The Texas State Board of Education voted today to adopt new health textbooks from just one publisher after critics attacked all of the textbooks for content — even in optional units — that addressed topics related to sex education. Digital textbooks for elementary and middle school offered by three other publishers failed to win approval. […]
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 SBOE Fails Students on LGBTQ-Inclusion, Climate Change
The State Board of Education’s refusal even to acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ people in new health curriculum standards is a tragic failure to help ensure that Texas public schools are safe and inclusive for all students, Texas Freedom Network President Val Benavidez said today. […]
Lani Popp’s Victory in GOP Runoff for Texas SBOE Seat Isn’t a Win for Texas Kids
Republicans have nominated yet another creationist to replace retiring State Board of Education member Ken Mercer of San Antonio. The GOP nominee also thinks slavery wasn’t the primary cause of the Civil War and is critical of sex education. Her election in November would simply fuel the state board’s endless textbook wars. Check out the […]
Texas Curriculum Standards Revision an Exercise in Politicians Masquerading as Historians
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 15, 2018 AUSTIN – Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller warned that revised social studies curriculum standards for Texas public schools, given final approval today by the State Board of Education, mislead students about key topics in American and world history. “This was just an extended exercise in politicians masquerading as […]
Scholars from Across the Country Call on Texas SBOE to Correct Historical Distortions
This week the State Board of Education is set to finish its revision of social studies curriculum standards for Texas public schools. So we’ll soon know whether the board is going to fix distorted, politicized history on a number of topics in the standards — from slavery and the Civil War to civil rights and Moses. Meanwhile, nearly 200 scholars […]
