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<p>Even in red-state Texas, educators are indoctrinating kids into the Islamic faith. At Lumberton High School, a geography class was recently told to dress up in Islamic garb — including burqas — and refer to the 9/11 hijackers not as terrorists but as "freedom fighters."</p>

A Texas high school student has filed suit against her school district, claiming she was punished for refusing to recite the Mexican national anthem and pledge of allegiance as part of a Spanish class assignment. Brenda Brinsdon, then 15, told TheBlaze exclusively in 2011 that students in her intermediate Spanish class were instructed to recite the Mexican anthem and pledge individually in front of their peers at Achieve Early College High School in McAllen, Texas. Brinsdon refused, telling TheBlaze at the time that “Reciting pledges to Mexico and being loyal to it has nothing to do with learning Spanish.” She...

An Advanced Placement World Geography teacher at a Texas high school who encouraged students to dress in Islamic clothing also instructed them to refer to the 9-11 hijackers not as terrorists – but as “freedom fighters,” according to students who were in the class. Students at Lumberton High School were also told to stop referring to the Holocaust as Genocide – instead they were told to use the term “ethnic cleansing.” John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton Independent School District, tells me that the teacher did absolutely nothing wrong. “What is more dangerous – fear and ignorance or education...

Stan Hartzler has been a math teacher for a long time. The 40-year teacher has written textbooks, taught college math, and given hundreds of presentations on how to teach his subject. So when he was hired in August 2012 to launch a robust attack on Luling Independent School District's failing math scores, he brought a solid understanding of what his students needed. But Hartzler would soon become a casualty in a growing state controversy when, shortly after his hire, his superintendent adopted a new teaching system called CSCOPE. It organized each day's classroom topics — minute to minute — and...

AUSTIN, Texas – Parents of school children across Texas now are gaining access to a previously secret public school curriculum, according to an announcement from a state lawmaker. The CSCOPE program, an online offering that until now has prohibited, under penalty of law, teachers from sharing the lessons with parents, stirred up controversy because of its various lessons – some that were taken offline after the questions arose. Among those issues were that the curriculum at one point taught the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism and Christians were cannibals, and forced students to draw a socialist flag...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan's insult to Texas public education was a politically motivated distortion that doesn't become a federal official in his position. What a load this guy is. We shouldn't hear lies come out of the mouth of the nation's top education official (photo at right) when he discusses the record of millions of students and dedicated educators. People work too hard to have their work dismissed with his pathetic statement about feeling "very, very badly for the children there." TEA Commissioner Robert Scott emailed Duncan a sharp response last night (keep reading for text), and I'm glad he...

By TOM BENNING / The Dallas Morning News tbenning@dallasnews.com WASHINGTON – Texas would have to preserve its current education spending levels through 2013 to qualify for more than $830 million in federal aid, under a Texas-specific provision of a bill passed today by the House. The mandate passed, along party lines, as part of a $26 billion jobs protection bill, despite strong opposition from Texas Republicans. Several said the amendment unfairly singled out the state and jeopardized its ability to receive the funds. Hours later, President Barack Obama signed the bill into law. "This is another example of President Obama...

It’s not that I have anything against Mexico; love the country; love the people. It’s just that I would like to edge the state of Texas over the border and out of America. My issues with the Lone Star State, aside from the fact that it nurtured and launched the career of George Bush, is that the Texas school board has staged an intellectual coup d’état, voting in changes to the school curricula based on political and religious bias rather than educational criteria. In this case, the board is pushing an ultra-conservative, Christian agenda. But no religious or political agenda...

How ridiculous is this? Trying to re-write history???? The only ones trying to re-write history are the ones opposing this.

Hundreds of students who have transferred from Hearne to the Mumford Independent School District will have to go home to reverse an illegal "white flight" trend that has segregated the districts, according to a ruling delivered out of a federal court last week. U.S. District Court Judge William Justice described Mumford as maintaining a "pattern of fraudulent conduct" in past years as it solicited transfers from Hearne, increasing its enrollment of white students over a 10-year period by 3,540 percent. The judge's ruling permanently bars the TEA from funding transfers to Mumford that "reduce or impeded racial desegregation at Hearne...

AUSTIN, Texas - The U.S. Department of Education may withhold as much as $7 million from President Bush's home state for failing to tell parents whether schools performed up to standards under the No Child Left Behind Act. Parents won't be able to request transfers to move their children from poorly performing schools until the information is released, and the funding may be withheld until then. "The law states we're supposed to announce the results before school started and we did not make that deadline," Debbie Graves Ratcliffe, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman, told the San Antonio Express-News for its...

AUSTIN — Lawmakers gathered today for their fourth special session since being sworn in 16 months ago, summoned by Gov. Rick Perry to consider his multi-point plan for changing how Texas funds public schools. Both the House and Senate convened shortly after 10 a.m. today. In an opening Senate prayer, Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, said, "Help us in this special session to do something wise and wonderful for our children and our grandchildren." "Please show us your plan, Father, for that plan will be best for Texas." Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst revealed that Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, will...