March 26, 2009
Texas Freedom Network is live-blogging the hearings and proceedings from Austin, again today, before the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). [I’ve changed the link to go to the TFN blog — that will take you to the latest post with latest news.] Testimony yesterday showed the coarse nature of the way SBOE treats science and scientists, and offered a lot of “balancing” testimony against evolution from people who appeared not to have ever read much science at all. The issue remains whether to force Texas kids to study false claims of scientific error about evolution.
As yesterday, Steve Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science is live-blogging, too, here at EvoSphere.
Schafersman’s list of several ways you can keep up with the hearings still applies:
I will be live blogging the Texas State Board of Education meeting of 2009 March 25-27 in this column. This includes the hearing devoted to public testimony beginning at 12:00 noon on Wednesday, March 25. I will stay through the final vote on Friday, March 27.
Go to the following webpages for further information:
State Board of Education
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index3.aspx?id=1156
March 25-26 SBOE Meeting Agenda
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3994
March 25 Public Hearing with Testimony, 12:00 noon
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=4034
State Board rules for Public Testimony
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3958#Public%20Testimony
Current Science TEKS as revised in 2009 January
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/home/sboeprop.html
For the live audio feed, go to http://www.tea.state.tx.us/ for the link.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 25, 2009
If you’re not thinking of Edward R. Murrow’s reports from the roof of the building in London as the bombs fell, you’re not aware of how grave things are in Texas.
The Texas Freedom Network is live-blogging the hearings in Austin, before the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE). Testimony of a sort is being offered on whether to force Texas kids to study false claims of scientific error about evolution.
Steve Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science is live-blogging, too, here at EvoSphere.
Schafersman listed several ways you can keep up with the hearings:
I will be live blogging the Texas State Board of Education meeting of 2009 March 25-27 in this column. This includes the hearing devoted to public testimony beginning at 12:00 noon on Wednesday, March 25. I will stay through the final vote on Friday, March 27.
Go to the following webpages for further information:
State Board of Education
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index3.aspx?id=1156
March 25-26 SBOE Meeting Agenda
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3994
March 25 Public Hearing with Testimony, 12:00 noon
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=4034
State Board rules for Public Testimony
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3958#Public%20Testimony
Current Science TEKS as revised in 2009 January
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/home/sboeprop.html
For the live audio feed, go to http://www.tea.state.tx.us/ for the link.
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Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Evolution, History, State school boards, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, Voodoo science, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evolution, McLeroy, National Center for Science Education, NCSE, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedm Network, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 9, 2009
Science needs your help, Texas scientists.
Last month science won a victory when members of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) agreed to strip creationist, anti-science language out of biology standards.
In the lightning round that followed the vote, however, some bad stuff was proposed. The National Center for Science Education asks every Texas scientist to contact your representative on the SBOE to urge them to vote against the bad stuff at a meeting near the end of March.
Don’t take my word for it. Below the fold, the full rundown of bad stuff, copied from NCSE’s website.
Details are available from Texas Citizens for Science.
New Texas Science Standards Will Be Debated and Voted Upon March 26-27 in Austin by the Texas State Board of Education — Public Testimony is March 25
Radical Religious-Right and Creationist members of the State Board of Education will attempt to keep the unscientific amendments in the Texas science standards that will damage science instruction and textbooks.
THE TEXAS SCIENCE STANDARDS SHOULD BE ADOPTED UNCHANGED!
The Texas Freedom Network has good information, too.
Also check out Greg Laden’s Blog.
Even Pharyngula’s in — Myers gets more comments from sneezing than the rest of us — but if he’s on it, you know it’s good science.
Read the rest of this entry »
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3 Comments | Charles Darwin, Citizenship, Creationism, Education, Education quality, Evolution, History, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network, War on Education, War on Science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Education reform, Evolution, Politics, Religion, Science, Science Standards, Texas, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
March 4, 2009
We stopped education in Texas high schools yesterday to test students’ proficiency with the English language. English is a difficult enough subject that it merits its own testing day, so as not to discombobulate students for the other Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) tests.
All controversy aside, it’s a grind.
