It looks likely that Gail Lowe, who presided over the Texas State Board of Education‘s social studies curriculum debacle last year, has only days left in her tenure as board chair. From the Houston Chronicle: Gov. Rick Perry’s appointments of John Bradley as head of the Forensic Science Commission and Gaile Lowe as State Board […]
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)
Catching Up with Cynthia Dunbar
When former State Board of Education member — and perennial TFN nemesis– Cynthia Noland Dunbar left the board last December after declining to run for a second term, some wondered if she was withdrawing from the culture wars, which she repeatedly stoked during her tenure on the board. She has been notably (and thankfully) absent […]
USNS César Chavez
Remember when phony historian and alleged social studies “expert” David Barton advised the Texas State Board of Education to strip out César Chavez from new social studies curriculum standards for public schools? Here’s what the head of the Texas-based group WallBuilders said in 2009: “(Chavez’s) open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that […]
Creationists Appointed to Science Review Panels
The Texas Education Agency just released the full list of members serving on the science review panels that will evaluate instructional materials submitted for approval by the State Board of Education (SBOE). As TFN predicted earlier this spring, the review panel for biology includes a number of individuals with a history of promoting intelligent design/creationism […]
More on International Databases
We’re learning a little bit more about International Databases, the previously unknown outfit from New Mexico that a few weeks ago submitted science instructional materials to the Texas Education Agency that are clearly laced with the junk science of intelligent design/creationism. […]
