Whose Bible, Whose History, Whose Texas? When Curriculum Becomes a Civilizational Project by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. August 23, 2026

Whose Bible, Whose History, Whose Texas? When Curriculum Becomes a Civilizational Project

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

August 23, 2026

State Board of Education member Julie Pickren prays during the invocation before a meeting on social studies standards at the Barbara Jordan Building in Austin on Friday, June 26, 2026. The board is considering revisions that would place greater emphasis on Christian history and biblical content in public school classrooms.

Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman

To bring Texans up-to-date, they must know that our state is not simply putting the Bible back into public schools. It is making a much larger decision about which cultural and religious tradition will occupy the privileged center of public education—and therefore which version of America Texas children will be taught to inherit.

That distinction matters.

On June 26, the Texas State Board of Education approved a first-of-its-kind required literary works list for public schools, along with sweeping revisions to the state’s social studies standards. The literary list, approved 9–5, includes direct biblical passages and stories across grade levels, from Jonah and the Whale and David and Goliath in the elementary grades to passages from Corinthians and the Book of Job in later grades. The requirements will begin taking effect in phases starting in the 2030–31 school year.

The Board simultaneously rewrote social studies standards for kindergarten through eighth grade, placing substantially greater emphasis on biblical figures, Christian history, ancient Israel, the Ten Commandments, and what supporters call “Judeo-Christian values (Yu, 2026)."

Let me begin with something that should not be controversial: The Bible is worthy of study.

It is one of the most consequential collections of texts in human history. Students cannot fully understand Western literature, art, music, political rhetoric, abolitionism, the civil rights movement, or large portions of American history without some knowledge of biblical language and traditions.

The Supreme Court itself recognized precisely this point in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963). The Court prohibited state-sponsored devotional Bible reading but expressly distinguished it from the objective academic study of religion. The Bible, the Court observed, may legitimately be studied for its literary and historical significance when presented objectively within a secular educational program.

So the question is not whether children should encounter the Bible.

The question is what happens when the state decides that one religious tradition should function as the organizing, colonizing grammar of public education that resides in the assumptive world of knowledge and skills standards and accountability regimes. And that is where the Texas story becomes troubling.

What Looks Like Addition Is Also Subtraction

Curriculum is never simply a collection of things we add. Every addition consumes instructional time, assigns cultural importance, and necessarily reduces the space available for something else. That is why the most revealing part of the Texas curriculum controversy may not be what the State Board added but what it simultaneously diminished.

According to reporting by Isaac Yu, staff writer with the Houston Chronicle, the new standards reduce or eliminate material addressing racial segregation, slave revolts, the Ku Klux Klan, Black and Hispanic history, and aspects of world cultures. Board members even removed language stating that Africans were enslaved in the U.S. because of the color of their skin. Meanwhile, critics testified that Islam is disproportionately introduced through warfare, invasion, jihad, piracy, radicalism, and terrorism, while proposed references to Muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy were removed. That juxtaposition is enormously important.

The issue is therefore not:

Bible or no Bible?

It is:

What knowledge is being elevated, what knowledge is being burdened, and what knowledge is disappearing to make room for the new canon?

The Texas curriculum is not merely becoming more religious. It is becoming more civilizational.

The State Board itself says the new standards will give students a historical arc extending from the “rise of Western Civilization” through the creation of the United States and its experiment in self-government. Its official announcement promises students the “full story,” while simultaneously describing the curriculum in terms of America's—and Texas'—greatness.(State Board of Education, 2026).

But no curriculum tells the “full story.” That an impossible proposition. Every curriculum selects. Every curriculum elevates. Every curriculum leaves something behind. The political question is who gets to do the selecting.

We Have Seen This Before

There is a deeper history here that Americans would do well to remember.

Religion was once much more explicitly present in American public schooling. Nineteenth-century common schools frequently incorporated Protestant religious practices and Bible reading. But what many Protestants regarded as simply “Christian” or “nonsectarian,” Catholics often experienced as Protestant domination. 

Conflicts over which Bible would be read—and whose Christianity would define the public school—became part of the great nineteenth-century “School Question.” Historian Steven K. Green (2012) has documented how disputes over Bible reading, Protestant cultural authority, Catholic immigration, and religious pluralism helped produce the modern American understanding of nonsectarian public education. 

