The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund will host a half-day training workshop on Wednesday, July 22, for anyone interested in Texas State Board of Education elections in 2010. Experienced political consultants will provide an overview of what a successful campaign for the state board will require, including practical, hands-on information to help candidates.

> Learn more

The Texas Freedom Network scored some key victories on education, science and religious freedom in the recently ended legislative session. Just as importantly, TFN's statewide grassroots network helped keep the religious right on the defensive. As a result, the religious right failed to pass any major parts of its legislative agenda during the regular session.

Resources:
> Check out TFN's legislative recap.
> Read an op-ed from TFN's Kathy Miller about the "culture wars" in Texas.
> TFN's 2009 State of the Religious Right report previewed the legislative session.

Just weeks after working to dumb down instruction on evolution in the public school science curriculum, culture warriors on the State Board of Education are gearing up for an assault on social studies. The board's far-right faction is already moving to appoint absurdly unqualified ideologues who oppose church-state separation to an "expert" panel for guiding the development of new social studies standards. The state board is scheduled to adopt the new standards by March 2011.

> Read TFN's press release about the "expert" social studies panel.
> Read more about the so-called "experts" appointed by the SBOE to guide the social studies revision.
> Read what happened when the state board adopted social studies textbooks in 2002.
> Extremism on the Texas State Board of Education
> Read more about the efforts of SBOE members to drag public schools into the culture wars.

Science Curriculum Revision Recap

During the March adoption of new public school science standards, pressure groups succeeded in opening the door to creationist attacks on evolution in science classrooms. The Stand Up for Science Campaign goes on, however. Publishers will now begin crafting science textbooks based on the standards for adoption in 2011. TFN will be monitoring that process and working to counter efforts to dumb down science instruction on evolution.

> Read TFN's press statement about the final SBOE vote on science standards.
> Read all about the fallout from the vote at TFN Insider.
> Watch SBOE members in action in our video archive.
> Sign up for the Stand Up for Science Rapid Response team.
> Donate to TFN and help us stand up for science.

Texas has long been held up as the poster child for abstinence-only sexuality education. In fact, Texas consistently leads the nation by a wide margin in federal abstinence education dollars - more than $18 million in 2007 alone. What has not been known, however, is what public schools are actually teaching students about sexuality education in their classrooms.

Until now. 

> Read the report and watch the videos.

The Spring 2009 Network News recaps the battle over science education in Texas, reports about the new TFN Education Fund study on sexuality education in the state's public schools and updates readers on TFN's growing youth advocacy work.

>  Spring 2009 newsletter
>  TFN newsletter archive