When ‘Judeo-Christian’ Means Christian: The Texas State Board of Education and the Politics of Curriculum, by Angela Valenzuel, Ph.D.

When ‘Judeo-Christian’ Means Christian: The Texas State Board of Education and the Politics of Curriculum

by

Angela Valenzuela, PH.D.

June 26, 2026

Please read Ellie Ashby and Chloe Landen’s important Texas Tribune/Religion News Service article, “As supporters praise Texas’ proposed “Judeo-Christian” curriculum, rabbis say it dismisses Judaism” posted below. The piece reports on this week’s State Board of Education hearings over proposed changes that would require Texas public school students to read Bible stories and passages as part of a statewide reading list. Supporters repeatedly invoked the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” to defend the proposal, claiming that such readings simply acknowledge the nation’s religious and moral origins.

Yet the testimony from rabbis and Jewish leaders revealed something much more troubling: the term “Judeo-Christian” is doing ideological work. It is not functioning as an inclusive recognition of Judaism. It is functioning as cover.

As Ashby and Landen report, Jewish leaders criticized the proposed biblical selections as overwhelmingly Christian in framing, translation, and interpretation. Rabbi Joshua Fixler of Houston’s Congregation Emanu El captured the problem with painful clarity when he described the use of “Judeo-Christian” as “a fig leaf at inclusion.” In other words, Judaism is being rhetorically invoked in order to make a Christian-centered curriculum appear broader, more ecumenical, and more constitutionally palatable than it actually is.

This is precisely the fiction behind the concept of “Judeo-Christian.” The phrase sounds generous. It sounds like partnership. It sounds like interfaith harmony. But historically and politically, it has often served to absorb Judaism into a Christian civilizational story while excluding Muslims, secular people, Indigenous spiritual traditions, and the many other religious and nonreligious communities that make up our society. It is a phrase that points at pluralism while narrowing the public imagination.

Robert O. Smith, associate professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, usefully reminds us that the term “Judeo-Christian” was popularized during the Cold War as part of a U.S. civilizational narrative that joined Protestants, Catholics, and Jews against supposedly “godless” enemies abroad, while excluding Muslims and others from the nation’s moral imagination (Ashby & Landen, 2026).

In this sense, “Judeo-Christian” is less a neutral description of shared religious heritage than a political construction. If anything, a Protestant or more specifically—Christian nationalist—reading of the Bible often subtracts from Jesus’ Jewishness by lifting him out of the Jewish world that formed him. 

Were this not so, Christians would more fully acknowledge the Jewish festivals, practices, scriptures, and interpretive traditions embedded throughout the New Testament, rather than glossing over them—or treating them as mere background to an otherwise Christian story. The irony is that those who invoke “Judeo-Christian values” often do so in ways that diminish Judaism itself, using Jewishness symbolically while centering a distinctly Christian interpretation of scripture, history, and nationhood.

This is why the Texas debate matters far beyond the reading list itself. What is at stake is not simply whether students should learn about religion. Of course students should learn about religion, history, literature, culture, and the many traditions that have shaped human life. Religious literacy has a legitimate place in public education. But there is a profound difference between teaching about religion and using public schools to advance a particular religious worldview.

The proposed Texas reading list crosses that line. As the article notes, many of the selected passages draw from Christian translations and interpretations, with Jewish texts treated thinly, awkwardly, or in ways that Jewish leaders themselves find troubling. Particularly alarming is the proposed pairing of Lamentations 3 with Holocaust literature, a pairing that rabbis warned could invite students to consider whether the Holocaust was divine punishment for Jews. Whether born of ignorance or intent, such a curricular choice is pedagogically irresponsible and morally dangerous.

This is how Christian nationalism enters the classroom: not always through an explicit declaration that Christianity should rule, but through curricular choices that quietly normalize one religious tradition as the foundation of American identity. It happens when “heritage” becomes a substitute for historical accuracy. It happens when “values” becomes a code word for exclusion. It happens when public schools are asked to carry theological assumptions that belong in families, congregations, seminaries, and houses of worship—not in state-mandated curriculum.