That history should caution us against confusing majoritarian religion with religious neutrality.

American schooling also developed partly within a larger civilizational project that joined Christianity, racial hierarchy, assimilation, citizenship, and nation-building. Its most brutal expression appeared in federal Indian boarding schools. Native children were removed from their families, deprived of languages and cultural practices, and subjected to an educational regime explicitly intended to assimilate them into Anglo-American society. The federal government itself now acknowledges that religious organizations were deeply implicated in that system and that assimilation included efforts to strip Native children of their religions and cultures.

Obviously, today's Texas curriculum is not the Indian boarding-school system. Historical comparisons require precision. But the older history raises a question that remains hauntingly contemporary:

Who is the school supposed to make us into? That question lies at the center of this debate.

This Is Where Christian Nationalism Enters the Picture

It would also be a mistake to say that including biblical literature automatically constitutes Christian nationalism.

It does not.

Christian nationalism is not Christianity, nor is it ordinary Christian religious belief. It is a political ideology that fuses a particular understanding of Christianity with national identity and governmental authority.

The concern arises from the cumulative pattern.

Texas has adopted Bible-infused Bluebonnet instructional materials. The Legislature passed a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public-school classrooms. Now the State Board has mandated biblical texts within the statewide literary canon and expanded Christian and biblical content within social studies standards (Yu, 2026)

And proponents themselves are telling us what they believe they are accomplishing.

State Board member Brandon Hall celebrated the June action by declaring that Texas was “bringing the Bible back into schools.” Supporters described the overhaul as a restoration of Judeo-Christian values, moral formation, classical education, and American exceptionalism (Yu, 2026).

This is no longer simply an argument about whether students should recognize biblical allusions in Shakespeare.

It is an argument about national identity.

Who are “we”? Where did “we” come from? Which traditions made America Which traditions are peripheral? Whose stories constitute civilization And which children are expected to locate themselves inside somebody else's story?

There Is Also a Constitutional Question

The constitutional question deserves precision as well. The Supreme Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence has changed considerably since Schempp. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), the Court instructed courts to look closely to historical practices and understandings when evaluating Establishment Clause claims.

That makes predictions about future litigation less certain.

But Kennedy did not declare that states may convert public-school instruction into religious exercise, nor did it erase the longstanding distinction between teaching religion academically and using governmental authority to advance religion.

Indeed, Schempp's fundamental insight remains crucial: there is a difference between studying religion and practicing, promoting, or privileging it through the machinery of the state.

Whether particular provisions of the Texas standards ultimately cross the constitutional line will depend upon their language, implementation, context, and how courts apply today's Establishment Clause doctrine.

But there is another question that precedes the courtroom.

Is this wise public education?

Public Schools Belong to Everyone

Texas is one of the most religiously, racially, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse states in the nation.

Our public schools therefore carry an especially demanding democratic responsibility.

They should absolutely teach Christianity.

They should also teach Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Indigenous spiritual traditions, secular philosophical traditions, and other belief systems that have shaped human civilization.

They should teach students why the Bible matters. And the Qur'an. And the Torah and Talmud. And Indigenous knowledge traditions. And classical Greek thought. And the intellectual achievements of the Islamic world. And the African civilizations that long preceded European colonization. And Enlightenment skepticism. And the struggle between faith and reason that has itself helped shape modern democracy.

That would be religious literacy. That would be intellectual rigor. That would prepare children for citizenship in a pluralistic democracy.

However, what Texas appears increasingly interested in doing is different.

It is constructing a canon in which Christianity and a particular rendering of Western civilization function as the cultural center of gravity while difficult histories of race, conquest, segregation, colonialization, and minority experience become easier to trim, soften, or remove.

That is why the argument over this curriculum cannot be reduced to whether the Bible is a “good book.” Of course it is an important book.

The real question is who possesses the authority to turn a sacred text into a state-sanctioned civilizational narrative.

Public schools should help children understand the many traditions that made the world they inhabit. They should not be used to tell millions of extraordinarily diverse children that there is only one tradition through which they can become fully American.

