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The Fight Continues Against Texas' Textbook Standards

Terri Burke,
老澳门开奖结果 of Texas
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May 26, 2010

Last week was a fascinating week to watch the power of the religious right in Texas. Although we launched an enormous effort to convince the 鈥渕oderates鈥 on the Texas State Board of Education to vote down ideologically tainted standards for students鈥 textbooks, they were ultimately approved on a 9-5 party line vote. Don McLeroy, the former board president and now lame-duck board member and chief proponent of the most outrageous changes in the curriculum standards, spent most of his time outside the meeting room frequently huddled with and folks, who, it became obvious, were the authors of all of his amendments. In the end, though, the more moderate board members caved into the fringe right.

Despite this loss, Texas heard our message loud and clear. Thanks to you, the State Board of Ed received more than 40,000 comments on the proposed social studies curriculum standards; of which at least 12,000 came from 老澳门开奖结果 supporters. (As a point of comparison, the board received just 3,000 comments during the last big text book controversy when they wanted all students to learn about the 鈥渟trengths and weaknesses鈥 of evolution as part of the science curriculum standards.)

The fight continues. With a number of state legislators outraged and criticism mounting from , and even the , there is steam for pushing the engines of change. Next? We will work with the legislature to rein in this out-of-control bunch, limiting its role to its constitutional mandate or requiring true experts to write the standards and ensuring legislative approval of the nominees. Check out the recommendations we included in our report, 鈥.鈥

And there鈥檚 more you can do to make sure that the Texas State Board of Education doesn鈥檛 have the final say as to what鈥檚 taught in social studies classrooms in your state:

And thank you again for taking action; with your help, we will keep this kind of extremism in check.

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