We told you yesterday how the old warhorse of the right-wing censorship movement in Texas, Educational Research Analysts, works to intimidate publishers and promote a divisive ideological agenda in public school textbooks. As we reported, the group’s July newsletter called for the Texas State Board of Education to reject textbooks that are allegedly anti-Christian and […]
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)
Behind the Textbook ‘Culture Wars’
More than a few people have wondered who really authored the inflammatory anti-Muslim resolution the Texas State Board of Education passed in September. Randy Rives, a failed state board candidate from Odessa, asked the board in July to pass the resolution. Rives has told reporters that he and his wife wrote the resolution and combed […]
Exposing the Junk Science of ‘Intelligent Design’
UPDATE: SMU faculty members have written an open letter critical of the Discovery Institute presentation on their campus. Last week the Seattle-based Discovery Institute descended on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas for another of its junk-science forums attempting to debunk evolutionary science. The event, “Four Nails in Darwin’s Coffin,” included a film and […]
A Candidate for the Texas Education Board?
“Evolution is a myth. . . . Why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?” No, that’s not Ken “Dog-Cat/Cat-Rat” Mercer, the Republican State Board of Education member from San Antonio who thinks evidence against evolution is the fact that dog-cat and cat-rat mutants aren’t roaming the earth. The quote above comes from Christine O’Donnell, the […]
Board Takes Up Anti-Muslim Measure
The Texas State Board of Education is about to take up a proposed resolution attacking Islam and claiming that social studies textbooks are anti-Christian. TFN Insider will keep you updated on progress. 9:53 a.m. – We notice that board members Barbara Cargill and Don McLeroy have been going through world history textbooks currently used in […]
