TFN Joins National Groups Opposing Politicization of Curriculum Standards in Texas
Letter Supports U.S. House Resolution Calling for Experts to Determine Standards, Not Politicians
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 5, 2010
The Texas Freedom Network and the Texas Faith Network have joined nearly two dozen national organizations in support of a U.S. House resolution criticizing the politicization of social studies curriculum standards by the State Board of Education in Texas.
“We have joined with members of Congress and other advocates for public education, religious freedom and civil liberties in calling on politicians to stop undermining the education of Texas schoolchildren,” TFN President Kathy Miller said today. “Curriculum standards and textbooks should be written by teachers and scholars, not by politicians who are more interested in promoting their own personal agendas than sound scholarship in our public schools.”
TFN and the Texas Faith Network, a project of the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund that includes more than 600 clergy from across Texas, have signed on to a letter to U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, supporting House Resolution 1593. Rep. Johnson introduced the resolution in the U.S. House on July 30. The resolution, which has four other co-sponsors, is available here. The letter from TFN and other organizations supporting that resolution is available here.
The House resolution calls out the Texas state board for disregarding nearly a year’s worth of work by teachers and scholars who wrote initial drafts of the standards. It also notes that more than 1,200 history scholars have warned that the heavily revised standards finally approved by the board “would undermine the study of the social sciences in public schools by misrepresenting and even distorting the historical record and the functioning of United States society.”
The resolution calls for curriculum standards based on the work of experts and current historical scholarship, not political biases. It also warns that the politicized standards in Texas could influence the writing of textbooks sold in states across the country.
Other signers of the supporting letter include Americans United for Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way, the Interfaith Alliance, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the Anti-Defamation League, the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the American Association of University Women.
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The Texas Freedom Network is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization of religious and community leaders who support public education, religious freedom and individual liberties.
