- Texas Ed Board Candidate Doubles Down on 'Pilgrims Were Communists' Claim
- More From Ed Board Candidate Spurlock: No Sex Ed, Kids 'Are Gonna Figure It Out on Their Own' Anyway
- Former Texas Ed Board Creationist Don McLeroy on Colbert Report Tonight
- Former Texas SBOE Member: Opposition to Teaching Creationism in Science Classrooms Is Like 'Pre-Holocaust Germany'
- Early Voting Begins in Texas: Vote in State Board of Education Races
- Texas Ed Board Candidate Advocates Teaching Creationism in Science Classrooms
Category Archives for social studies
Race and the Texas Social Studies Standards
A screed published Friday on a San Antonio Express-News blog provides a good example of why it’s a bad idea to turn over to political activists decisions about what our kids learn in their public schools. In his post, Bill Ames lashes out at critics of the heavily politicized new social studies curriculum standards the [...]
GOPers: Revisit the Social Studies Standards
Ever since the Texas State Board of Education became a battle ground in the culture wars, the Texas Freedom Network has tried to emphasize one point: education should not be a partisan issue. That message is now resonating with state lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, with even Republicans expressing their concerns over the [...]
Did He Bother to Read the Law First?
When the Texas State Board of Education approved controversial new social studies curriculum standards last year, far-right board members patted themselves on the back for requiring that students learn about the Constitution. Of course, Texas students were already required to do that. But state board members were simply trying to distract attention from the way [...]
Spreading Anti-Muslim Hysteria
When it comes to public school textbooks, what happens in Texas clearly doesn’t stay in Texas. Last September the Texas State Board of Education passed a resolution attacking Islam and falsely claiming that social studies textbooks are anti-Christian and pro-Muslim. Now right-wing groups are threatening education officials in Florida while making essentially the same absurd [...]
Report Authors Rip Far-Right Critics in Texas
The authors of a think tank’s report that slammed the new and heavily politicized social studies curriculum standards in Texas clearly aren’t going to suffer silently as right-wing critics hurl lies and distortions at their work. Those critics have been absurdly suggesting that, among other things, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a left-wing organization [...]
The Growing Chorus
On Monday the editorial board at the San Antonio Express-News became the latest group to take a swing at the embattled SBOE, citing the Fordham Institute study that gave our new social studies standards a “D.” The Express-News doesn’t say anything much different than what the Austin American-Statesman and the Dallas Morning News said when [...]
Listen Up, Houston
Our friends at the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University have asked us to extend an invitation to TFN members and supporters in the Houston-area to attend this event on Thursday: Educating for a “Christian America”? Bible Courses, Social Studies Standards and the Texas Controversy with Mark A. Chancey, Ph.D. Professor [...]
Irony, Thy Name Is McLeroy
Even as a conservative education think tank was putting the finishing touches on a report excoriating the Texas State Board of Education for wrecking social studies standards, former board chair Don McLeroy was speaking to a far-right Education Policy Conference in St. Louis (headlined by Ann Coulter) saying: We have bequeathed a precious legacy to [...]
The Right Throws a Temper Tantrum
It didn’t take long for right-wingers to erupt in fury over the Fordham Institute’s new report about the disastrously bad social studies curriculum standards in Texas. Fordham’s report demolishes the State Board of Education‘s politicized new standards. The far right’s unhinged temper tantrum and lashing out that we’re seeing in reaction is revealing.