Gail Lowe, chair of the Texas State Board of Education, is making the rounds promoting the state’s new social studies curriculum standards. And she’s making clear the political agenda she and other far-right board members are promoting in those standards: “Our country was founded on religious principles … and our students will know that. . […]
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)
Rick Perry: Dumbing Down Science Education
The San Angelo Standard-Times last weekend reported this stunning comment from Gov. Rick Perry, the highest elected official in Texas government: “I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution. The State Board of Education […]
Promoting Political Theology
It’s educational when religious-right leaders reveal — inadvertently or not — the crass ideological calculations that motivate their agendas. A press release yesterday from Terry McIntosh, a Christian minister who evangelizes Muslims in the Middle East, offers a good example. The press release, headlined “America First,” warns Christians “against the dangers of socialism in the […]
Texas Preps for Next Science Battle
The process will be different than originally expected, but next year the battle over what Texas students learn about evolution in their science classrooms returns to the State Board of Education. With legislators tasked with closing a huge state budget gap next year, the state board voted in July to postpone indefinitely the adoption of […]
Wait, Wait…
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has another story about the perils of educational publishing in Texas. It seems that a play by Peter Sagal, the host of NPR’s popular news quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, was being considered for inclusion in an end-of-course exam under development for high school English students in Texas. Then, […]