Yours truly won the straw that got to make sure students made it to the restroom from their testing rooms, and back, without discussing the contents of the exam or sneaking off a cell-phone conversation or text message. (Yes, testing rules require that students check in phones and other devices during the test.) Classes in bathroom monitoring and cell-phone jamming cannot be far away at America’s great institutions of learning about teaching.
And you think teachers are overpaid? In Belgium the restroom attendants get tips. Same at the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Not in Texas schools.
The worst part: None of us on bathroom duty knows what we did that we’re being punished for. (NB: This is a joke. Somebody had to do it, and English teachers did a lot of it, in order to keep them out of administering the tests, where they might be accused of doing something to aid cheating to raise scores — teachers who do their job well may get bathroom monitoring duty as a result . . .)
Dallas ISD and the Texas Education Agency had monitors to make sure our testing was secure enough, though I’m not certain such pains are taken to make sure the tests work. Our school is targeted for “reconstitution” if there are not dramatic improvements in TAKS scores in math and science, so the monitors hunt for errors. One wishes that wearing orange would keep the guns from being aimed at one, but one suspects it would only improve one’s targetability.
So we take it all seriously. One would hate to have been the cause of the demise of a community school for having committed some grand error in monitoring bathrooms.
It was one day of testing, but it cost us more than that. Schedules were rearranged Monday so that instead of our usual block scheduling, each student got a briefer session with her or his English teacher for last minute review and pep talk. Faculty meetings were for test administration instructions (required by regulation or law).
On test days, students are asked to leave their books and book bags at home (security for the test, mainly). What sort of education system discourages kids from carrying books <i>any day?</i>
Math, science and social studies tests come at the end of April and early May. Other tests dot the weeks until then. One teacher noted in a meeting last year that testing season marks the end of the education year, since little can be done once testing starts eating up the calendar in such huge chunks.
“Time on task,” Checker Finn used to note. When students spend time on a task, they learn it. Measure what students spend their time doing, you’ll figure out what they’re good at.
In Texas, it appears, we teach testing.
Dave at DaveAwayFromHome may have put it best, quoting from Tyson’s recent appearance at the University of Texas-Arlington (image from Dave’s site, too):
“When a newspaper headline proclaims half of the children at a school are below average on a test, no one stops to think that’s what average means.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson, speaking about math illiteracy.
(Actually, I think that should be “innumeracy.” Is that jargon? Do we have to know that? Does it show up on the test?)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
March 2, 2009
The place to be today is Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historical Site, looking back 173 years.
Here on March 2 of that year [1836], 59 delegates signed the six-page document that declared the Republic of Texas free and independent of Mexico.
As related in the Dallas Morning News, it was a fretful time in Texas.
The convention delegates actually gathered on March 1, 1836, a month after they were elected and sent to Washington, a growing town on the Brazos River less than 100 miles northwest of what now is Houston.
The convention within weeks would adopt a constitution amid a swift series of events. While they were meeting, Travis and his men were killed at the Alamo. And just over another month later, Gen. Sam Houston’s army would defeat the Mexicans in the famous Battle of San Jacinto.
And, just in time for this year’s celebration, researchers announced they have recovered a document lost from the Texas State Archives for a century, the order for copies of the Texas Declaration to be copied and printed. Jim Bevill found the scrap of paper placed haphazardly in a file now housed at Southern Methodist University (SMU).
Author Jim Bevill found the order issued on March 2, 1836, for the first copies of the Texas Declaration of Independence in a collection donated to the Southern Methodist University library. The order had long been missing from the state archives. Photo by Michael Paulsen, Houston Chronicle
Resources:
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3 Comments | 1836, Freedom - Political, Historic documents, History, Holidays, Libraries, Museums, Texas, Texas history | Tagged: 1836, Texas, Texas Declaration of Independence, Texas history, Texas Independence Day, Washington-on-the-Brazos | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 14, 2009
On Darwin’s birthday, two Texas legislators wrote about the stakes in the tussle between creationists on the one side, and educators, scientists and economic development on the other, in the Houston Chronicle.
