This blog on Texas education contains posts on accountability, testing, K-12 education, postsecondary educational attainment, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, environmental issues, and Ethnic Studies at the state and national levels. It addresses politics in Texas. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
The night of Friday, May 21 was a historic debate in the Texas Senate on House Bill 3979 that outlaws the teaching of controversial topics—which most interpret to mean anything that offends white people. Never mind that the K-12 standard or official curriculum systematically dismisses the histories, cultures, and identities of Texans of color via the politics of under-representation or mis-representation in school curricula, textbooks, and pedagogy, including in the very social studies curriculum that is ironically under attack.
Basically, this is a straw man, a rhetorical tool, that exemplifies the reaction by the right to the racial justice movement that burst in the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings in May, 2020. It also borrow directly from Trump’s September 2020 executive order that banned trainings previously conducted throughout the federal government to address workplace racism, sexism, and bias—an order that President Biden readily rescinded upon assuming office.
The HB 3979 debate begins at 1:33:21 on the meter. My sense of all of this is that it will become law but that we as a community can take this up at the Texas State Board of Education as the implementation rolls out. So more to come.
House Bill 3979 was debated into the wee hours of the morning. I caught the whole Senate debate. Senator Hughes was disingenuous in saying that the bill is needed so as to make sure that no students are taught "that one race or gender is not superior to another." Why, when we know that doing so is so morally and ethically objectionable?
The answer is that it's not happening, my friends. Nor did they defend their position well at all.
As per my previous post, Sen. Bryan Hughes had no answer to statements made that HB 3979 represents an agenda pursued by the former Trump administration.
As Senators Carol Alvarado, John Whitmire, Royce West, José Menéndez, and others said last night, this is unnecessary legislation because it distrusts and disrespects teachers on the indefensible grounds that this lie that teachers are teaching this way is actually happening.
Whitmire, in particular, asked Senator Hughes directly about the specific sources for this concern, including which teachers, parents, and academics were behind this. In this same vein, Senator Alvarado, pointed to a petition against HB 3979 with approximately a hundred signatures on it from historians to which he said he was unaware. All Hughes could offer is that it comes from a text that surfaced in Hyde Park from nebulous sources that Senator Hughes refused to divulge.
This all sounds super fishy and lends credence to the rumor circling about at the capitol that is is a self-published text designed to sabotage the teaching of race relations and critical perspectives in our social studies curriculum.
One person I came across cogently said, this is an "avoidance curriculum," in that it seeks to muzzle discourse on white supremacy, patriarchy, and systemic oppression as if these reasons for inequality in our country simply expired. Senator Royce West did a really good job on drilling down on this point last night on how the under-representation of African American Senators in Texas (there are only two) are evidence of systemic racism and oppression.
Longer term, we need to vote this no-nothing, right-wing legislature, out of power—even as they reinscribe white supremacy through legislation like this to preserve their incumbencies. After all, you cannot conquer a people with a history. And they know that.
The bill aims to ban critical race theory in public and open-enrollment charter schools. Supporters say it merely ensures students aren't taught that one race or gender is superior to another. Critics say it limits how race in America is taught.
Students leave the classroom to work in the computer lab at Mata Intermediate School. Credit:
Pu Ying Huang for The Texas Tribune
After hours of passionate debate about how Texas teachers can instruct school children about America’s history of subjugating people of color, the state Senate early Saturday morning advanced a new version of a controversial bill aimed at banning critical race theory in public and open-enrollment charter schools.
Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, introduced a reworked version of House Bill 3979 that also requires the State Board of Education to develop new state standards for civics education with a corresponding teacher training program to start in the 2022-23 school year. The Senate approved the bill in an 18-13 vote over opposition from educators, school advocacy groups and senators of color who worry it limits necessary conversation about the roles race and racism play in U.S. history.
The bill now heads back to the Texas House, which can either accept the Senate’s changes or call for a conference committee made up of members from both chambers to iron out their differences.
The Senate-approved version revives specific essential curriculum standards that students are required to understand, including the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers. But it stripped more than two dozen requirements to study the writings or stories of multiple women and people of color that were also previously approved by the House, despite attempts by Democratic senators to reinstate some of those materials in the bill.
The Senate did vote to include the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 13th 14th and 19th amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the complexity of the relationship between Texas and Mexico to the list of required instruction.
Yet the most controversial aspects of the bill remain, including that teachers must explore current events from multiple positions without giving “deference to any one perspective.” It also bars students from getting course credit for civic engagement efforts, including lobbying for legislation or other types of political activism.
Educators, historians and school advocacy groups who fiercely oppose the bill remained unswayed by arguments that the bill is merely meant to ensure students are taught that one race or gender is not superior to another.
“Giving equal weight to all sides concerning current events would mean that the El Paso terrorist ideology would have to be given equal weight to the idea that racism is wrong,” said Trinidad Gonzales, a history professor and assistant chair of the dual enrollment program at South Texas College. “That is the problem, white supremacy would be ignored or given deference if addressed. That is the problem with the bill.”