Texas is home to more than 5.5 million public school students. They are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Indigenous, secular, questioning, and more. They come from families with deep faith commitments and from families with none. A public school curriculum worthy of them must not narrow their world. It must broaden it.

Moreover, those adhering to traditional Protestant faiths—that are themselves diverse—should be just as concerned. A state-mandated curriculum that instrumentalizes the Bible for nationalist purposes does not honor Christianity; it distorts it. It reduces scripture to a civic ornament and treats faith as a tool of political formation rather than as a living moral and spiritual tradition. For Christians who take seriously the prophetic tradition and the separation of church and state that protects all faith communities, this should be deeply troubling.

That is why this debate is also about democracy. Public schools belong to the public. They should not be used to launder sectarian politics through the language of tradition. Nor should Jewish communities be conscripted into legitimizing a Christian-centered project that many Jewish leaders explicitly reject.

The phrase “Judeo-Christian” may sound inclusive, but in this context, it conceals more than it reveals. It masks power. It rewrites Jewish experience. It excludes whole communities from the story of Texas and the nation. And it asks public schools to do the work of religious formation under the banner of civic education.

The Texas State Board of Education had already given preliminary approval to the contested mandatory reading list that includes Bible passages, with final adoption scheduled for today, June 26, 2026 (Vertuno & Stengle, 2026). The proposal, if finally approved, would take effect in 2030 and would make Texas a national outlier in requiring a state-mandated reading list that includes biblical passages in public school instruction.

Texas students deserve better. They deserve honest history, constitutional fidelity, and a curriculum that respects the full diversity of our state. They deserve to learn about religion without being taught religion. They deserve schools that cultivate understanding rather than impose belonging on sectarian terms. They should also actually be taught the origins of so-called "Judeo-Christianity."

And above all, they deserve leaders who understand that pluralism is not a slogan. It is a democratic obligation.

References

Ashby, E. & Landen, C. (2026, June 25). As supporters praise Texas’ proposed “Judeo-Christian” curriculum, rabbis say it dismisses Judaism. Texas Tribune/Religion News Service. 

Vertuno, J. & Stengle, J. (2026, June 26). Texas school board to vote on required Bible readings in public education, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/texas-curriculum-bible-board-vote-06530403ff91c10462382422003e109f

As supporters praise Texas’ proposed “Judeo-Christian” curriculum, rabbis say it dismisses Judaism
A required reading list before the State Board of Education would present a predominantly Christian perspective to public school students, Jewish leaders say.

By Ellie Ashby, The Texas Tribune, and Chloe Landen, Religion News ServiceJune 25, 2026, 5:00 a.m. Central

Rabbi Joshua Fixler speaks at the State Board of Education meeting in Austin on Monday, 

June 22, 2026. Fixler argued that the required reading list is full of Christians texts that are 

inappropriate for public school classrooms. Aiden Gonzalez/The Texas Tribune

When Faith Becomes Power: The Long History Behind Today’s Religious Politics of Controlling Culture in Texas, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

 When Faith Becomes Power: The Long History Behind Today’s Religious Politics of Controlling 

Culture in Texas

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

May 3, 2026

Before you read further, take a few minutes to watch this chilling snapshot of Texas history narrated by Drew McCoy on his Youtube channel, "Genetically Modified Skeptic." What it documents is not just “interesting history.” It is a chilling and largely buried account of state-sanctioned and vigilante violence in Texas—targeting German immigrants whose only real crime was thinking differently.

Many of these settlers were freethinkers, abolitionists, and skeptics of organized religion. For that, they were surveilled, harassed, and in some cases murdered. Their communities were policed not just for political loyalty, but for ideological and religious conformity. This is Texas history—but not the version that makes it into textbooks.

We should be asking why.

Because what this video reveals is not an anomaly. It is a pattern.

