San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
State cuts textbooks over climate, evolution
The Republican-led State Board of Education has rejected a handful of science textbooks over their handling of climate change, with members arguing that they offered an unfair view of the oil and gas industry.
The board initially objected to the books earlier in the week, and publishers had until Wednesday to make changes. In the end, the board denied materials from eight publishers, including Edusmart. The publisher’s website says versions of its books are used in a quarter of Texas schools and cover 100% of the state’s science standards.
The board approved one book that had drawn fire from Texas Values, a Christian conservative advocacy group that disagreed with its portrayal of evolution, after the publisher removed text and images saying humans were part of the “family of apes.”
The board voted unanimously Friday to approve the final slate of textbooks, though Democrats had argued against the individual rejections. Marisa B. Perez-Diaz, D-San Antonio, said she was disappointed so many books were denied because of “assertions or thoughts about how things are written.” She said Edusmart was one of the few publishers that provided texts in Spanish.
“We have a responsibility to provide as many resources as possible to the students of Texas,” she said. “If we continue to behave this way as a board, my fear is we will render ourselves irrelevant moving forward in terms of what publishers want to work with us.”
Members on the board complained that some of the books rejected included lessons with an “anti-fossil fuel” bent, pointing specifically at one by Discovery Education that they argued portrayed the United States as running out of oil and not energy independent.
Board member Julie Pickren, R-Pearland, complained that the book included a lesson on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and said the book’s description of the nation’s oil reserves underestimated how much oil the U.S. has and “really negated Texas’ natural resources.”
“You have these lessons with these underlying themes throughout,” Pickren said.
Democrats on the board questioned whether the books actually were pushing those themes or if the members were simply reaching those conclusions.
“Does it literally say that, or you feel like that’s the conclusion students may come to because that’s what you feel?” Aicha Davis, D-Dallas, said at one point.
Perez-Diaz said the books were providing students with information to reach their own conclusions.
“We want them to come to their own conclusions and critically think,” she said.
School districts can pick which books to buy for teachers, regardless of whether they have been approved by the board. But the board’s endorsement signals the books properly cover state standards.
There is scientific consensus that burning coal, oil and natural gas contributes to global warming. The last eight years have been the hottest in the historical record; and around the globe, people have experienced extreme heat, storms and droughts that scientists say are becoming more intense because of climate change.