Texas proposes controversial school textbook changes

Guardian : Public schools in Texas may receive new social studies textbooks that are deliberately misleading regarding climate change, according to a recent report by the National Center for Science Education. Among the NCSE’s concerns are that the proposed texts cast doubt on whether Earth is undergoing climate change, question whether the current warming is due to human causes, and include misinformation and scientific inaccuracies—for example, claiming that the ozone hole was caused by fossil-fuel emissions. The NCSE report also takes issue with the fact that the texts promote the views of the Heartland Institute, an ultraconservative US public policy think tank, over those of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a world-renowned scientific international body. The proposed textbooks are up for a public hearing before the Texas State Board of Education. If approved, they could be in schools for at least a decade.