This is a great idea. The words “free” and “college” aren’t often used in the same sentence, but a philanthropic venture at Rice University is drawing attention for bringing them together. OpenStax College, a nonprofit publishing organization founded by a Rice professor, offers free online textbooks for the five most-attended college courses in the country. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘textbooks’
Soto’s parting gift on textbooks
Outgoing SBOE member Michael Soto will be missed. Soto, the Trinity University English professor who was knocked off in this year’s Democratic primary by the little-known Marisa Perez, spent much of his two years on the board grappling with frustration over the state’s cumbersome textbook mandates. So, in his final months in office, he quietly [...]
Texas Freedom Network’s guide to the SBOE elections
The Texas Freedom Network has put out a useful little voter’s guide to the 2012 State Board of Education elections, which covers a range of topics from creationism and climate change to bullying and SBOE procedures. You might look at the answers that the candidates who responded submitted and think “Hey, cool, everyone is basically [...]
McAllen ISD goes digital
Here’s a look at the future, coming to a school near you. A Rio Grande Valley school district plans to equip every one of its 25,000 students with Apple iPads, rolling ahead with a digitally enhanced curriculum effort that’s among the largest of its type in the nation. “It’s not just about a device; it’s [...]
SBOE manages to not screw up science supplements
Baby steps. The quietude of yesterday’s State Board of Education meeting came to a screeching halt during today’s final vote over supplemental science materials. After a unanimous preliminary vote on Thursday, the board appeared split over alleged errors in how evolution was addressed in a high school biology submission from Holt McDougal. A board-appointed reviewer [...]
Time once again to keep an eye on the SBOE
The Legislature is now out of town, but there will still be action in Austin to watch out for as the State Board of Education holds its July meeting. The Express News lets us know what’s happening. In 2008, an SBOE majority rejected the recommendations of experts and scholars from a two-year process to rewrite [...]
So what is the point of the SBOE, anyway?
Here’s another story about the difficulties of SBOE redistricting, and it’s got me wondering why we bother having an elected body called the State Board of Education. This legislative session, lawmakers are working on redrawing the 15 districts based on new census data — released every 10 years — but a rise in population has [...]
SBOE wants its new textbooks
But it may not get them. State board members are growing increasingly anxious that lawmakers might not provide funding for new textbooks and instructional material – even though they’re giving the Legislature $1.9 billion from a 157-year-old endowment established to help schools, including providing free textbooks for students. Board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont, warns that [...]
Republican legislators want SBOE do over on social studies
Good for them. Texas House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie; Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands; and House Administration Chairman Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth; criticized the new [social studies] standards. Various civil rights and minority advocacy organizations have opposed the standards, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education think tank, gave the [...]
Where’s the money for new textbooks coming from?
Nobody knows just yet. Neither legislative chamber’s base budget appropriates funds for any new textbooks. The primary concern in the short term is funding for science materials that reflect the 2009 curriculum changes made by the State Board of Education. Those changes are significant, according to Patsy McGee, a Beaumont school district science supervisor and [...]
By the way, our social studies standards still suck
So says a conservative think tank. In a report [released Wednesday], 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 [...]
Cutting the budget means cutting education
No two ways around it. As the single biggest consumer of state money, the Texas public education system stands to lose millions of dollars as the state grapples with a looming budget shortfall. Education Commissioner Robert Scott has suggested more than $260 million in cuts from the state’s almost $40 billion education budget for the [...]
Is this the swan song for the clown show?
After all this time, my heart isn’t into snarking on the SBOE and its latest travashamockery. I just want to point one thing out from how the vote went on that ludicrous and hateful anti-Islam resolution: State Board of Education vote breakdown For: David Bradley, R-Beaumont; Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands; Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond; Don McLeroy, [...]
True culture warriors never sleep
There’s no possible way that this can end well. The [State Board of Education] will consider a resolution next week that would warn publishers not to push a pro-Islamic, anti-Christian viewpoint in world history textbooks. Members of the board’s social conservative bloc asked for the resolution after an unsuccessful candidate for a board seat called [...]
