Rick Santorum just cannot help himself. Political pundits and strategists affiliated with his own party have been virtually screaming at him, telling him that if he wants any shot at winning in November he needs to quit the culture wars and stick to jobs, jobs, jobs. But, again, he just can’t help himself. On Thursday, [...]
Remember when Cynthia Dunbar, then a member of the Texas State Board of Education, wrote that public schools are unconstitutional, “tyrannical” and “a subtly deceptive tool of perversion”? In the three years since then, the religious right’s campaign to undermine public education in America has become only louder. The newest tool in the right’s war [...]
A blogger at Religion in American History found this gem from the far-right Focus on the Family: a video crafted to persuade students that college, scholars and experts are out to corrupt them and simply can’t be trusted. Here’s a trailer from the film, The Toughest Test in College: Why Students Are Failing to Keep [...]
Oh, for Pete’s sake! During the weekend’s budget debate in the Texas House, state Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, offered an amendment that would have directed colleges and universities to spend at least 10 percent of their funds to teach courses on “Western Civilization.” As to what those courses would include, well, you be the judge: [...]
Why wouldn’t you want a state entity to operate more efficiently and transparently? That is a question that no one had a good answer for Tuesday evening as the House Committee on Public Education took up HB 862, legislation sponsored by state Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, that would place the Texas State Board of Education [...]
It’s troubling that far-right members of the Texas State Board of Education insist on dumbing down education in science, social studies and other public school classes. But it’s hardly surprising. The knee-jerk anti-education reflex that characterizes the far right these days surely exasperates even mainstream conservatives. Eagle Forum’s website today offers another example of that [...]
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! [...]
On Tuesday voters head to the polls in important elections for state and national offices. Races for the Texas State Board of Education are especially important this year. For the past four years, a powerful faction of political and religious extremists on the state board has turned nearly every critical debate on curriculum standards and [...]
Uh oh. The respected journal Foreign Policy has a new article listing the places where you will find the worst textbooks. Headlined “The World’s Worst Textbooks,” the article notes: “As students around the world head back to school, many of the lessons they’re learning are not only false — they’re dangerous.” According to the journal, [...]
The Texas State Board of Education debate over social studies curriculum standards last spring drew unprecedented coverage from the national media, most of it reasonably balanced. The exception was coverage from Fox News, including commentator Tucker Carlson. Carlson and his Fox colleagues made so many false and misleading statements on-air about the debate that we [...]
