Month: January 2013

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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Mark Chancey in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

Related links

• Mark A. Chancey
• Reading, Writing & Religion II
• SMU Department of Religious Studies
• Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

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100 million-year-old coelacanth discovered in Texas is new fish species from Cretaceous

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New study on kingship and sainthood in Islam offers a striking new historical perspective

Texas frontier scientists who uncovered state’s fossil history had role in epic Bone Wars

Reporter Eric Nicholson of the Dallas Observer has covered the research of SMU religious studies expert Mark A. Chancey. A new report by Chancey, “Reading, Writing & Religion II,” found that most of the 60 public school districts in Texas that offer Bible study courses aren’t meeting a 2007 state law mandating that the courses be fair as well as academically and legally sound.

Chancey prepared the report for the Austin-based education watchdog group Texas Freedom Network. His study uncovered bias, factual errors and insufficient curriculum standards in Texas public school Bible courses. An SMU Religious Studies professor, Chancey recommends the Texas State Board of Education develop Bible course curriculum standards and the Texas Education Agency be allowed funds for a teacher training program.

“As a biblical scholar and especially as a parent, I want our state’s public schools to take the study of the Bible’s influence as seriously as they do the study of science or history,” Chancey told The Dallas Morning News. “Academically, many of these classes lack rigor and substance, and some seem less interested in cultivating religious literacy than in promoting religious beliefs. Their approach puts their school districts in legal jeopardy and their taxpayers in financial jeopardy.”

Chancey, a professor in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, has devoted considerable attention to the constitutional, political and academic issues raised by religion courses in public schools.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

Eric Nicholson
Dallas Observer
Six years ago, SMU religious studies professor Mark Chancey teamed with the Texas Freedom Network to produce a report on the Bible classes that were proliferating in the state’s public school classrooms.

Chancey’s not-very-surprising finding was that these classes were not so much even-handed, academically rigorous surveys of the text in its proper historical context as they were thinly veiled sermons that were filled with factual discrepancies and tended to promote a particular flavor of Bible Belt Protestantism. He took particular issue with school districts’ use of material provided by National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, which he said was filled with “shoddy research, factual errors and plagiarism.”

State legislators actually stepped up to the plate, passing legislation in 2007 stipulating, among other things, that Bible courses must be taught by educators who have undergone special training and must follow curriculum guidelines developed by the State Board of Education. Problem solved.

Not quite, says Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a SBOE watchdog. While the measure looked good on paper, the Legislature opted not to fund any sort of teacher training program, and the curriculum guidelines developed by the SBOE were vague and left districts a large amount of wiggle room.

That hasn’t stopped districts across the state from adding Bible classes to their course offerings. In response, Chancey and TFN have teamed up once again to see how academically rigorous — and constitutional — the new batch of classes are.

This time around, Chancey surveyed 60 courses from around the state. Eleven of them, including Plano ISD, were found to be “especially successful in displaying academic rigor and a constitutionally sound” approach.

“The rest of the courses still have the same sorts of problems that we documented back in ’06,” Chancey said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday.

Read the full story.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Mark Chancey in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

Related links

• Mark A. Chancey
• Reading, Writing & Religion II
• SMU Department of Religious Studies
• Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

More SMU Research news

Study finds Jurassic ecosystems were similar to modern: Animals flourish among lush plants

SMU contributes fossils, expertise to new Perot Museum in ongoing scientific collaboration

100 million-year-old coelacanth discovered in Texas is new fish species from Cretaceous

Academic achievement improved among students active in structured after-school programs

New study on kingship and sainthood in Islam offers a striking new historical perspective

Texas frontier scientists who uncovered state’s fossil history had role in epic Bone Wars

Fox 29 television station in San Antonio has covered the research of SMU religious studies expert Mark A. Chancey. A new report by Chancey, “Reading, Writing & Religion II,” found that most of the 60 public school districts in Texas that offer Bible study courses aren’t meeting a 2007 state law mandating that the courses be fair as well as academically and legally sound.

Chancey prepared the report for the Austin-based education watchdog group Texas Freedom Network. His study uncovered bias, factual errors and insufficient curriculum standards in Texas public school Bible courses. An SMU Religious Studies professor, Chancey recommends the Texas State Board of Education develop Bible course curriculum standards and the Texas Education Agency be allowed funds for a teacher training program.

“As a biblical scholar and especially as a parent, I want our state’s public schools to take the study of the Bible’s influence as seriously as they do the study of science or history,” Chancey told The Dallas Morning News. “Academically, many of these classes lack rigor and substance, and some seem less interested in cultivating religious literacy than in promoting religious beliefs. Their approach puts their school districts in legal jeopardy and their taxpayers in financial jeopardy.”

Chancey, a professor in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, has devoted considerable attention to the constitutional, political and academic issues raised by religion courses in public schools.

Read the story on Fox 29.

EXCERPT:

Fox 29
A study says 60 public school districts across Texas now offer courses on the Bible.

But at least a third aren’t meeting state requirements to be unbiased and academically and legally sound.