Somebody gets it! Will Gov. Rick Perry and SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy get the message? McLeroy was reappointed as chairman a week ago — but the appointment must be approved by the State Senate. Is a fight possible?
[Can a newspaper copyright the words of public servants doing their jobs?]
Feb. 12, 2009, 12:14AM
As scientists and educators across Texas and the nation mark the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin with calls for a renewed commitment to science education, the State Board of Education continues to engage in narrow theological debate about the validity of evolution. If Texas schoolchildren are to succeed in the 21st Century economy, the SBOE must focus less on internal philosophical differences and more on improving science instruction.
Last month, the board once again got bogged down in a bitter dispute over this issue. Members tentatively approved new science curriculum standards that protect teaching of evolution in one area, while creationists succeeded in watering it down elsewhere. Sadly, it was just the latest battle in the “culture war” being fought by a board that decides what more than 4.7 million Texas children learn in their public schools.
Families should be the primary educators on matters of faith, not our public schools. Regardless of board members’ personal beliefs on creationism and evolution, science classrooms are not the place for resolving such disagreements about faith. Those classrooms should focus on science.
Despite one’s personal stance on evolution, its teaching is critical to the study of all the biological sciences.
Scientists from our state’s universities have expressed this to the board, and have warned that watering down science education would undermine biotechnology, medical and other industries that are crucial to our state’s future.
Last session, the Legislature committed to investing $3 billion over the next 10 years in making Texas the global leader in cancer research and finding cures. This historic investment is certain to bring economic and academic opportunities to our state.
Sadly, even as our state takes one step forward, the SBOE moves us two steps back by continuing to support a diminished standard for science education. Texas’ credibility and its investment in research and technology are placed at risk by these ongoing, unproductive debates.
This is a critical issue and a critical time. Study after study has demonstrated that states which do well in science education have the brightest long-term economic future. According to Gov. Rick Perry’s Select Commission on Higher Education and Global Competitiveness, despite improved scores in math and reading, Texas’ students continue to lag alarmingly behind other states in science proficiency.
The National Assessment of Education Progress revealed that only 23 percent of Texas 8th graders achieved proficiency in science, compared with 41 percent of students in the top-performing states — the states with which we compete for jobs.
Yet the board continues to undermine high-quality science instruction, allowing our students to slip further behind.
To ensure that the SBOE works as it should, we have filed legislation to place the board under periodic review by the Sunset Advisory Commission and hold them accountable for their performance, just as we do the Texas Education Agency and other state agencies.
The decisions of the SBOE not only impact millions of young lives on a daily basis, but impact the economic progress of our state as well.
For these reasons and many others, the public has a right to full disclosure and oversight.
The board has escaped such scrutiny for far too long. The disregard for educators, instructional experts and scientists can’t continue. It’s time to take a closer look at the operations and policies of the State Board of Education.
Our state, and especially our kids, deserve better.
Ellis represents the Houston area and parts of Fort Bend County; Rose represents Blanco, Caldwell and Hays counties.
Thank you, Houston Chronicle.
Resources:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
February 7, 2009
That hissing sound you hear is hope leaking out of Texas scientists, educators and students. Those trucks you hear are the moving trucks of science-based industries, leaving Texas for California (!), Massachusetts, Utah, New York, Florida and other states where science is taught well in public schools and assumed to be an educational priority.
In his year as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, Don McLeroy has sown strife and discord among board members, professional staff, and educators across Texas. He insulted Texas Hispanics and did his best to eliminate Hispanic heritage from Texas literature studies. He repeatedly dismissed the advice of legally-required advisory committees of teachers and educators. He insulted top scientists who offered advice on science education, and he ignored education experts in the development of curricula and standards for Texas public schools. He promises a religious crusade to gut biology education in Texas.
On Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry reappointed McLeroy as chairman of SBOE, to a term that ends on February 1, 2011.
The Texas Senate must confirm.
Resources:
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5 Comments | Education, Evolution, Government, History, Politics, Religion, Science, Science and faith, State school boards, Texas, Texas Lege | Tagged: Creationism, Don McLeroy, Education, Education reform, Evolution, School Policy, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 4, 2009
In administrative hearings at the federal level, it’s a crime to knowingly present false testimony to an agency which might rely on that information to make a decision.
