Yet another report confirms just how badly the Texas State Board of Education botched the revision of social studies curriculum standards last year. Short version: the new standards will fail to prepare students for college-level work. It should be obvious even to impartial observers that the heavily politicized state board is wrecking public education 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)
Don ‘Incendiary’ McLeroy
The picture above of current Texas State Board of Education member Thomas Ratliff, R-Mt. Pleasant, pointing (sort of) at former board chair Don McCleroy, R-Bryan, is not directly related to what you’re about to read, but it will be what springs to mind when you’re done with this blog post. A few weeks ago TFN […]
Mercer Still Attacking Science and Teachers
How in the world did we miss this? Seems that in August, Texas State Board of Education member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, had some interesting things to say about science and social studies curriculum standards on a Tea Party radio program. Speaking on the San Antonio Tea Party’s Boiling Point radio show, Mercer offered much […]
Gov. Perry’s Pro-Censorship Endorser
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. An extremist pastor walks into a library to destroy public property and when the stunt royally backfires on him, he recruits a member of his congregation to craft an unconstitutional city ordinance that essentially made his church members the morality police and the arbiters of what you […]
Gov. Perry’s History Lesson FAIL
Sounds like Texas Gov. Rick Perry might be taking history lessons from the State Board of Education — you know, the panel that adopted heavily politicized and distorted social studies curriculum standards two years ago. During a post-debate gathering at a Dartmouth frat party (seriously) last night, someone asked Gov. Perry about states’ rights. His […]
