of science and social studies textbooks over […]
TV Premiere of 'The Revisioniares' Tonight and Tuesday on PBS
Starting tonight, everyone gets a chance to watch the award-winning documentary “The Revisionaries,” a film by director Scott Thurman that tells the story of the religious right’s culture warriors at the Texas State Board of Education and the Texas Freedom Network’s efforts to stop their efforts to undermine instruction on evolution and politicize social studies […]
Even Don McLeroy Gives a ‘Thumbs Up’ to TFN Education Fund’s Report on Bible Classes
Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy has an interesting Twitter post: “Ex-SBOE Chair @DonMcLeroy likes @TFN’s report on preachy Bible lessons: “I agree. That shouldn’t be in public schools.” Well, good for Don. Maybe he can help persuade fellow creationists who sit on the state board now that they should adopt real curriculum standards that […]