In Texas? The law is not so clear — but Discovery Institute’s John West celebrates false information used by the State Board of Education in considering science standards. (This is one reason, I suspect, why creationists are not more active at the federal level — their tactics are not only unethical, but also illegal.)
Sadly, shockingly but not surprisingly, the false information was presented by SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy in theform of nuggets from the creationist quote mines.
Keep watching that space — with the help of Jeremy Mohn’s blog, which has most of the story in a post from his co-blogger Cheryl Shepherd-Adams.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Tony Whitson and Texas Citizens for Science.
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2 Comments | Creativity, Religion, Science, State school boards, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: Don McLeroy, Education, Evolution, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
February 4, 2009
Buddy Holly died 50 years ago, February 3. NPR gives the basics:
Morning Edition, February 3, 2009 – Fifty years after his death at 22, rock ‘n’ roll founding father Buddy Holly is still cool. On Feb. 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, along with J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens, died in a plane crash while touring the Midwest. Holly would have been 72 by now — and probably still rocking and rolling. Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Elvis Costello have all paid tribute to Holly as a major influence.
But the music itself wasn’t his only contribution. Holly was among the first artists to use the studio as an instrument: He spent days crafting songs and experimenting with techniques that were still new in the recording business.
History is an odd business. Holly’s old hometown is Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock, itself in an odd, welcomed Prairie Renaissance, features a Rock and Roll Museum and a set of Buddy Holly glasses that would dwarf the Colossus at Rhodes. But his family is at odds with the city on the use of his name on local streets and promotional materials.
Sculpture of Buddy Holly's glasses, at the Buddy Holly Center, Lubbock - Roundamerica.com
Waylon Jennings, probably the most famous survivor in Holly’s old band, died in 2002 (on February 13). Who is left to study Holly and his work, to keep the flame of historic remembrance alive?
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 23, 2009
[Another in a series of posts highlighting testimony supporting evolution offered to the Texas State Board of Education this week.]
Joe Lapp, Testimony to the Texas SBOE, January 21, 2009 - click picture for link to original image at Teach Them Science.com
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 22, 2009
Testimony of Richard Neavel, PhD, to the Texas State Board of Education January 21, 2009
I oppose the inclusion of strengths and weaknesses in the TEKS and I’m going to do a show and tell about why.
At the last public hearing, Board member Gail Lowe asked me whether I was familiar with “polystrate fossils.” I had to admit that I wasn’t.
I Googled the term, and found creationist Paul Ackerman writing: “Polystrate fossils in numerous places around the world are one dramatic piece of evidence that the [young earth] creationists may be right [about earth’s history].” (Footnote [1])
Now I know why I wasn’t familiar with them. Geologists don’t refer to polystrate fossils – creationists do.
Ms. Lowe questioned me about the Lompoc whale fossil that was supposed to be “standing up” within many strata, that is layers of rock. How could this happen, she asked if the strata accumulated over millions of years. (See Figure 1 – next page and Footnote [2].)
That’s the kind of question a student might ask to demonstrate weaknesses of geologic theories.
I didn’t have an answer, so I researched it and here’s what I found.
The fossil is found in Miocene-age rocks about 10 million years old near Lompoc, California.
Creationists have cited it as an anomaly ever since it was uncovered.
Creationists explain it by saying a catastrophe, such as Noah’s flood, buried the whale very quickly.
Here’s what really happened.
Lompy, the whale, is eating plankton in a lagoon off the California coast 10 million years ago.
The ones he doesn’t eat die and their shells drift down to make a silica-rich, oozy sediment.
OH!. OH! Heart attack. Lompy dies, rolls over and sinks to the bottom of the lagoon. (Figure 2)
He rots away, and his skeleton gets covered with more sediment. (Figure 3)
The sediments harden to rock. Along comes a mountain-building force and the rocks are tilted up.
A company mines the rock, called diatomaceous earth, and uncovers Lompy’s skeleton. (Figure 4)
Creationists go wild – it’s a miracle – a whale on its tail.