That is not religious literacy.

That is something much closer to curricular authoritarianism premised on a state-constructed hierarchy of knowledge.

And Texans should understand the difference.

References

Green, S. K. (2012). The Bible, the school, and the Constitution: The clash that shaped modern church-state doctrine. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827909.001.0001

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418diff_k4l8.pdf

School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/374/203/

State Board of Education. (2026, June 26). Texas State Board of Education adopts new social studies standards and required literature reading list. https://sboe.texas.gov/state-board-of-education/sboe-news/texas-state-board-of-education-adopts-new-social-studies-standards-and-required-literature-reading-list

Yu, I. (2026, June 26). Texas becomes first state to require students read the Bible with required literary list. Houston Chronicle. (Houston Chronicle)

The Texas SBOE’s Bible mandate is Not Religious Literacy. It is State-Sponsored,Taxpayer Funded, Religious Favoritism, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Texas SBOE’s Bible mandate is Not Religious Literacy. It is State-Sponsored, Taxpayer Funded, Religious Favoritism

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

June 28, 2026

Last Friday’s decision by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) to require Bible stories and Christian instruction in Texas K–12 public schools should alarm every Texan who cares about public education, religious freedom, democracy, and the constitutional separation of church and state (Yu, 2026)

This is not religious literacy. It is not a neutral study of religion. It is not a good-faith effort to help children understand the Bible’s influence on literature, history, or culture. A serious academic curriculum would introduce students to multiple religious traditions, secular traditions, Indigenous knowledge systems, and the diverse intellectual inheritance of a state where children come from every corner of the world. Instead, the SBOE has approved a state-mandated reading list and social studies framework that privileges Christianity, narrows the story of humanity, and forces teachers and students into a curriculum shaped less by scholarship than by ideology.

Let us be clear: the issue is not whether the Bible may be studied in public schools. It can be—and, in the appropriate context, should be—studied as literature, as history, and as a text with enormous cultural influence. But it should be studied alongside other sacred, philosophical, ethical, and cultural traditions. 

As a product of Texas public schools, I would have welcomed the opportunity to learn about the world’s religions in school—not in a reductive way, but in an expansive one. Indeed, if this curriculum is anything other than expansive, pluralistic, and intellectually honest, it is dead on arrival.

The real issue is whether the state should use public schools—and exorbitant taxpayer dollars—to elevate one religious tradition above others and present that tradition as the moral foundation of civic life. That is not education. That is state-sponsored religious favoritism. It is constitutionally suspect, pedagogically flawed, and morally dangerous in a state as religiously, culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse as Texas.

Ironically, this approach may also fail on its own terms. A shallow, politicized, and coercive treatment of the Bible may not deepen students’ understanding of scripture. It may turn them away from it. When sacred texts are reduced to political instruments, they lose the very depth, mystery, and moral seriousness that make them meaningful to believers and worthy of study by nonbelievers. A curriculum built on such a flawed foundation does not honor the Bible. It weaponizes it.

This is where Katherine Stewart’s work is so helpful (Stewart, 2012, 2020, 2025). Stewart reminds us that Christian nationalism is not simply a matter of private faith or religious devotion. It is a political project. It operates through donor networks, legal organizations, advocacy groups, media platforms, think tanks, and elected officials who seek to capture public institutions and bend them toward an authoritarian vision of society. 

In this sense, the SBOE’s decision is not an isolated curriculum dispute. It is part of a broader movement to remake public education in the image of Christian nationalist power.

That movement is also visible in Project 2025 and in the larger effort to weaken public institutions, centralize executive authority, privatize public goods, and subordinate democratic deliberation to ideological control (Dans & Groves, 2023). In Texas, this matters enormously because governors appoint key officials, including the Commissioner of Education, who oversees the Texas Education Agency. These appointments help shape the direction of public schooling for millions of children. Curriculum, therefore, is not merely a classroom matter. It is a governance matter. It is a democracy matter.

A democratic public school system should not be argumentative in the narrow sense of imposing one worldview on everyone else. It should be deliberative. It should teach students how to think across difference, how to ask hard questions, how to understand history in its complexity, and how to live ethically in a pluralistic society. 

