Like any political battle in Texas, the ongoing fight over the evolution in the state's science classes features colorful characters worth getting to know.
The Senate Education Committee heard four hours of testimony Tuesday on a bill by Senator Dan Patrick that would require the State Board of Education to sign off on all lesson plans included in the online curriculum management tool CSCOPE.
The question isn’t how the followers of an obscure Turkish imam came to operate the largest charter school system in Texas. It’s whether the incredible success they’ve had can help our ailing public schools.
I mean, where’s Bill White? The State Board of Education is in a meltdown that is getting worldwide publicity, and the best he can do is say that if he is elected governor, he would name a new chair. Big deal. He ought to be saying: This is Rick Perry’s
This "tick-tock" report comes from my colleague Katy Vine, who has been following and writing about the State Board of Education for Texas Monthly. 12:31 – Here we go. Bob Craig makes a motion to add “impact of Enlightenment ideas” back into a standard altered in March to remove references
The State Board of Education may decide today to push back the arrival of new science textbooks to 2013. No, it’s not because the publishers dared to mention evolution. It’s because of the budget crunch. By delaying the arrival of books, the Legislature can pay part of the money in
This letter from Houston State Rep. Alma Allen went out today to local Democratic party leaders in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin. Allen is angry because the Republicans who control the State Board of Education (for now) do not have a standard of essential knowledge that requires students to
Not one to give up just because he has been booted from office by the voters, former State Board of Education chair Don McLeroy has proposed new additions to the social studies curriculum, which is up for adoption by the full board later this month. First I'm going to summarize
You might want to think twice about including a vindication of Joe McCarthy's anticommunist activities, based on the revelations of the Venona papers, in the proposed social studies curriculum standards, for two reasons: (1) It was stupid. (2) It was wrong. The current issue of The Weekly Standard, a conservative
Thanks to my colleague Katy Vine, who follows the drama of the State Board of Education, for calling this blog post in the Houston Press to my attention. Here's the post in full: The Houston ISD employees who were asked to draft a resolution asking the State Board
Today I received a robo-call from former state senator and lieutenant governor Bill Ratliff urging Republicans to support Marsha Farney in her race for State Board of Education against Brian Russell. Ratliff’s brief message made the point that Farney had showed her commitment to public education by sending her children
After State Board of Education chairman Don McLeroy gave a shaky performance before the Senate Nominations committee Wednesday, there appears to be little interest in the Texas Senate in moving forward on his confirmation. Nominations chair Mike Jackson has said he won’t ask for a committee vote if there aren’t
The fallout from the State Board of Education's debate over the teaching of evolution continued this morning in the Senate Education Committee, which held a spirited discussion on Sen. Kel Seliger's SB 2275 transferring authority for textbook adoption from the State Board of Education to the state's Education Commissioner. How spirited?
The lucky folks who attended the Texas History Museum Foundation’s annual Texas Independence Day dinner last night witnessed virtuoso performances by Fort Worth piano legend Van Cliburn and former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, both honored as “History-Making Texans” at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. Cliburn managed to weave
