For reasons unknown, the conservative website Texas Insider insists on publishing the rants of a race-obsessed, right-wing activist. The newest rant from Bill Ames, who has criticized what he sees as an “overrepresentation of minorities” in social studies curriculum standards, once again claims that “leftists” hate America. And it’s predictably filled with ridiculous mistruths. In […]
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)
Texas GOP Platform: Don’t Teach Kids Critical Thinking Skills!
Remember when Texas State Board of Education member David Bradley criticized teachers and scholars who were crafting new language arts and reading curriculum standards for Texas schools back in 2008? Having students actually think about what they were reading didn’t seem like a good idea to Bradley: “I’m sorry. This critical thinking stuff is gobbledygook.” Well, […]
Defeated Lawmaker Promotes Creationist for Texas Education Commissioner
It’s bad enough that the State Board of Education has become a heavily politicized, dysfunctional embarrassment for Texas. Now religious-righters want control of the Texas Education Agency as well. State Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, wants Gov. Rick Perry to appoint SBOE member Charlie Garza, R-El Paso, as the state’s education commissioner and head of TEA. […]
Texas SBOE Says ‘No’ to Dolores Huerta, POTUS Says ‘Heck Yeah’
Thought we’d share a photo from our Facebook page. Once shunned by the Texas State Board of Education, Dolores Huerta last month became a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. […]
Textbooks, Sex and How Texas Has Hijacked Public Policy in America
New York Times columnist Gail Collins has a new book coming, As Texas Goes…, which looks at how right-wing politics and other shenanigans in Texas have hijacked public policy across the country. You can read two extended excerpts from Collins book (due out this month): one on the textbook wars here and another on sex […]
