Hannah Smith addressing Texas Education Agency - Committee of the Full Board

8/30/2022
Mom’s showed up and made the difference!!
Hat 🎩 Tip Donna Gardner

POSTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE: PLEASE SEE FRIDAY’S SBOE VOTE AND NOV. 8, 2022 BALLOT INFORMATION.]

“Conservative Backlash Pushes Texas Social Studies Curriculum Review to 2025”
By Brian Lopez

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/02/texas-state-board-social-studies-review/

Excerpts from this article:

The State Board of Education narrowly voted Friday [8 to 7) to delay updating the state’s social studies curriculum until 2025 after facing pressure from conservatives over proposed changes.

**[SIDEBAR: Matt Robinson (R – SBOE Dist. 7), who is going off the SBOE and who has never been a strong conservative influence on the Board, was the only Republican to vote with the Dems to rush through the Work Groups’ “woke” TEKS Social Studies recommendations. “Shame on Repub. Matt Robinson for leaving the Board on a sour note.”]

Earlier this week, board members said they would push back the social studies review after hours of public comment. The board voted 8-7 Friday to delay the social studies overhaul.

“We have time now to hear different ideas,” said board member Will Hickman, who voted in favor of the delay.

…While it put off adjusting the state’s social studies curriculum — like adding courses that focus on Asian American and Native American studies and learning about the gay pride movement — the board did take steps to change the years Texans students will learn about the state’s history.

Currently, Texas students learn about the state’s history in fourth and seventh grades. Board members were considering eliminating that timetable to have students in grades six through eight learn both U.S. and Texas history.

Instead, the board voted 10-4 in favor of using Hickman’s proposed order of teaching Texas history to fifth and eighth graders.

“I heard from a number of public teachers, educators, parents that they want two dedicated years of Texas,” Hickman said. “And their concern is, if we put Texas together with U.S., Texas gets watered down or ignored.”

Texas Education Agency officials said that the original proposal would have expanded the reach of Texas history, making it a requirement in more grade levels. But more conservative members of the public argued that the lack of dedicated years devoted solely to Texas history would dilute the instruction.

State Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, said Texas and U.S history need to have dedicated school years as they are the most important history students will learn.

…Work groups, made up of educators, parents and industry experts selected by the state board and the TEA, spent the last year crafting these new proposals. The next step would’ve been for the state board to amend the recommendations and adopt them by the end of the year.

…Other proposed updates included teaching second graders about Juneteenth — a commemoration of June 19, 1865, when enslaved people in Galveston received the news they were free — with a book that describes George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer as “brutal” and “race-driven” and how the incident spurred national attention to the holiday.

The LGBTQ pride movement would have been taught in eighth grade in addition to the civil rights and women’s liberation movements.

…State lawmakers and parents who opposed the changes argued that they are an attempt to bring in critical race theory —…into secondary education…

Delaying the process could allow more conservative candidates who are against so-called critical race theory to be elected to the State Board of Education before the standards are revisited. Several Texas Republicans against critical race theory won primaries this spring and will be on the ballot for the State Board of Education general election in November.

The State Board of Education’s 15-member board reviews the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for social studies about every decade [every 7 years]. The curriculum sets the standards for how the state’s 5.5 million public school students of all grades learn the subject.

The debate over this year’s proposed changes has grown heated, especially regarding how America’s history of racism should be taught and what books kids should be able access on campuses. Last year, state lawmakers passed a law to limit how America’s history of slavery and racism is taught in schools.

Senate Bill 3 bars teachers from claiming that the advent of slavery in America represents the true founding of the United States. Instead, teachers must inform students that slavery was a “deviation” from American principles.

Students cannot be required to learn about The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “1619 Project,” which the Times describes as putting “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”
=====================================
***[SIDEBAR: When new Health Education instructional materials (IM’s – textbooks, workbooks, digitized materials, etc.) were up for adoption in Texas in the fall of 2021, the SBOE voted to adopt Goodheart Willcox IM’s for Grades 6 – 12.

The series did have some questionable portions, but Dr. Audrey Young (SBOE member) took the time to go through the new GW books to review them. She presented 32 pages of corrections/additions/edits to GW; and at this Thursday’s SBOE meeting, it was announced that GW has implemented all of Dr. Young’s changes into their series.

“Kudos to Dr. Audrey Young for helping to make the GW series even better and healthier for our Texas Grades 6 – 12 students.”]

==============================
LIST OF NEW, STRONG, CONSERVATIVE, REPUB, SBOE CANDIDATES WHO HAVE BEEN VOCAL AGAINST CRT – WILL BE ON NOV. 8, 2022 BALLOT:
SBOE District 2 – L J Francis
SBOE District 5 – Perla Hopkins
SBOE District 7 – Julie Pickren
SBOE District 13 – Kathryn Monette
SBOE District 14 – Evelyn Brooks
SBOE District 15 – Aaron Kinsey

CURRENT SBOE MEMBERS WHO VOTED TO STOP THE PRESENT “WOKE” WORK GROUPS AND ADOPT SOCIAL STUDIES TEKS IN 2025:
SBOE District 6 – Will Hickman
SBOE District 8 – Audrey Young
SBOE District 9 – Keven Ellis – Chair
SBOE District 10 – Tom Maynard
SBOE District 11 – Pat Hardy
SBOE District 12 – Pam Little
SBOE District 14 – Sue Melton-Malone
SBOE District 15 – Jay Johnson