TCS: Politicization of Science Education Continues in Texas

In a press release, Texas Citizens for Science reports: The recent adoption of new supplemental science instructional materials by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) was largely a victory for science. Although the biology curriculum standards were unfortunately damaged in 2009 by a politically radicalized majority of SBOE members who inserted four new standards […]

David Barton on majorities and minority rights

Under Construction I don’t have time to write this post right now — hopefully I’ll get to it before too long. But I did want to post these paragraphs now while people are looking for this. These relate to a story on Al Sharpton’s show on MSNBC tonight (Aug 24, 2011) on Rick Perry and David […]

Rick Perry and Higher Education

On the newest leading Republican Party candidate for U.S. President, from the Chronicle of Higher Education: … Perry has promoted a conservative ideology in a higher-education policy agenda that emphasizes transparency and accountability and treats colleges like businesses whose customers are students. His associates have been hired for key leadership and advisory positions in the University […]

Documentation for IJSE article: “Howard Zinn and the Struggle for Real History in the United States”

The items on this page are posted as documentation for an article that will appear later this year in the International Journal of Social Education. The complete bibliographic citation for that article will be added here when it becomes available.

State of the Nation: IN PERIL! (Bachmann speech / videos)

On his MSNBC Hardball program last week, Chris Matthews was calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) a “balloon head” — somebody who speaks freely without knowing anything, about U.S. history, in particular, and somebody who need to go back to school to learn something about history, so that she might finally know something about the things she likes […]

Defending science, history, etc.: A promising precedent?

It seems to me that the case of David Rudovsky and Leonard Sosnov v. West Publishing Corporation (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2010), provides an intruiging suggestion for defending genuine science and social studies materials for school curriculum. A December 21 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer reports the outcome of this case. In […]

Texas bill to politicize curricula

A new bill in the Texas legislature would politicize curricula by reversing legislative action which had previously vested authority over selection of supplementary materials to the Texas Education Agency, removing that authority from the Texas State Board of Education [SBOE].

Board Takes Up Anti-Muslim Measure « Texas Freedom Network

Board Takes Up Anti-Muslim Measure « Texas Freedom Network. By Dan 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 […]

GOP Congress candidate: Church|State separation comes from “Hitler’s mouth” (video)

For all the attention being given to Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell’s upset of long-time popular Congressman and former Delaware Governor Mike Castle for the GOP nomination for Joe Biden’s seat in the U.S. Senate, relatively little notice has been paid to fellow Tea Partier Glen Urquhart’s upset of the mainstream GOP favorite for the […]

Tea Partiers & anti-democratic ignorance

The fact that GOP and Tea Party candidates can get away with this nonsense — at least to the extent of garnering enough support to force runoff elections, if not to secure GOP nominations — demonstrates the sad state of historical education in this country. Alabama GOP runoff candidate Rick Barber is running this ad […]

Oklahoma’s Judeo-Christian Law amendment measure

Jeff Musall has it about right in his (subtly-titled) opinion piece, “Oklahoma’s ‘Save Our State’ amendment to ban Sharia law is abominable.” Here is the news release from the Oklahoma legislature:

SBOE’s Dunbar @ “liberty”. “edu”, on CBN, etc.

I don’t believe I’ve ever had such an extensive post here devoted as much as this one is to the antics of Cynthia Dunbar. Hence, it’s tempting to use something like “Dumb and Dunbar” as the title of this post. (Is it really possible that nobody has used that title before?) I can’t do that […]

Dunbar Takes New Trip on Extremism Train (via Texas Freedom Network)

Here’s more on the recent antics on Cynthia Noland Dunbar, lame duck member of the Texas SBOE. This is one of a few items that I’m posting as background for a couple of my own new posts that will appear later today. Good grief. Cynthia Dunbar has demonstrated once again the kind of religious and political […]

Religious Freedom Fails in Texas (via Texas Freedom Network)

The Texas Freedom Network just sent out the following press release: The Texas State Board of Education’s vote today against requiring that students learn what the nation’s Founders did to protect religious freedom represents an irresponsible rewriting of American history and a stunning triumph of politics over education, the president of the Texas Freedom Network […]

Wickham: Texas history as opportunity

In USA Today (and by syndication in other Garnette papers), Dwayne Wickham has a May 25 column to show how the Texas State Board of Education’s (SBOE) newly-adopted standards for history education, despite intentions by the SBOE leading bloc of right-wing ideologues, actually can provide an opportunity for teaching real history. Wickham notes that Among […]

TX SBOE reminds SMU Dean of Apartheid regime’s historical revisionism

On The Ed Show Friday, May 21 on MSNBC, Dr. David Chard Dean of the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University in Fort Worth (see comment below) Dallas, Texas, offered this observation: It reminds me a little bit of what happened in South Africa when there was domination […]

Glenn Beck: “It is God’s finger that wrote Declaration, Constitution”

In his commencement speech at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University Saturday (May 15, 2010), Glenn Beck gave a preview of what history teaching might someday look like if the current majority (including some lame ducks) of the Texas State Board of Education gets its way. Beck proclaimed, for example, that It is God’s finger that wrote […]