Texas Public Schools Are Teaching Creationism

[douglas9]

When public-school students enrolled in Texas’ largest charter program open their biology workbooks, they will read that the fossil record is “sketchy.” That evolution is “dogma” and an “unproved theory” with no experimental basis. They will be told that leading scientists dispute the mechanisms of evolution and the age of the Earth. These are all lies.

The more than 17,000 students in the Responsive Education Solutions charter system will learn in their history classes that some residents of the Philippines were “pagans in various levels of civilization.” They’ll read in a history textbook that feminism forced women to turn to the government as a “surrogate husband.”

Responsive Ed has a secular veneer and is funded by public money, but it has been connected from its inception to the creationist movement and to far-right fundamentalists who seek to undermine the separation of church and state.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/creationism_in_texas_public_schools_undermining_the_charter_movement.single.html

[TexasProgresive]

1. I don't think charters are public schools

They are publicly funded semi-private schools.

Are Texas Independent school districts using this material?

I don't think much of the curricula for Texas public schools. The texts are insipid at best and tend to be boring tomes of word salad.

My impression of Texas text books is from the 80's when my kids were in school. I can't believe that Bush, Gates and any others have improved the materials. I would love to be a teacher but to be a good teacher one needs a good curriculum. I feel for the teachers in public schools and their students as well.

[DhhD]

2. The locally elected school board controls the curriculum of public schools and Charters.

The state controls money sent to the public school district and separately to the Private Business of Schooling. The local public school district office then sends the money over to the local Charter business office. Once your child's share of the money from the state is sent to the Charter school, the parent must pay tuition if the students wants to re-enroll in the local public school district.

In my opinion, a community should be very careful whom they elect to the local School Board. Most of these candidates are not questioned very much on their platform. A good question during the campaign might be to ask how they would direct the curriculum of Charter Schools or Charter Schools formed after they are elected. It seems that some board members are for privatization as well an excellent neighborhood public school system. Constituents should be asking!

In other words, the local School Board members allow the Charter School Curriculum. In the Past, this situation kept the creationist complainers away from the the objectives of the Founding Fathers in Social Studies and from the Laws and Principles of Science. IMO, Creationism is a Theory based on Faith. There we go again. Faith/Church vs. Law/State; in other words Faith and Law are to be separated just as Church and State are to be separated as taught by Moses/Old Testament and Paul/New Testament.

I believe that there is a movement of conservative people to rewrite the Bible to allow Jesus to bear the Cloak of joining Church and State/Government now, instead of waiting for His Second Coming.

[DhhD]

3. Voucher system is the State sending education money, for each student, to the control of

the parents/guardian. This went over badly in Louisiana. This practice was stopped by a federal judge the following year. Please feel free to research why it was a failure. The word, Vouchers, in Texas has disappeared from the GOP Platform recently!

[TexasTowelie]

4. +1 for the second paragraph.

Unfortunately, most school board elections are popularity contests with candidates whose only platform is to cut taxes. I also believe that anybody elected to a school board should have a child enrolled within that school district at the time of their election; otherwise, they have little reason to promote education within the school district.

[DhhD]

5. Cutting taxes and getting rid of the Government and the IRS.

The wealthy do not want to pay taxes out of their hoard of money.

And TEA Party wants their base to believe that the money going to the IRS, will go to the "Church" and bring down the State so a theology can be set up. Ted Cruz openly teaches this. Many poor and middle class tithers can no longer support a Church. Dominionist Ted Cruz wants those receiving what they have worked and paid for to be abandoned by the Church. Ted Cruz wants to be in charge of the Famine of the Liberals. Now,Children can have Breakfast and Lunch at school for 9 1/2 months. Texas Churches could not handle feeding poor children during the summers so recently Church Women are working with the Government to get federal lunches out to the homes during the summer.

An article on a Cato Institute Report said that SNAP causes obesity. Not enough money for SNAP is the real problem. Congressional GOP is advocating removing of MORE SNAP funding from poor children but not for Farm Subsidies to billionaires of big business farming on the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill is to be reauthorized every 5 years. Why is the GOP visiting it again in just a few months to remove more from the federal food stamp program? How are Texas Church Women condoning this movement? Texas women are ripe for a wave of Blue in more ways than one.

http://www.tafb.org/children-hunger-statistics.html

[TexasProgresive]

6. Texas is not too into local control

Despite the mantra of the repukes.

Curriculum

Curriculum and instructional materials are integral parts of a public school system. The State Board of Education periodically updates the state’s curriculum standards called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Textbooks and other instructional materials are then written for children based on those standards. More than 48 million textbooks are distributed by the Texas Education Agency to Texas public school students each year.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index.aspx?id=2147484904&menu_id=720&menu_id2=785&cid=2147483654

I'm sure that there is some options the local school boards can enact.

[DhhD]

7. Yes after the SB of Education updates the curriculum standards, the Board hands

these down to the Texas Education Agency/State Education Agency. Then a local school district's Board and Administration gather input from various parent committee into a District Curriculum Guide with teaching objectives. TEKS only has to be 40% of the teaching objectives. Then the Superintendent(s) send the Districts Curriculum Guide Objectives off to the State Education Agency for approval. If approved, then the district makes the Curriculum Guide in to a booklet with the noted TEKS to distribute to the schools. The Principal is the head administrator over the curriculum at his/her school. The Texas Education Agency also makes sure that the TEKS are represented in Texas Textbooks.

http://www.austinisd.org/academics/curriculum-info

[DhhD]

8. Charter Schools in Texas: Facts and Figures. Link is from a request for the Texas Education Code

governing Charter Schools. Recent changes have been made to tighten regulations on Charter Schools. There is such a thing as a State Independent School District. Some are set up through Texas Universities. The election of a Local School Board member is very important. These elections are held the first Saturday of May.

https://www.tasb.org/legislative/resources/documents/charters.pdf