There’s a moment in the video where the past collapses into the present. What initially appears to be a critique of religion opens into something far more consequential: a genealogy of power. This is not simply about belief systems. It is about how dominant religious ideologies—particularly forms of conservative Protestantism—have historically aligned themselves with political authority to discipline populations, define belonging, and consolidate control over public life.

What begins as theology becomes governance. And what cannot be controlled becomes a threat—in this case, German “freethinkers,” white people stripped of belonging—exposed as not white enough when they refused ideological conformity.

At its core, the video underscores a critical truth: the modern religious right—also known today as “Christian nationalists”—did not emerge out of nowhere. It is the product of long-term, strategic organizing rooted in earlier histories of exclusion, enforcement, and at times, outright violence. From the suppression of dissenting religious communities to contemporary campaigns around “family values,” education, and national identity, the throughline is clear—power is maintained by controlling culture.

And culture is controlled, in large part, through education.

If that sounds abstract, consider what is happening right now in Texas.

At the K–12 level, battles over the State Board of Education’s social studies TEKS standards have become proxy wars over history itself—what counts as legitimate knowledge, whose stories are centered, and which truths are softened, distorted, or erased. The same impulse that once targeted German freethinkers now operates through curricular gatekeeping—policing how young people come to understand democracy, race, religion, and dissent.

At the university level, the struggle over Ethnic Studies—and more recently, the passage and implementation of SB 17 and SB 37—extends this project. Programs, scholarship, and entire fields that interrogate power, colonialism, and racial hierarchy are cast as threats to the state. Faculty governance is restructured. Academic freedom is narrowed. Knowledge itself is disciplined.

The tactics are strikingly familiar:

The manufacturing of moral panic.

 The targeting of educators, intellectuals, and marginalized communities.

The insistence that dominant norms are under siege.

These are not new strategies. They are recycled technologies of power.
And they work.

This is why the video matters now. Because the battles we are witnessing across Texas—over curriculum, DEI, academic freedom, and even the right to teach truthful histories—are not isolated skirmishes. They are the latest expression of a much longer project: the regulation of knowledge in the service of ideology.

In this light, policies like SB 17 and SB 37 do not stand alone. They are part of a broader architecture of governance that seeks to narrow what can be known, said, and taught. This is not simply policy—it is the institutionalization of a worldview.

A worldview that has always required enemies.

What Drew McCoy ultimately offers is not just historical recovery, but a warning. Movements built over generations do not disappear when challenged. They adapt. They rebrand. They relocate their battles—from churches to school boards, from pulpits to legislatures, from doctrine to policy.

And they continue.

So the question is not whether this history is relevant.

It is whether we are willing to confront what it reveals about the present.

Because once you recognize the pattern—the suppression of dissent, the policing of thought, the fusion of faith and state power—it becomes impossible to dismiss what is happening now as accidental or benign.

This is not new.

It is simply returning in a different form.

If this history troubles you, it should. And it should move you—not just to reflection, but to action. The next battleground is already set. The Texas State Board of Education will meet June 22–26, 2026, where proposed, deeply reactionary social studies standards will be debated—standards that will shape what millions of Texas students are allowed to know about their own history. 

Show up. Testify. Bear witness. Refuse the erasure. And stay connected to those organizing on the ground by following Social Studies Advocate on Instagram. The struggle over knowledge is not abstract. It is happening now—and it requires all of us.

Whose Truths Are Told: From Canada's Parliament Hill to Texas Classrooms

This exchange with reporters happened on June 29, 2017. It was part of a four-day “reoccupation” protest around Canada Day that takes place annually on the first day of July, Canada's independence day. As you view the video that I share, it is important to understand the context.

First, this exchange unfolded after Indigenous demonstrators erected a teepee on Parliament Hill—and, even more importantly, in the shadow of an ongoing national tragedy: the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls whose cases remain unresolved, their families’ pleas too often ignored by authorities. This crisis, rooted in the intergenerational trauma of the boarding school era and the broader legacy of colonial violence, has been extensively documented not only in Canada but across the United States, as well.