The SBOE’s decision moves us in the opposite direction. It turns curriculum into a vehicle for religious and political domination.

Texas children deserve better than this. They deserve schools that respect their families, their faiths, their questions, and their futures. They deserve a curriculum capacious enough to include the Bible without turning public school into Sunday school; rigorous enough to study Christianity without privileging Christian nationalism; and democratic enough to honor the full humanity of every child in the classroom.

Recent testimony before the SBOE made this danger plain. Parents, educators, religious freedom advocates, historians, and community members warned that the proposed standards and required reading list distort education by subordinating academic integrity to a sectarian political agenda. Texas Freedom Network President Felicia Martin captured the problem forcefully:

 “The Bible isn’t a history book, public school isn’t Sunday school, and ignorance is not a Texas value.” 

That line deserves to be remembered because it names the issue exactly. Public schools belong to all children—not only Christian children, not only conservative Christian children, not only children whose families accept the state’s preferred theological worldview.

This decision also comes in the shadow of a broader restructuring of public education in Texas. We have seen attacks on books, on Ethnic and Gender Studies, on LGBTQIA+ students, on honest teaching about racism, on teachers’ professional autonomy, and on local democratic governance. 

We have seen vouchers pushed as “choice” while public schools remain underfunded. We have seen the Ten Commandments elevated in classrooms, chaplains invited into schools, and now Bible stories mandated as required reading. These are not isolated developments. They are pieces of a larger project.

That project is legible through the Seven Mountains Mandate (Boedy, 2025), a Christian dominionist framework that calls on believers to exercise influence—or dominion—over seven spheres of society: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government.

 Education is one of the mountains.

Government is another.

Business is another. 

Texas is now witnessing the convergence of all three: billionaire money, state power, and public school curriculum being aligned to serve a Christian nationalist vision.

Katherine Stewart’s work helps us understand what is happening. In The Power Worshippers 2020) and Money, Lies, and God (2025), Stewart shows that Christian nationalism is not primarily about private faith, prayer, or religious devotion. 

It is about power. 

It is about networks. It is about donor money, legal infrastructure, media ecosystems, political candidates, think tanks, and policy shops working together to transform democratic institutions from within. The movement does not merely want a seat at the table. It wants to own the table, write the rules, choose the curriculum, discipline dissent, and call the result “freedom.”

This is why today’s SBOE decision must be understood alongside the political influence of West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. As I wrote previously in “Texas: Two Billionaires Want to Destroy Public Education and Replace It With Christian Schools,” the attack on public education is not incidental to their politics. It is central to it. 

As you can view and see for yourselves, CNN’s reporting made plain that former associates and critics view Dunn and Wilks as especially focused on education, with the long-term goal of replacing much of public education with private Christian schooling. Former Republican state senator Bob Deuell put it bluntly: they “want to destroy the public school system as we know it and, in its place, see more home-schooling and more private Christian schools.”

That is the context for today’s vote. This is not simply about whether a first grader hears “David and Goliath” or a high school student reads Job. It is about who controls the moral and intellectual formation of more than five million Texas public school students. It is about whether the state will honor the religious diversity of Texas families or treat non-Christian children as guests in someone else’s public school system. It is about whether teachers will be trusted as professionals or reduced to instruments of ideological compliance.

As I recently blogged (Valenzuela, 2026), supporters will say this is about “Judeo-Christian values.” That phrase, however, often functions as a political shield. It collapses Jewish traditions into a Christian nationalist story, erases the profound diversity within Christianity itself, and excludes Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Indigenous spiritual traditions, atheists, agnostics, and many others, including Jews themselves—who are also part of Texas. It also misrepresents Christianity. 

That is not what Texas has chosen.

Many of us grew up in Christian traditions rooted in social justice, humility, hospitality, care for the poor, and love of neighbor. The Christianity being smuggled into public policy today is not that faith. It is a politicized, exclusionary Christianity aligned with hierarchy, conquest, privatization, and punishment.