I’m a PhD geologist and I didn’t have a ready answer to Ms. Lowe’s questions about polystrate fossils.
Do you think a high school science teacher would be able to answer a student’s questions about Lompy?
Members of the Board: Do you really want students to waste time discussing this kind of creationist nonsense in science class? Not weaknesses – just nonsense.
Every other creationist so-called “scientific weakness” can be explained just like this by real scientists — but not necessarily by high school teachers.
PLEASE! PLEASE! DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS EDUCATION. IT’S TOO IMPORTANT TO AMERICA’S FUTURE.
PLEASE BE PATRIOTIC. THANK YOU.
ANY QUESTIONS, CLASS?
[Pictures coming when I can get them to stick in the file! — E.D.]
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3 Comments | Creationism, Evolution, History, Science, State school boards, TEKS, Texas, Texas Citizens for Science, Texas Freedom Network | Tagged: Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Texas, Texas State Board of Education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 22, 2009
Obama promised to put science in its proper place, in federal policy.
In Texas, however, evolution and science education are under assault today as the State Board of Education (SBOE) looks at revising science standards for public schools. Creationists have been sharpening their knives for months, with a stiff-necked creationist heading SBOE as a fifth columnist.
SBOE votes today (perhaps already, but I can’t find the story of a vote). At issue is the recommendations by scientists, educators and parents to teach evolution without creationist language that misleads students. SBOE Chairman Don McLeroy has vowed to insert more religion into science classes. The board is nearly evenly split between creationists and backers of science, so the vote could go either way.
Here at the Bathtub we’ll feature testimony from science supporters in a few posts, as we can snag them from witnesses.
McLeroy and his supporters at SBOE worked hard to stack the witness list, to prevent testimony from parents, teachers, scientists and educators who all favor new standards that eliminate a decade-old statement about “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution theory, hoary old creationist propaganda that has no place in a curriculum for the 21st century. Several science witnesses were bumped from testifying, and the board was quite rude to some of America’s best scientists, appearing to fear what the scientists had to say.
It’s an ugly situation. Say a prayer for Texas.
Resources:i
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 13, 2009
Creationists must be brave indeed — or foolish, or non-comprehending — to steam on in the face of almost daily science discoveries.
Some discoveries are bigger than others. Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science has a good, lay explanation of a recent paper documenting the discovery of a fossil with ancient, simple feathers –– a step in the evolution of feathers that was predicted but had not before been confirmed by fossils.
Until now, their existence was merely hypothetical – this is the first time that any have actually been found in a fossil. Other, more advanced stages in feather evolution have been described, so Beipaiosaurus provides the final piece in a series of structures that takes us from simple filaments to the more advanced feathers of other dinosaurs to the complex quills that keep modern birds aloft.
The simple feathers were discovered by Xu Xing, the famous Chinese palaeontologist who discovered such species as Microraptor and Dilong, among many others. The filaments are longer and broader than those possessed by other dinosaurs and Xu calls them “elongated, broad, filamentous feathers” or EBFFs.
Each is about 10-15cm long and 2mm wide – not exactly thick, but still 10-20 times broader than the simple feathers of Sinosauropteryx. They are also unusually stiff, for despite the rigours of death and fossilisation, very few of them are curved or bent.
In other species of extinct dinosaur, simple feathers probably helped to insulate their bodies. But Beipaiosaurus’s feathers were too patchily distributed to have provided much in the way of insulation and they certainly weren’t complex enough for flight.
Instead, Xu thinks that the animal used them for display – their length and stiffness are well-suited for such a purpose, and they’re only found on parts of the body that bear display feathers in modern birds. They provide strong evidence that feathers were used for display long before they were co-opted for flight.
So, what’s that? 243,694 “missing links,” now found? 243,694 for science, 0 for creationism. Isn’t there a five-inning rule in science?
It will be interesting to watch the next round of hearings at the Texas State Board of Education, to see what sort of excuse creationists will invent for why this chunk of science isn’t exactly what it seems to be.