Written by Southern Methodist University Professor Mark Chancey, the study found that many districts’ courses favor conservative Protestant interpretations of the Bible.

Many also present “problematic treatment of Judaism” and promote “pseudo-scholarship” on science and U.S. history.

Chancey presented the study Wednesday.

He completed it for the Texas Freedom Network, which monitors the State Board of Education from a progressive perspective.

Statewide, 57 districts and three charter schools offered elective courses on the Bible during the 2011-2012 school year.

Chancey listed 11 of them as having the most-successful classes, but concluded that 20 were the “most problematic courses.”

Read the story on Fox 29.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Reporter Claire Cardona of The Dallas Morning News has covered the research of SMU religious studies expert Mark A. Chancey. A new report by Chancey, “Reading, Writing & Religion II,” found that most of the 60 public school districts in Texas that offer Bible study courses aren’t meeting a 2007 state law mandating that the courses be fair as well as academically and legally sound.

Chancey prepared the report for the Austin-based education watchdog group Texas Freedom Network. His study uncovered bias, factual errors and insufficient curriculum standards in Texas public school Bible courses. An SMU Religious Studies professor, Chancey recommends the Texas State Board of Education develop Bible course curriculum standards and the Texas Education Agency be allowed funds for a teacher training program.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Mark Chancey in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

Related links

• Mark A. Chancey
• Reading, Writing & Religion II
• SMU Department of Religious Studies
• Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

More SMU Research news

Study finds Jurassic ecosystems were similar to modern: Animals flourish among lush plants

SMU contributes fossils, expertise to new Perot Museum in ongoing scientific collaboration

100 million-year-old coelacanth discovered in Texas is new fish species from Cretaceous

Academic achievement improved among students active in structured after-school programs

New study on kingship and sainthood in Islam offers a striking new historical perspective

Texas frontier scientists who uncovered state’s fossil history had role in epic Bone Wars

Observed! SMU’s LHC physicists confirm new particle; Higgs ‘God particle’ opens new frontier of exploration

Ancient tree-ring records from southwest U.S. suggest today’s megafires are truly unusual

Human diabetes has new research tool: Overfed fruit flies that develop insulin resistance

“As a biblical scholar and especially as a parent, I want our state’s public schools to take the study of the Bible’s influence as seriously as they do the study of science or history,” Chancey told The Dallas Morning News. “Academically, many of these classes lack rigor and substance, and some seem less interested in cultivating religious literacy than in promoting religious beliefs. Their approach puts their school districts in legal jeopardy and their taxpayers in financial jeopardy.”

Chancey, a professor in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, has devoted considerable attention to the constitutional, political and academic issues raised by religion courses in public schools.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

Claire Cardona
Dallas Morning News
Update at 4:55 p.m.: Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said the agency did not receive funding to implement professional development when the bill first passed, but the course has been developed and is undergoing review now.

Original item at 1:50 p.m.: AUSTIN — A report from the Texas Freedom Network claims the failure to implement a 2007 law that included guidelines to improve the quality of Bible study courses has resulted in factual errors and “blatant religious bias” in the courses.

The Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit religious liberties and education watchdog based in Austin, contracted Southern Methodist University professor Mark Chancey to write the report, entitled “Reading, Writing & Religion II.” The report details findings gathered from Texas school district responses to public information requests.

The 2007 law established guidelines for public schools courses about the influence of the Bible in history and literature, however, school districts — 57 of which taught Bible courses in 2011-12 up from 25 in 2005-06 — are not required to offer Bible courses and many do not train the teachers who do, according to the report.

“If everybody is allowed to ignore those guidelines, they have no teeth,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. “And if the state isn’t going to enforce its own guidelines and fund even basic teacher training, maybe we should leave instruction abut the Bible to religious congregations who will treat it with the respect it deserves.”

Three Dallas school districts — Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, Lovejoy ISD and Plano ISD — offered the most successful courses according to the report. Duncanville ISD and Prosper ISD made it to the list of the most problematic courses.

The report finds that without the legislative guidelines, courses have weak foundations, sectarian bias favoring conservative Protestantism, and problematic treatment of Judaism.

The report commends Plano ISD for doing an exercise on poems and paintings that refer to the story of Adam and Eve and demonstrate how biblical imagery influenced western literature and art, and Lovejoy ISD that asks students to analyze differences in creation stories with those from religions other than Judaism and Christianity.

The report states that these assignments require analytical skills, whereas in the Brownsville area’s Port Isabel ISD students spend two days watching the documentary Ancient Aliens that presents “a new interpretation of angelic beings described as extraterrestrials.”

Duncanville ISD’s social studies “Bible Survey” course features the 2003 video The Messiah: Prophecy Fulfilled, which, according to the report tells viewers to “GET READY FOR A POWERFUL AND CHALLENGING EXPERIENCE THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!”

Another finding Chancey reports is of “pseudo-scholarship” which “reflects ideological biases such as the belief in an America founded as a Christian nation based on biblical Christian principles.”

Read the full story.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.