http://www.au.org/Over the past several years, we’ve told you about the Texas State Board of Education’s blatant attempts to include creationist concepts in science curriculum standards and its outright distortion of history in the state’s recently adopted social studies curriculum standards. The elected officials on the Board — none of them experts in science or social studies — made hundreds of detailed changes to the curriculum standards that had been drafted by highly qualified writing teams.
As a result, the standards now include many academically unsupported and blatantly political provisions. For instance, Texas public school students now learn creationist claims about “sudden appearance” of life in the fossil record in science class. And the social studies standards undermine basic concepts of the constitutionally mandated boundaries between institutions of religion and government and try to downplay important struggles and conflicts in our nation’s history.
We’ve also reported to you action that AU and our allies have taken to put the national spotlight on the Board’s politicization of the process for adopting curriculum standards. Political meddling leads to bad results and harms students — not just in Texas, but across the country. Texas is the second largest market for textbooks in the nation — thus textbook publishers tend to ensure that their textbooks align with the state’s curriculum standards.
Now we’re asking you to take action on this issue. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson from Texas has introduced House Resolution 1593, which “supports standards that guide curriculum development, instruction, and assessment in classrooms that are developed by experts and not subject to political biases.” Please contact your Representative today to urge that he or she cosponsor this important resolution!
http://www.au.org/
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