A reporter expresses why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to blame for this, incensing the women who then accuse the media of disrespect and demanding that the reporter asking the question leave the room.

Without a doubt, their anger was more than a reaction to one reporter's disrespect. It was a lesson on white privilege and white fragility. That act of refusal is not hostility—it’s sovereignty. It's also inescapably about the agonizing loss of their loved ones. It insists that Indigenous peoples control their own stories, their own truths.

In the larger scheme of things, it means naming genocide and dispossession, and restoring not only land but decision-making power. Journalists and educators alike must ask: do our institutions create space for Indigenous truth, or do we stage reconciliation as a feel-good narrative like Thanksgiving itself that leaves power untouched?

From Parliament Hill to Texas classrooms, the struggle is shared: whose histories are told, whose truths are silenced, and whose comfort determines the limits of justice. In case you're interested and available, the Texas State Board of Education is addressing Social Studies standard this Wednesday as follows:

 

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Time: 9:30am – 11:00am

Location: William B. Travis building located at 1601 N. Congress, Austin,  TX, 78751

Room Assignment:  Ground floor room G-100B

Registration:  Social Studies TEKS Review: Information Session Registration.

 

**Due to construction in the lobby of the building, it will be necessary to enter from the back entrance located on Brazos St. Parking information will be provided to registered participants prior to the meeting.

As educators, advocates, and community members, we have an obligation to stand where truth is being told—even when it unsettles. Our task is to insist that our schools, our histories, and our public institutions reflect the full truth of who we are.

With respect and solidarity,

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Vice News. (2024, February 17). Why Are Indigenous Women Disappearing Across Canada?

Indigenous demonstrators accuse media of being disrespectful in heated exchange with reporters (on June 29, 2017).

Indigenous demonstrators who led a protest and erected a teepee on Parliament Hill on Wednesday held a press conference this morning, in which they accused media of being disrespectful, rejected Justin Trudeau's reconciliation efforts with indigenous communities, and called for the UN to prosecute federal leaders

Textbooks, Truth, and Justice: Lessons from the Reject the (Racist) Text Campaign Before the Texas SBOE, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Textbooks, Truth, and Justice: Lessons from the Reject the (Racist) Text Campaign Before the Texas SBOE

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

In this November 15, 2016 testimony before the Texas State Board of Education, I speak out against the adoption of a proposed textbook that contained distorted and racist portrayals of Mexican Americans. Textbooks shape how young people understand their history, identity, and place in society. When they disparage or erase our stories, they cause real harm.

The textbook, which would have been used to miseducate our Texas youth—perhaps especially Mexican Americans—was ultimately defeated. So far, the best published recounting of this story is by Dr. Emilio Zamora, as captured in this April 12, 2017 blog titled, "The Mexican Fight for Ethnic Studies in Texas: The Biography of a Cause."

In his reflections, Dr. Zamora, recipient of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Scholar Award in 2017, recounts how the NACCS Tejas Foco K–12 Committee led a statewide campaign to expose the book’s hundreds of factual errors and racist depictions. The campaign—known as “Reject the Text”—united thousands of scholars, students, educators, parents, and community organizations, including MALDEF, LULAC, school boards, and legislators. Their collective effort persuaded the State Board to vote unanimously (15–0) against adoption.

I share this video because it is vital for the public to see how these decisions are made—and to hear the voices of those who resist attempts to marginalize and misrepresent our communities. My testimony is part of a larger, ongoing struggle for truthful, inclusive, and dignified education in Texas and across the nation.

This victory was more than the rejection of a single book. It affirmed the strength of collective action, the responsibility of scholars to remain rooted in their communities, and the power of organizing for educational justice. It reminds us that even in difficult times, we can prevail.

We must always remember that democracy is also always about authorship and our right to it—both as individuals and communities. 

