When creationists on the State Board of Education consider new science textbooks for Texas public schools next year and make their usual arguments that supporters of sound science are “secular humanists” and “atheists,” perhaps we’ll remind them of what Pat Robertson (yes, THAT Pat Robertson) said this week: “You go back in time, you’ve got […]
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)
Legislating Creationism in Science Classrooms?
As we prepare for the 2013 session of the Texas Legislature — a session that could be one of the most difficult ever for supporters of public schools — it appears that creationists are redoubling their efforts to promote creationism in our nation’s science classrooms. This month a Montana legislator officially requested the drafting of […]
GOP Ready to Support Science Again? Looking Doubtful
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, touted by some as the great Republican hope in the 2016 presidential election, thinks whether students learn sound science is irrelevant to the economy. Asked in an interview for GQ magazine how old he thinks Earth is, Rubio decided not to anger evolution deniers on the religious right: “I’m not a […]
Signs of Hope at the Texas State Board of Education
Thursday’s meeting of the State Board of Education‘s Committee on Instruction was, well, instructive. It also offered hope that elections in 2010 and this year might — just might — be moderating the board’s obsession with the “culture wars.” We told you on Tuesday that religious-righters were planning to use the committee meeting to attack […]
Texas Religious-righters Rally the Troops about ‘Pro-Islamic,’ ‘Humanistic,’ ‘Marxist’ Curriculum
The Texas State Board of Education‘s last meeting of 2012 could be a case of, as Yogi Berra might say, déjà vu all over again. In 2010 the state board’s far-right faction rammed through approval of an outrageous resolution falsely claiming that history textbooks are “anti-Christian” and “pro-Muslim.” Besides the fact that the resolution was […]
