Yes, the headline is ridiculous, but that’s what it says. And the article on the fringe-right WorldNetDaily website is even more ridiculous. (WorldNutDaily?) Right-wing activists in Texas are circulating the article in emails and tweets as if it were wisdom passed down from on high. The curriculum in question is CSCOPE, which has become 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)
2012 in Quotes: Church, State and Science
Whether on prayer in public schools or creationism in science classrooms, we heard plenty from politicians and activists who see no problem mixing religion and state. Our review of what the far right had to say in 2012 continues. You can read more quotes from 2012 and previous years here. “In 1962 we kicked prayer […]
New Orleans Schools Say ‘No’ to ‘Revisionist’ History from Texas
How badly has the State Board of Education wrecked the educational reputation of Texas? Pretty badly, if a policy adopted this week by the local school board in New Orleans is any indication. On Tuesday the Orleans Parish Public Schools board passed the following policy: “No history textbook shall be approved which has been adjusted […]
All Theories Welcome, No Scientific Evidence Needed
Remember during the 2011 Texas Legislature when state Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, proposed legislation that essentially validates academic fraud, then did himself no favors by defending the bill in an interview with Mother Jones? That was fun. And now, Round 2: Zedler is back, filing the exact same creationism bill ahead of the 2013 legislative […]
Right-Wingers Target Two GOP Texas Ed Board Members, Accuse Them of Promoting ‘Socialist Ideology’
Right-wing activists are angry with a couple of Republican members of the State Board of Education who have refused to hop on their crazy train. The source of their anger (right now, anyway) is CSCOPE, the curriculum management tool that we reported about last month. CSCOPE is a product of a collaboration of regional Education […]