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6 Comments | Accuracy, Biology, Creationism, Evolution, Fossils, Research, Science, State school boards, Texas, Textbooks | Tagged: Creationism, Evolution, Fossils, Research, Science, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 2, 2009
Here’s a good story we missed back in September. This is one more example of outstanding achievement by a good kid, a Scout, that slips by largely unremarked.
Amarillo Scout Coleman Carter got his 121st merit badge in his troop’s court of honor. He had earned his Eagle Rank in September 2004.
Carter’s 121st badge? Bugling. He doesn’t play the trumpet or bugle, so it was difficult. Bugling was also the last badge earned by the New York Scout, Shawn Goldsmith. Is this a trend? My recollection is that at least one other member of 121-Merit Badge Club got bugling last.
Amarillo Eagle Scout Carter Coleman - Amarillo Globe photo
Earning every merit badge in the book is just one of Carter’s achievements, however. He’s a National Merit Scholar, ranked #1 in his class at Tascosa High School, and studentbody president. You can read several of his acheivements here, in the Amarillo Globe-News — and remember, this was before his junior year (he’s a senior this year).
Better, go read what Globe-News columnist Jon Mark Beilue wrote on September 24, 2008, “Scout blows it out.”
Coleman is a member of Troop 87, sponsored by St. Thomas the Apostle Church. Amarillo is in the Golden Spread Council, BSA, which serves the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.
Mr. Coleman is not the first to accomplish this feat, nor will he be the last, I suspect. I do wish that troops, districts and councils would do more to spread the news of such outstanding feats by Scouts. A press release kept online, with photos, would have been nice. (While we’re ranting, would it be so difficult for the Amarillo Globe-News to put its name on its website? Or has the Globe-News gone out of business?)
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3 Comments | 121 Merit Badge Club, Amarillo, Boy Scouts of America, Carter Coleman, Citizenship, Eagle Scout, Merit Badges, Texas | Tagged: Amarillo, Boy Scouts of America, Carter Coleman, Eagle Scout, Merit Badges, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 29, 2008
163 years ago today: Rub your pet armadillo’s belly, slaughter the fatted longhorn, crank up the barbecue pit with the mesquite wood, put Willie Nelson and Bob Wills on the mp3 player, put the “Giant” DVD on the television, and raise your glass of Lone Star Beer (or Pearl, or Shiner Bock, or Llano Wine).
Texas was admitted to the union of the United States of America on December 29, 1845.
President Polk's Authorization to Affix the Great Seal to Texas Statehood - Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas at Austin
The text reads:
I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to an authenticated copy of “an act to extend the laws of the United States over the State of Texas and for other purposes” approved Dec. 29, 1845 dated this day, and signed by me and for so doing this shall be his warrant.
James K. Polk
Washington, Dec. 29, 1845
Great Seal of the United States of America - State Archives Division, Texas State Library
Resources:
- “Annexation – Celebrating 150 years of statehood,” at Humanities Interactive, Texas Council for the Humanities Resource Center (this page is difficult to find if you just go to the Humanities Interactive ste — bookmark it!)
- Teachers Guide from Humanities Interactive
- “Celebrating 150 Years of Texas Statehood,” essay by James L. Haley
- Texas Annexation map activity (with map of U.S. – may be used by classes outside of Texas, too)
- Texas Treasures – Statehood, Texas State Library and Archives Commission
- Texas Statehood Flag, Gallery of the Republic
- Daughters of the Republic of Texas site, with this reminder: Texas Statehood Day [February 19, 1846]
The legal entry of Texas into the Union was 29 December 1845, but the decade-old Republic of Texas did not formally transfer the authority to the new State of Texas until 19 February 1846.The Texans had until the end of the year in 1845 to accept the annexation as one of the states of the United States of America. They waited until 29 December 1845 to accept the terms, independent to the end. The formal transfer of authority from the Republic of Texas took place 19 February 1846 at the log capitol in Austin with President Anson Jones presiding. On this day we celebrate the end of the Republic of Texas.
- Texas Honor Days (days to fly the Texas flag), Daughters of the Republic of Texas
- Stamp honoring 100 years of Texas Statehood (Arago site)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
