Earlier today, the anti-evolution Discovery Institute — the Seattle-based outfit that promotes “intelligent design”/creationism and has tried for years to interject itself into science curriculum decisions in Texas — sent an email to members of the Texas State Board of Education weighing in on the proposed instructional materials up for adoption in Texas this summer. […]
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)
Censorship Group Targets Science Materials
It’s increasingly clear that the Texas State Board of Education this summer will be ground zero — once again — in the religious right’s war on science. The newest indication of the pending battle comes from the website of Educational Research Analysts, one of the nation’s oldest textbook censorship organizations. The website shows that the […]
Cynthia Dunbar’s Reading List
Our friend Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches points us to some juicy information we overlooked when writing our recent post on former Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar: the required reading list for the law professor’s “Foundations of Law” course at Liberty Law School. Through the magic of the Internet “Way Back Machine,” […]
No Mo’ Lowe?
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 […]
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 […]
