Texans are painfully aware by now (or should be) how the right revises history for political purposes. Even the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, for example, has criticized right-wingers on the Texas State Board of Education for adopting new social studies curriculum standards that represent a “politicized distortion of history.” Now The New Yorker magazine […]
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)
Exclusive ‘Revisionaries’ Clip and Premiere Details
The culture wars at the Texas State Board of Education have been so intense that they made a movie about them. Sadly, this isn’t fiction. We’ve told you before about “The Revisionaries,” the feature documentary from Texas director Scott Thurman, but we’re happy to bring you news that TFN will be premiering the film in […]
Bill Nye the Science Guy Appeals to Grownups
Bill Nye the Science Guy has gone viral with a new web video that simply must be shared with TFN Insider readers. In the vid, Nye makes an appeal to the grownups: And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent […]
David Barton’s Very Bad Week in Review
The decision by Thomas Nelson Publishers to drop David Barton’s book, The Jefferson Lies, was, as we said, commendable. What it wasn’t is something that came out of nowhere. No, the tide against Barton had been building for some time as even those in Barton’s core audience began to sound the alarm. The backlash culminated […]
Hypocrite Alert: Texas Ed Board Member Ken Mercer Blames ‘the Left’ for Curriculum Changes HE Passed
Members of the creationist bloc on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) have mistated the truth so often that they can’t even keep their own distortions straight. Case in point: Speaking on Saturday at the “Texas Freedom Rally at the Alamo” in San Antonio, SBOE member Ken Mercer told Tea Party activists some real […]
