From the “Any news is good news… ” department, we have the Houston Chronicle reporting State history standards get ‘D’; Conservative think tank says politics have distorted curriculum :
…In a report being released today, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute gives the Texas social studies curriculum standards a “D” while accusing “the conservative majority” of using the curriculum “to promote its political priorities, molding the telling of the past to justify its current views and aims.”
“Biblical influences on America’s founding are exaggerated, if not invented. The complicated but undeniable history of separation between church and state is flatly dismissed,” the group wrote.
The broad swipe from a respected conservative education think tank comes after civil rights groups and minority lawmakers have demanded the board scrap the standards and start over…
Honestly, I expect little to actually happen – it is Texas, after all – but it’s great to see any modicum of sanity making an appearance in the textbook wars. Especially when it’s members of one political persuasion calling out its own…
Oh, good! Another chance to promote the work of the Texas Freedom Network , which “advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right.”
One recent bullet dodged in the ongoing battle to Save Our Textbooks,
Last month’s announcement by a prominent creationist group that it had decided not to seek state approval to sell instructional materials to Texas public schools was good news for supporters of sound science education. Now e-mails obtained by the Texas Freedom Network through a Texas Public Information Act request reveal just how bad the materials from Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) would have been…
FTE’s claim that its classroom materials would be “fair and accurate” and based on “scientific literature” is equally deceitful. Proponents of “intelligent design” have failed to provide even a shred of credible, peer-reviewed scientific evidence supporting their arguments. Simply repeating discredited arguments over and over won’t make them credible.
Moreover, FTE repeats the same tired talking point about seeing “beyond the uncritical acceptance of majority viewpoints” in science. Unfortunately for FTE, science isn’t determined by popular vote. It’s decided by real research and hard evidence. FTE has none of that…
FTE announced its decision not to submit science materials for adoption by the State Board of Education after the Texas Freedom Network found the group’s name on a list of vendors and sounded the alarm last month. But we know that state board members are trying to put creationism activists on teams that will review science materials submitted by other vendors and publishers.
If you check out the Houston Chronicle article linked in the OP, please note that many of the responses are critical of the eejits on the school board.
Moving thread from IMHO to MPSIMS.