References

Valenzuela, A. (2016, April 8). "Reject the Text" Testimony Delivered before the Texas State Board of Education, Austin, Texas

Zamora, E. (2017, April 12) "The Mexican Fight for Ethnic Studies in Texas: The Biography of a Cause." https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-mexican-fight-for-ethnic-studies-in_12.html

"Texas State Board of Education renews American Indian/Native Studies course," by Riddhi Bora in Shift/Press, July 4, 2025

After months of delays and over 40 public testimonies, the Texas State Board of Education voted to renew the American Indian/Native Studies course, allowing districts to continue offering it as an elective. The course provides students with a deeper understanding of Indigenous history, culture, and political identity—perspectives often erased or filtered through Eurocentric narratives. Advocates emphasized that Native identity is not simply racial or ethnic, but a legal and sovereign designation, which distinguishes it from content targeted under SB 12. As such, the course does not violate the state’s DEI ban and is fully legal to teach. 

Dr. Maria Unda's words were incisive. “Indigenous is neither a race or ethnicity…they predate the concept of race.”

Of course, it shouldn't matter either way as race and ethnicity are historical social constructs worthy of study.

Students and families testified that without such courses, Native peoples risk being forgotten "as if they never existed." Despite political resistance and bureaucratic hurdles, the course's renewal affirms that Indigenous histories matter—and must be taught.

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas State Board of Education renews American Indian/Native Studies course

By Riddhi Bora

 

Jul 4, 2025

After a year-and-a-half-long deliberation process, several delays and over 40 total testimonies, Texas school districts are re-allowed to offer Native American Studies course as an elective.

The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) renewed a American Indian/Native Studies course on Friday, Jun. 27. The 9-4 vote followed more than four hours of discussion on Thursday and Friday, during which testifiers explained the course’s importance and board members debated the course’s legality given implementation of a state law (Senate Bill 12) that bans diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for schools serving K-12 students.

First introduced in 2020 as an elective course for 10th-12th graders in Grand Prairie ISD, the course allows students to understand Native American history, issues, and perspectives. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) designated this as an innovative studies course, which allows students to gain knowledge and skills outside of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. However, because of SB 12, such courses face elimination.

Orlando Lara, a scholar and longtime advocate for the course’s renewal, said that while the Texas Education Agency labels the course as Ethnic Studies, there’s a difference between ethnic studies and the category of ethnicity and race. Lara said that tribal identity is a particular legal and political category that can’t be equated with race and ethnicity.

Maria Unda, a distinguished postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Liberal Arts, said that the board members did not seem to understand the meanings of race and ethnicity.

“Race is a social construct used in history. For example, I can be racially Hispanic, but my ethnicity is Mexican American or Chicana. They asked me, ‘So what is Indigenous Studies?’ I was like, Indigenous Studies is cultural studies,” said Unda, whose work focuses on race and ethnic studies, educational policy making, and critical policy analysis. “Indigenous is neither a race or ethnicity…they predate the concept of race.”

Lauren, Tom, Walter, and Henry Daughtery, a family from Houston also testified at the meeting. Tom said it’s very clear that when learning about Native Americans, their history is told through a European colonization perspective and that’s why there’s not a strong understanding of their identity. Henry, who is 12 years old, said in his social studies course that he spent about a week during the year learning about Native Americans.

“[American Indian/Native Studies] is important because you can see how [Indigenous folks] have contributed to Texas and how they’ve helped us become who we are,” said Henry Daughtery. “If [American Indian/Native Studies] are not taught enough, they can be forgotten about, as if they never existed.”

The course renewal process began in January 2024, and the SBOE was supposed to decide on a vote in April 2025. However, in April, Lara said for the first time in the SBOE’s history, the SBOE instructed TEA staff to review the recommended resources for an innovative course. The Grand Prairie Social Studies Council put together the resources, and Lara said this TEA review of recommended resources was not mentioned as part of the application process.

“It’s sort of like if you apply for a fellowship and then they call you and say, ‘Actually, we need this other document, but the deadline that applies (has) already passed’,” Lara said. “The SBOE gives themself the leeway to change the process in the middle.”

