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Stand Up For Science: Petition for proper science in Texas textbooks
Join us in sending this message to the Texas State Board of Education:
Texas students need classroom materials that are based on modern, mainstream science and prepare them to succeed in college and the jobs of the future. That means politicians must stop trying to undermine instruction on evolution and climate change. The State Board of Education must approve science textbooks that are based on sound, peer-reviewed scholarship.
http://www.tfn.org/site/PageNavigator/Issues%20and%20Policy/Standing%20Up%20For%20Science%20/science_2013adoption_petition.html
Texas students need classroom materials that are based on modern, mainstream science and prepare them to succeed in college and the jobs of the future. That means politicians must stop trying to undermine instruction on evolution and climate change. The State Board of Education must approve science textbooks that are based on sound, peer-reviewed scholarship.
http://www.tfn.org/site/PageNavigator/Issues%20and%20Policy/Standing%20Up%20For%20Science%20/science_2013adoption_petition.html
Background:
Alarm Bells Are Ringing: Creationists Get Influential Positions in Texas Science Textbook Review
It looks like the Lone Star State’s reputation as a hotbed of anti-science fanaticism is about to be reinforced. At least six creationists/”intelligent design” proponents succeeded in getting invited to review high school biology textbooks that publishers have submitted for adoption in Texas this year. The State Board of Education (SBOE) will decide in November which textbooks to approve. Those textbooks could be in the state’s public school science classrooms for nearly a decade.
Among the six creationist reviewers are some of the nation’s leading opponents of teaching students that evolution is established, mainstream science and is overwhelmingly supported by well over a century of research. Creationists on the SBOE nominated those six plus five others also invited by the Texas Education Agency to serve on the biology review teams. We have been unable to determine what those other five reviewers think about evolution.
Although 28 individuals got invites to review the proposed new biology textbooks this year, only about a dozen have shown up in Austin this week for the critical final phase of that review. That relatively small overall number of reviewers could give creationists even stronger influence over textbook content. In fact, publishers are making changes to their textbooks based on objections they hear from the review panelists. And that’s happening essentially behind closed doors because the public isn’t able to monitor discussions among the review panelists themselves or between panelists and publishers. The public won’t know about publishers’ changes (or the names of all the review panelists who are in Austin this week) until probably September. Alarm bells are ringing.
http://tfninsider.org/2013/07/30/alarm-bells-are-ringing-creationists-get-influential-positions-in-texas-science-textbook-review/
It looks like the Lone Star State’s reputation as a hotbed of anti-science fanaticism is about to be reinforced. At least six creationists/”intelligent design” proponents succeeded in getting invited to review high school biology textbooks that publishers have submitted for adoption in Texas this year. The State Board of Education (SBOE) will decide in November which textbooks to approve. Those textbooks could be in the state’s public school science classrooms for nearly a decade.
Among the six creationist reviewers are some of the nation’s leading opponents of teaching students that evolution is established, mainstream science and is overwhelmingly supported by well over a century of research. Creationists on the SBOE nominated those six plus five others also invited by the Texas Education Agency to serve on the biology review teams. We have been unable to determine what those other five reviewers think about evolution.
Although 28 individuals got invites to review the proposed new biology textbooks this year, only about a dozen have shown up in Austin this week for the critical final phase of that review. That relatively small overall number of reviewers could give creationists even stronger influence over textbook content. In fact, publishers are making changes to their textbooks based on objections they hear from the review panelists. And that’s happening essentially behind closed doors because the public isn’t able to monitor discussions among the review panelists themselves or between panelists and publishers. The public won’t know about publishers’ changes (or the names of all the review panelists who are in Austin this week) until probably September. Alarm bells are ringing.
http://tfninsider.org/2013/07/30/alarm-bells-are-ringing-creationists-get-influential-positions-in-texas-science-textbook-review/
Originally posted in the Religion Group, but I thought you guys are the target for the petition signing ...
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Intelligent Design may be seen by the apathetic and low information voters as merely a rejection of Darwin's theory of evolution, but anybody who's glided past Fundie radio knows that the Fundies want a corrupted geology, physics, and chemistry brought in, too.
So after the Fundies get through undermining the science taught in public universities, Texas universities will keep a reputation for being places for top-notch research and education?
Yeah, sure, right, un-hunh
