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[[link removed]] John,

We need your help now ahead of the first Texas State Board of Education of the year, which begins tomorrow.

Social studies curriculum standards the right-wing SBOE adopted in 2010 were so bad that even conservative organizations condemned them as a “distortion of history.” It looks like the board’s current right-wing members are inviting a repeat.

As the board prepares to overhaul social studies standards again this year, we have learned that two board members have appointed a politicial activist – Stephen Balch – to a key panel that will advise the board on social studies content. Balch has echoed white nationalist conspiracy theories and promotes Trump’s lies about “fraud” costing him reelection.

Take Action: Demand Balch's Remove as a Content Advisor [[link removed] remove-balch]

Balch is a retired scholar and director of the Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech and was a co-founder and longtime president of the conservative advocacy group National Association of Scholars.

Balch's extreme political views include:

* Echoing white nationalist conspiracy theorists by suggesting that President Biden is trying to destroy “traditional” (white) America through mass immigration
* Employing inflammatory rhetoric to promote the Big Lie that voter fraud cost Donald Trump reelection and calling on Trump — just weeks before the January 6 insurrection — to “lead his followers into America’s streets and squares"
* Calling on Americans to disregard Supreme Court rulings, including the decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the country in 2015

You can read more about Balch here. [[link removed]]

The standards revision appears headed off the rails right out of the gate. And it comes as Gov. Abbott and other Republican officeholders intensify their campaign to ban books and censor what schools teach about discrimination and inequality in our nation’s history.

TFN will once again lead the fight at the SBOE to stop censorship and the far right’s efforts to hijack the education of Texas schoolchildren.

You can help, too. Take action and contact the SBOE to demand Balch be disqualified from the social studies content advisors panel.

Take Action [[link removed] remove-balch]


We must act now to demand Blach be replaced on the panel.

Onward,
[[link removed]]
Carisa Lopez
TFN Political Director
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TFN is a statewide non-partisan, grassroots organization that is building an informed and effective movement working toward equality and social justice.
Texas Freedom Network
P.O. Box 1624
Austin, TX 78767
United States
Phone: (512) 322-0545
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