He said that since 2019, when community members first fought for the course to be taught in schools, they had to compromise a lot, and the entire process involved lots of labor. For an entire year, advocates for the course’s renewal testified in every single general meeting because it wasn’t on the SBOE’s agenda and the course underwent several reviews because the renewal process kept changing, Lara said. 

“We got here. We’ve lost some limbs, (but) everyone is super relieved and happy that we got this far… Even though this is technically just a renewal, it’s a renewal from the SBOE, which is super significant, because in the past, it was just approved by the commissioner,” Lara said. “My message to districts is if they are worried that, ‘Oh, maybe this is illegal to teach’, they now have confirmation it’s legal.”

SBOE member Julie Pickeren threatened another delay by calling a point of order by stating TEA did not give the members the course’s packet and resources for review in time for a Friday vote. SBOE chairman Aaaron Kinsey clarified that the “deadline rule” Pickeren referred to states that if materials are not received on Friday, board members can delay their vote but are not required to.

While the SBOE renewed the course for this fall, Lara said damage has already been done because school districts set their calendars in December or January, so the course won’t be available to districts until the 2026-2027 academic year. 

Unda said she thinks people in power and policymakers frequently forget the importance of centering what students want. From her experience studying educational policymaking and listening to students, Unda said she learned students want ethnic studies courses.

“I wish we supported education (and) funded it correctly… instead of it being this space of oppression and power grabbing,” Unda said. “Whether or not it’s established with TEA… Everyone’s always gonna be teaching critical histories, so the work continues.”

Riddhi Bora

  Riddhi Bora is a journalist passionate about multimedia storytelling and uplifting underrepresented voices. Outside of reporting she enjoys dancing, film photography, watching movies and trying new restaurants.

Urgent Message from CDF Advocate Maggie Stern. Texas SBOE votes Dec. 13 on Library Collection Standards

Attention Friends and all Children's Book Advocates:

Important message from Maggie Stern with the Children's Defense Fund. Consider coming to Austin to testify on December 13.

-Angela Valenzuela

#SayNoToCensorship

Attention advocates! 

As you know, Texas is facing an ongoing fight against state-led book bans. The lawsuit against HB 900 was heard in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, and Texas officials faced heavy criticism for the law’s violations of the First and Fourteenth amendments. Despite these concerns, the State Board of Education is scheduled to vote on new proposed library collection standards next Wednesday December 13.

Contact the State Board of Education now!

We need you to advocate for best practices in our school libraries by urging the SBOE to approve the current proposed standards which provide a template for schools to create comprehensive and diverse libraries for their students. We need you to use your voice to tell the SBOE the impact these standards will have on Texas students and on the quality of education in our state.   

We encourage you to contact your SBOE member with your thoughts on the proposed standards! We’ve created a resource with background on HB 900, talking points to help you draft an email, and a guide to finding your SBOE member here. We need every voice in Texas to stand firm on protecting students' access to libraries where they can see themselves reflected in the books they choose to read.  

Bonus: We also encourage you to come to Austin to testify in-person during the public hearing on December 13. This is a great opportunity to use your voice to influence the course of public education! The deadline to register to testify is this Friday, December 8 at 5p. Feel free to use the talking points in the resource we created in your testimony – and reply to this email to let us know if you can come testify! 

It's horrible to learn that under Superintendent Mike Miles' leadership—after his and the Texas Education Agency's (TEA) takeover of Houston Independent School District (HISD)—children "are receiving no instruction or assistance in Spanish at all." Stated differently, their civil right to bilingual education is getting denied. I imagine that this will play out in court at some future point, as the damage is predictable and already evident. Special education has also been decimated (see People's Report of HISD takeover at State Board of Ed). Miles' curriculum is fully mandated and it is destroying teachers' morale.

When HISD Superintendent stated—in reference to his own teachers and community members—at a Texas Tribune Festival event in Austin last September, “If they don't want to work in that kind of culture, they need to make the decisions that's right for them,” geez, how dismissive can a public school leader be?!!!