Hughes denied that the bill would require teachers give moral equivalency to perpetrators of horrific violence.
Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, said in a statement to the Tribune that Texas schools should emphasize “traditional history, focusing on the ideas that make our country great and the story of how our country has risen to meet those ideals.”
But Sen.Royce West, D-Dallas, raised concerns on the Senate floor that the historical documents required in the bill only reflect the priorities of white senators.
“There were documents that were chosen, not by Hispanics, not by African Americans in this body, but by Anglos,” he said. “No input from us in terms of what founding documents should in fact be considered by all children in this state.”
Hughes also told members there have been instances in various school districts where parents have raised concerns about lessons where students have been taught one race is inherently superior to another. He pointed to a particular instance in Highland Park Independent School District where parents were concerned about a book called Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness.
“We do have teaching now that we want to get out that one race or sex is inherently superior to another, or the individual by virtue of the individual's race or sex is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” Hughes said. “I think we agree we don't want that taught in schools. That’s why we need this bill.”
But Sen.Borris Miles, D-Houston, pushed back against that premise, reading a passage from the book’s author about its intent to help children dismantle white supremacy.
"My point is that we cannot just pick and choose what we are going to teach as history and expect to change things and make things better,” Miles said. “It doesn’t work that way. This bill is eliminating and excluding some things, and including what you want to say."
Educators also worry the legislation will change how teachers can engage students in hard, but important, conversations about American current events that teachers often use to trace back to historical events.
“Kids get engaged and kids want to dig into your class when they get the relevance and they have some buy-in,” said Jocelyn Foshay, a Dallas Independent School District middle school teacher.
The bill, which mirrors legislation making its way through state legislatures across the country, has been coined the Critical Race Theory bill, though neither the House or Senate versions explicitly mention the academic discipline, which studies the way race and racism has impacted America’s legal and social systems.
The latest version of the bill also reintroduced an explicit ban of the teaching of The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which examines U.S. history from the date when enslaved people first arrived on American soil, marking that year as the country’s foundational date. That 2019 work from journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize and was recently thrust back into the national spotlight after the University of North Carolina did not grant her tenure after conserative criticism of her work.
“To suggest that America is so racist at its core to be irredeemable and to suggest that people based on the color of their skin can never overcome biases and can never treat each other fairly, that’s a real problem,” Hughes said of the project.
Educators also worry the bill language is too vague and will allow students and parents to potentially use the legislation against them if they disagree with how they’re teaching history curriculum, regardless of the primary sources and historical texts teachers use to back up their lessons. It’s also unclear who would enforce these requirements and how schools or districts would handle these issues.
“It makes it so open for anyone to interpret it the way they want to interpret it,” said Juan Carmona, a history teacher in the Rio Grande Valley town of Donna
He sees this bill as a pushback to including more historical voices and perspectives in the teaching of history. In recent years, Texas started to offer Mexican American and African American studies courses to all high school students.
Over the past year, the phrase “critical race theory” has turned into a Republican rallying cry in an apparent pushback against increased conversations about diversity and inclusion and unpacking implicit bias.
This week, 20 state attorneys general sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and expressed concern with critical race theory and, specifically, the 1619 Project. The letter says critical race theory analyzes history through “the narrow prism of race.”
Georgina Perez, who serves on the State Board of Education, slammed the bill and its supporters, saying they are using buzzwords for political gain rather than to improve education.
“They have no idea what critical race theory is, what it does, who the founders are. They've never read a book, much less a paragraph on it,” said Perez. “I understand that maybe some white people are uncomfortable. Well, dammit, when Black people were being lynched, they sure as hell weren't comfortable. Native Americans being removed from their land and Mexican Americans being shot to death in the middle of the night, that shit wasn't comfortable either.”
Erin Douglas contributed to this story.
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Here is a super concerning bill. Members of the NAACS Tejas Foco, LULAC, TLEEC, and others plan to walk offices tomorrow. Just know that whatever you (think you might) learn from CRT here, the description below is incredibly oversimplified.
For example, it alleges that "proponents of 'critical race theory' tend to critique equal treatment,"distorts CRT by excluding the principle that sameness in say, a resource or an outcome, relative to other groups, is not always optimal due to a history of unequal needs and circumstances due to segregation, poverty, health and income disparities, access to pre-K, quality teachers, ongoing discrimination, and the like—which is what "equity," not mentioned in this piece, actually addresses.
The deeper issue here is that certain privileged and powerful folks are doing what they can to legislate by fiat what Texas students should be learning in their classrooms, undermining administrator and teacher professionalism, student voice, and ultimately, the franchise. This, along with current voter suppression bills in the Texas State Legislature (see Senate Bill 7) seek to disenfranchise Texas' growing demographic majority of minoritized youth.
One Texas school district hired a diversity and inclusion consultant to potentially tweak teaching practices in the wake of the George Floyd protests. Two bills in the Texas legislature, one recently passed out of committee, would halt this plan.
