This should be fun. Don McLeroy, the former chairman of the State Board of Education and a leader in efforts to undermine instruction on evolution and rewrite what students learn about American history, is scheduled as a guest on the Colbert Report tonight. McLeroy’s appearance on Stephen Colbert’s show comes after Friday’s premiere at 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)
Former Texas SBOE Member: Opposition to Teaching Creationism in Science Classrooms Is Like ‘Pre-Holocaust Germany’
Cynthia Dunbar sounds just as extreme as she was when she left the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) at the end of 2010. Dunbar spoke Sunday night in Dallas as part of a panel discussion after a screening of the new documentary film “The Revisionaries.” The film, which premiered on Friday at the Tribeca […]
TFN and the Textbook Wars Head to Tribeca!
We’re excited to tell you that the Texas Freedom Network’s fight against textbook censorship and efforts to politicize public education will be part of a new documentary film premiering this weekend at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. “The Revisionaries” explores how far-right radicals on the State Board of Education in Texas […]
SBOE Candidate: David Bradley
Because of redistricting, all 15 seats on the Texas State Board of Education will be up for grabs in the November 2012 elections. The results of those elections will determine whether the religious right’s corrosive influence over public education will weaken or grow as the board considers what the next generation of public school students […]
Opposing Texas SBOE Candidates Talk Evolution and Science Education
We can’t republish the Waco Tribune-Herald’s full Q-and-A pieces with Texas State Board of Education incumbent Gail Lowe of Lampasas and her challenger in the District 14 Republican primary on May 29, Sue Melton of Waco. (The two articles are behind the Trib’s paywall; links are below.) But we did want to note how the […]