Plus, Miles is not only being racist against Spanish-speaking children and hostile to the public, but also anti-public education itself. With his own words and arrogance, he demonstrates how his agenda falls squarely in line with the privatizers like Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and many in the Texas Republican leadership that represent urban areas as opposed to those representing rural areas that have solidly voted against vouchers.

As a public, we all need to care about HISD. A first start is to listen to the
People's Report of HISD takeover at State Board of Ed. Their testimonies begin at  1:09:00 (full testimony) on the meter with a shorter version taking place here. This is a clear attempt to dismantle public education in Houston. 

The testimonies further point to how democracy is literally at risk given that there is no one in government to whom they can appeal this decision. As Commissioner Morath himself has been inaccessible to these parents, teachers, and this community, they had no choice but to testify at the Texas State Board of Education that says it has no jurisdictional power over the matter. Even the legal advisor at the Texas SBOE didn't know where to direct those that testified.

It's all so surreal. Do listen at least to the shortened version of the testimonies on Youtube. 

It's not just an invasion, but an ambush. And the children suffer.

-Angela Valenzuela

Support for Houston ISD’s Spanish speakers has dwindled under state-appointed leader, parents say

For one reading class, Superintendent Mike Miles said instruction would focus on English, even if it meant risking state funding for dual-language programs. Parents say it goes further than that, adding that their kids are receiving no assistance in Spanish at all.

BY BRIAN LOPEZ

OCT. 3, 20235 AM CENTRAL

Celina Manzano takes her children to school at Pugh Elementary School in East Houston on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023.

For Celina Manzano, Pugh Elementary School in East Houston is no longer the welcoming place it used to be.

Manzano’s family mostly speaks Spanish, so her son Maycol’s teachers used to provide them with translations of his homework and make time for her to ask questions. But under the leadership of the state’s recently appointed superintendent, most of those teachers left after they were required to reapply for their jobs.

Accommodations for Spanish speakers are practically gone, Manzano said. Maycol, who started second grade this year, has told her he doesn’t want to go to school anymore.

It’s been over a month since the Houston Independent School District started its first school year after the state ousted its democratically elected school board and replaced the district’s previous leader with Superintendent Mike Miles. Since then, complaints have been piling up among Spanish-speaking families, who say they are not getting the support they need. In Houston ISD, about 36% of students are either bilingual or English learners.

The state’s takeover of the district was in response to years of poor academic outcomes at a single campus. Under Miles’ tenure, Pugh Elementary and more than 80 other campuses now operate under his “New Education System,” which he describes as an “innovative staffing model that puts the focus on classroom instruction and improved student outcomes.”

Classes used to be half in English and half in Spanish in dual-language schools like Pugh. Miles previously said that dual-language education would continue and even expand under the NES model, but parents say that support for Spanish speakers has dwindled.

Mike Miles, the state-appointed superintendent of Houston ISD, discusses public education in Texas' largest city at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Sept. 23, 2023. Eddie Gaspar/Texas Tribune

Credit:

In particular, the new “Science of Reading” class — based on psychology and neuroscience research on how children learn to read and the skills they need to do so — is taught only in English.

“You cannot read well if you can’t decode, and you cannot decode if you don’t do it in English,” Miles said at a community meeting in July where he explained his approach to families. “So we’re gonna do the science of reading, decoding and language comprehension in English, and then we will supplement [many English learners’ native] language, Spanish.”

Miles told The Houston Chronicle last month he would try to keep reading instruction as close as possible to the 50-50 model, but his priority would be teaching children the science of reading, even if the uneven split means losing funding. State law requires dual-language programs to divide instruction equally between English and an English learner’s native language.

Miles did not respond to an interview request or emailed questions.

Parents say the changes have gone further than that, noting that this school year their kids are receiving no instruction or assistance in Spanish at all.

Marta Quinteros said her 8-year-old son Angel struggles to speak and understand English, and she feels like the district isn’t doing enough to support her son like last year.

Quinteros said when she asked teachers and administrators at Scroggins Elementary School if they could explain lessons slower or in Spanish to her son, she was told they couldn’t.

