Last week, the Plano Independent School District in Texas decided to pull a humanities textbook that is used by freshmen and sophomores in the district's gifted and talented program. The book in question, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities: Alternative Volume, is a survey of various pieces of artwork throughout history. Apparently, a couple was concerned that their [...]
Last Friday the Texas Board of Education voted along party lines to approve a new school curriculum that will, in effect, rewrite history. The new social studies curriculum will address what one board member referred to as a “skewed” history with a “liberal bias.” Although the proposed changes may individually seem relatively minor, they are not innocuous. For example, the [...]
On Friday, March 26, the Texas Board of Education struck down a bill that required evolution be taught with consideration of the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory. The new bill, however, is not a striking victory for advocates of depolicized, science-based education. According to the NCSE: ...the revised biology standard (7B) reflects two discredited creationist ideas — that "sudden [...]
The New York Times reported yesterday on the fight in Texas over science standards. The standards for 20 years have required that science be taught in a way that show the “strengths and weaknesses” of Darwin’s theory of evolution. The third draft, passed in December 2008 didn’t include this phrase, but this year 7 of the 15 members of the [...]