The religious right’s war on science continues this week when Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) meets to consider the adoption of new biology textbooks for the state’s public schools. Two special panels that included educators, scientists and scholars have already approved the proposed biology textbooks. (The National Center for Science Education has […]
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)
Cynthia Dunbar’s ‘Parting Gift’
On Thursday outgoing Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, offered what she called a “parting gift” to fellow board members. Her “gift”: a proposed board resolution attacking federal involvement in education as unconstitutional and calling for state “nullification” of “unconstitutional directives” from the federal government. Not surprisingly, the resolution reads like a […]
Turn Texas Universities over to the SBOE?!?!
It’s bad enough that politicians on the Texas State Board of Education have decided that promoting their own personal agendas is more important than the education of millions of children in public schools. Now a member of the Texas House of Representatives wants to give oversight of the state’s college and universities to the SBOE! […]
How Easily They Forget
Some Texas State Board of Education members aren’t content with just rewriting American history. Apparently, they would also like to write other board members out of the board’s history itself. Consider this passage in the latest edition of the Cargill Connection, an e-mail newsletter from board member Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands: “The November meeting will […]
Not Encouraging
We were worried that Carlos “Charlie” Garza, who defeated Democratic incumbent Rene Nuñez, would align with the Texas State Board of Education‘s far-right faction. A newspaper interview with the El Paso Republican isn’t encouraging. According to the El Paso Times interview, which was published November 7, Garza thinks public schools should teach “multiple views” about […]