White wants to “undo some of the damage” the SBOE has done to social studies
Lord knows, there’s a lot of it to undo. Bill White wants to start with changing the Chair. Some Texans have called for a limited review to address some of the more controversial standards that will influence new history, government, geography and economics textbooks for 4.8 million public school children. Only the board chairman sets [...]
Back to the clown show
So here’s a bunch of coverage from yesterday’s SBOE hearings: from the Chron, the DMN, the Statesman, the Trib, TFN, and BOR. Very short summary: Many people testified. Some said crazy things. Others begged the SBOE to not enshrine crazy things in the standard social studies curriculum. Some Democratic lawmakers reminded the SBOE that funding [...]
And the clown show gets underway again
Here’s your TFN liveblogging of today’s SBOE social studies hearings. Brian Thevenot of The Trib is also there, and he reports that an interesting character has asked the Board to slow down. Former U.S. Secretary of Education and Houston Superintendent Rod Paige this morning asked the State Board of Education to delay adopting its new [...]
Briefly noted
Some interesting things from today that I wanted to note… There are plenty of people who want to be on the Appropriations Committee, so putting some who doesn’t want to be there, like State Rep. Joe Driver of Dallas, doesn’t make much sense. But once you’re on Appropriations, whether you wanted it or not, you [...]
Science textbook delay
The adoption of new science textbooks may be delayed a year as a budget maneuver. The $1.4 billion price tag for new science textbooks and other materials has been causing sticker shock among state officials bracing for the upcoming budget shortfall. So, the State Board of Education on Tuesday must decide whether to push ahead [...]
“We went out and won some elections”
I know people who read this blog understand the importance of voting in every election, but I think it’s good to be reminded from time to time. So with that, this Statesman article about the current state of the SBOE and how they managed to do so much damage to the public school curriculum, sums [...]
They get letters
Many people have told the SBOE what they can do with their proposed textbook standards for social studies. The State Board of Education had received more than 20,000 public comments as of last week on the proposed revision of social studies curriculum standards. That incomplete tally — the monthlong comment period ends May 19 — [...]
The historians have their say
The various legislative groups held their SBOE hearings on Wednesday. In pointing out the many ways in which that unesteemed body screwed the pooch on social studies, they joined with others in calling for a delay in adopting the new curriculum standard, pointing out that doing so could save the state a few bucks at [...]
Where’s Gail?
This morning at 9 AM in Austin, a hearing will be held by various legislative groups including the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the Legislative Study Group, the House Black Caucus, and Senate Hispanic Caucus, to discuss the recent changes to the social studies curriculum. You know, the whole dropping of Thomas Jefferson thing and all [...]
Who’s using electronic textbooks?
According to this DMN story, the electronic textbook revolution hasn’t exactly taken hold just yet, at least not in the Metroplex. The [Texas Education Agency] has budgeted more than $800 million for textbooks in 2010-11, but it’s not clear how much of the money districts will use on digital materials. Many schools simply don’t know [...]
Historians want SBOE to hold it right there
A group of historians have called on the SBOE to review and rethink its recent changes to the social studies curriculum. Historians are decrying the social studies curriculum standards crafted by the State Board of Education that they say misrepresent and distort the historical record. About 800 college history professors from across the country have [...]
Bill Hobby bashes the SBOE
Boy, I don’t know who put the hot sauce in former Lite Guv Bill Hobby’s Cheerios, but keep it up, I say. Go read it for yourself and you’ll see what I mean. When you’re done with that, you can go sign State Rep. Mike Villarreal’s petition calling on the SBOE to knock it off [...]
More legislative pushback against the SBOE
Good. Texas risks becoming a national laughingstock by diminishing Thomas Jefferson, banning the word “capitalism,” and otherwise distorting history for its public schools, the chairman of the Legislature’s largest caucus said Tuesday, announcing a hearing on the state’s proposed social studies curriculum standards. The Mexican American Legislative Caucus will bring academic experts to the state [...]