State Reps. Steve Toth (R-The Woodlands) and James White (R-Hillister) are each carrying an identical duplicate of the bill, though the Public Education Committee of the Texas House only passed Toth’s. White’s twin never received a hearing.
The bill tackles a number of educational tactics feared by some Republicans to be nascent trends in the classroom, such as “action civics,” overly political curriculums, and a strain of sociological thought which organizes racism through structural rather than interpersonal terms, translated from academia to popular literacy by bestselling writers such as Ibram X. Kendi and commonly called “critical race theory.”
Specifically, the bill would adjust three key areas of education: the state curriculum, classroom education, and training for teachers and other employees.
It would require the State Board of Education to include an understanding of the country’s founding documents in the state curriculum standards, as well as an understanding of “the fundamental moral, political, and intellectual foundations of the American experiment in self-government.”
On top of barring teachers from asking students to engage in political activism, the bill would also forbid teachers from promoting racial preferences or concepts like inherent racism and racial guilt. It bans similar ways of teaching with regards to gender, such as fostering guilt on account of sex, teaching inherent or unconscious sexism, and encouraging worse treatment for one sex over another.
Lastly, it would forbid “training, orientation, or therapy that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or blame on the basis of race or sex” for school employees.
“Action civics” is a name popularly given to teaching styles that encourage or require political activism. Proponents call it a hands-on approach that teaches children the political process more thoroughly than traditional books and blackboards. Critics say it skews to the left.
Massachusetts and Illinois have already implemented versions of this educational approach. Action civics proposals in the Texas legislature include SB 1740 by Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo), which would have students participate in simulations of government processes and identify proper media sources. Another is HB 57 by Rep. James Talarico (D-Round Rock), which would require students to identify “issues in the community” before creating a public policy or action plan.” One by a Republican, Rep. Keith Bell (R-Forney), would create “civics academies” for teachers and administrators to learn how to guide classroom discussions in current events and teach citizenship with simulations and models of government processes. All three have languished in committee.
“Critical race theory” is the frequently used term for a system of belief, born out of decades-old academic discourse but more recently distilled into widely-read material, that defines racism not only as race-based hatred or discrimination but also as a prevalent and systemic problem that influences seemingly impartial aspects of American life as evidenced by gaps in achievement — such as school grades, arrests, or income — between some racial groups and others. It shares a common ancestry with academic feminism as well as other less familiar Marxist offspring like queer theory, altogether known as critical theory, and in its popular version informs corporate diversity efforts like personnel quotas and racial sensitivity training. Proponents of “critical race theory” tend to critique equal treatment.
While Toth’s bill would firmly prohibit teachers from giving credit for political advocacy or fomenting racial distress, its yoke weighs lighter on classroom discussions.
The bill says “no teacher may be compelled” by school policy to discuss current or controversial issues in class, but teachers may choose to do so. Those who do must “strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.”
The bill’s companion in the Texas Senate, Senate Bill (SB) 2202, passed on the second of three readings yesterday and is expected to pass to the House today.
The Senate has moved on a number of similar bills already, considering in committee a bill to foster “informed patriotism.” Like Toth’s bill, it begins by ordering the State Board of Education to require an understanding of America’s founding documents in the state curriculum, though it includes letters between the Founding Fathers alongside the Federalist Papers and other writings while Toth’s does not. Overall, by banning action civics and critical race theory from the classroom, Toth’s bill is more expansive.
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Teachers can order their free access to the movie and curriculum byclicking here
“Can we make enough renewable energy to supply the world and replace fossil fuels? How would we do that? And, will we do that?” -James Redford, Director and Star,Happening
James Redford’s above questions are the foundation forTeaching Happening, an interdisciplinary, modular curriculum developed to work alongside The Redford Center’s documentaryHappening: A Clean Energy Revolution.The educational version of the film runs 50 minutes and the curriculum is aligned with national standards for grades 6-12. Lessons will:
Buildbackground knowledge on energy sources
Guidestudents to identify factors driving the renewable energy transition including technological innovation, national security, sustainability, workforce development, cost savings, and environmental stewardship
Engagestudents in understanding the role of civic engagement and policy in the transition to renewable energy
Teaching Happening (with free access to the movie and curriculum) was created as a cohesive unit of lessons to support middle and high school screenings of the documentary and includes an educator’s guide for use in institutions of higher learning. Because we know time is limited in classrooms, the film and lessons were developed around three distinct “chapters”, or central topics, within the film - Chapter 1: Energy 101, Chapter 2: Innovation and Economics, and Chapter 3: Community and Political Engagement and can be used in one class period, or over the span of several days. The lessons can be easily integrated into units within:
Earth Science
Environmental Policy
Economics, Civics/Government
English/Language Arts
Film Studies, media literacy rhetoric
Teaching Happeningalso includes assessment opportunities aligned to discipline-specific skills and competencies in Science, Civics, Economics, English/Language Arts and Film Studies. The Happening educational curriculum is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards, and Common Core State Standards as it relates to point of view for use in English classes.
Teachers can order their free access to the movie and curriculum byclicking here