Angel has also had issues with bullying but told Quinteros he hasn’t told anyone at school because he is afraid school officials will tell him he needs to speak English and he can’t do it that well.

“‘I’m not going to learn English, I’m not going to,”’ Quinteros said her son has told her.

Duncan Klussmann, a clinical assistant professor of school leadership at the University of Houston, said Miles’ reforms are affecting Spanish-speaking and bilingual families because they do not allow for a lot of customization in students’ learning.

“What we know about education is when 1,000 students walk into a building each day they all have very different needs that need to be addressed,” he said. “It's still yet to be seen if the system that has been put in place will address the needs of bilingual students.”

Public education observers, teachers and parents have described Miles’ leadership and vision for the district as military-like and test-score-driven.

Several Houston ISD teachers and community members have criticized him for his “my way or the highway” approach, with Miles saying that those who don’t like his changes can choose to leave the district.

“If they don't want to work in that kind of culture, they need to make the decisions that's right for them,” he said at a Texas Tribune Festival event in Austin last month.

Under the NES schools, which were selected for the most significant immediate overhauls, every teacher had to reapply for their jobs with no guarantee they would be rehired. Those who stayed are monitored to make sure they are sticking to the curriculum and instructional materials provided by Miles’ leadership team.

Educators say Miles’ system has a rigid approach to teaching. They are tasked with following a strict teaching schedule, which district leaders created to reduce the time teachers spend preparing curriculum. Detractors say it limits educators' ability to decide how to teach their classes.

Teachers who spoke to the Tribune and requested to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation said Miles’ system requires them not to spend time repeating lessons — even when they feel like students didn’t fully understand the material — and to skip any ice breakers or socializing in their classes. Miles has monitors in NES schools to make sure teachers are not deviating from the curriculum.

Miles believes the bad experiences some teachers have described are purely anecdotal and has framed them as examples of the “status quo” thinking prevalent in the state’s education system.

David DeMatthews, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas at Austin who has followed Miles’ career, said his approach will likely boost test scores. But DeMatthews doubts that such a system will produce sustainable academic improvements or help create a conducive environment for learning.

“That type of teaching is not going to be engaging over time. It's not going to be rewarding for teachers,” DeMatthews said. “This is a very fast-food approach to education.”

But Miles also has people rooting for his success. Sue Deigaard, a former Houston ISD school board member, said while she agrees that Miles’ changes have been abrupt, the district probably needed them.

“The intention to not waste another year for students who are behind is a commendable approach,” Deigaard said. “Our kids have had enough lost years.”

But she added that the new leadership could’ve done a better job at gathering input from the community, especially from people on those campuses that have experienced the greatest changes.

Klussmann said the underlying issue with the new system is whether Houston ISD leadership will give families options to opt out if it’s not working for them — especially in the midst of recent Republican efforts to allow parents to be more involved in decisions about their children’s education. One of the main arguments some Republican leaders have made for “school choice” — a proposal that would allow parents to use state funds to pay for their children’s private schooling — is that it would give low-income families more freedom to leave their school district if they’re not happy with it.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott called state lawmakers to return to Austin for a special legislative session starting on Oct. 9. He didn't indicate what the focus of the session will be but he has long said it would be on school choice, one of his biggest priorities this year.

“State leadership and the Legislature really focused on parental choice this last year and the parents should have a say in the type of education that their child is getting, and I think [whether Houston ISD lets parents opt out] is going to be a test at the state level,” Klussmann said.

Manzano said she is lucky to live in a school zone that would allow her to switch districts if she remains unhappy with the changes at Houston ISD — she could go to Galena Park ISD east of Houston — but many parents don’t have that choice, and their kids must conform to the new rules or fall behind.

For both Manzano and Quinteros, if things don’t change, they will look elsewhere for their children’s education.

“If things continue like this, I have to take my son out of this school,” Manzano said. “I don’t like what’s going on.”

Celina Manzano's children head to school at Pugh Elementary School in East Houston.
Danielle Villasana/ Texas Tribune