Climate change in Texas science textbooks causes divisions on state's education board

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Climate change in Texas science textbooks causes divisions on state’s education board

BY ACACIA CORONADO
Updated 12:01 AM EST, November 17, 2023

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — How science textbooks in Texas address climate change is at the center of a key vote expected Friday after some Republican education officials criticized books for being too negative toward fossil fuels in America’s biggest oil and gas state.

The issue of which textbooks to approve has led to new divisions on the Texas State Board of Education, which over the years has faced other heated curriculum battles surrounding how evolution and U.S. history is taught to the more than 5 million students.

Science standards adopted by the board’s conservative majority in 2021 do not mention creationism as an alternative to evolution. Those standards also describe human factors as contributors to climate change.

But some Republicans on the 15-member board this week waved off current textbook options as too negative toward fossil fuels and for failing to include alternatives to evolution. One of Texas’ regulators of the oil and gas industry, Republican Wayne Christian, has urged the board to “choose books that promote the importance of fossil fuels for energy promotion.”

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/texas-board-education-textbooks-climate-change-aac40ce9cf09482cf67f62cb3cc353bf

[Igel]

1. I was sort of hoping that they'd say which courses/textbooks.

Just means I'll have to wait until next week to find out.

I was on the TEKS committee that revised the standards for a couple of high school courses in 2021 and the TEKS "guides" in the works for a couple of other courses and now district's told me that I will be on my districts curricular materials adoption committee. Who has time for this?

But one course dealt with both evolution and climate change, and while the evolution bit wasn't that hard to get consensus on the climate change text was a bit more difficult and carefully crafted and worded to ruffle no feathers very much but all feathers a little. (But what's actually taught in the classroom isn't closely monitored at that level of granularity by districts or school instructional officers except in maybe a few authoritarian districts.)