This is why the phrase “religious freedom” is being turned upside down. True religious freedom protects families from state-imposed religion. It protects Christian families, Jewish families, Muslim families, Hindu families, Buddhist families, Indigenous families, nonreligious families, and interfaith families alike. It means the government does not get to decide whose sacred stories become mandatory and whose traditions disappear. It means public schools do not become Sunday schools by legislative design.

The irony is painful. Texas leaders claim to be defending parents while overruling millions of parents whose religious and moral commitments do not align with the state’s preferred theology. Many, if not most, among them believe in the separation of church and state.

Let’s unmask this nefarious, anti-democratic agenda for what it is: a coordinated effort to capture public education, weaponize faith, and shrink the democratic imagination of Texas children.

They claim to support local control while imposing sweeping curriculum mandates from Austin. 

They claim to respect teachers while stripping them of professional judgment. 

They claim to strengthen history while narrowing it. 

They claim to teach freedom while modeling domination.

The damage will not fall evenly. Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American, Muslim, Jewish, immigrant, LGBTQIA+, and nonreligious students will feel most sharply what it means to be written to the margins of the curriculum. So will Christian students whose faith teaches them that coercion is not discipleship and that the Gospel should never be reduced to a state lesson plan. 

Public schools should be places where children learn to think critically, encounter complexity, and develop civic respect across difference. 

They should not be laboratories for Christian nationalist social engineering.

Texas is a pluralistic state. It is young, multilingual, multiracial, multi-faith, and globally connected. Our curriculum should prepare children for that reality. Instead, the SBOE has chosen retreat: less world history, less diversity, less intellectual honesty, and more state-sponsored religious favoritism. This is not educational excellence. It is ideological containment.

We should refuse the false choice between faith and public education. Many people of faith support strong public schools precisely because public education is one of the few institutions where children from different backgrounds can learn together. A democracy—at least in theory—public school does not require children to abandon their faith. It protects their right to have one. It also protects their right not to have one. That is the genius of public education at its best.

The SBOE's decision moves Texas in the opposite direction. It brings us closer to the world envisioned by the Seven Mountains Mandate, where education is not a public good but a terrain to be conquered. It advances the agenda Katherine Stewart has warned about: a donor-funded, anti-democratic movement that uses the language of faith to seize institutions and the language of freedom to justify domination.

Texans should see this for what it is. The SBOE has not merely approved a reading list. It has opened the door wider to the religious capture of public education. It has placed the state’s power behind a narrow theological and political worldview. And it has done so in a state whose children deserve so much better.

This orchestrated, well-heeled “culture war” reveals what has been true all along: the struggle is not only over curriculum. It is over democracy itself. Public schools are among the last remaining civic spaces where we can still imagine and build a common good. That is precisely why they are under attack. They hold the promise of an animated, well-informed, and educated citizenry—one capable of questioning power, resisting domination, and participating fully in democratic life. 

And that is why we must defend them—with clarity, courage, and an unwavering commitment to religious freedom, educational justice, teachers’ freedom to teach, and students’ freedom to learn.

Reference

Boedy, M. (2025). The seven mountains mandate: Exposing the dangerous plan to Christianize America and destroy democracy. Westminster John Knox Press.

Dans, P., & Groves, S. (Eds.). (2023). Mandate for leadership: The conservative promise. The Heritage Foundation [pdf]. 

Stewart, K. (2012). The good news club: The Christian Right’s stealth assault on America’s children. PublicAffairs. 

Stewart, K. (2020). The power worshippers: Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism. Bloomsbury.

Stewart, K. (2025). Money, lies, and God: Inside the movement to destroy American democracy. Bloomsbury.

Tackett, C. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B3PTuADIHQ

Valenzuela, A. (2026, June 26). When ‘Judeo-Christian’ Means Christian: The Texas State Board of Education and the Politics of Curriculum [Blog], Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas. https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2026/06/when-judeo-christian-means-christian.html

Yu, I. (2026, June 26). Texas becomes first state to require students read the Bible with required literary list, Austin American-Statesman. https://www.statesman.com/politics/texas/article/social-studies-overhaul-bible-christianity-22320559.php 

Texas Social Studies Standards: The Billion-Dollar Curriculum Rewrite | 10 AM and 12 PM Press Conference Tomorrow, Monday, June 22, 2026

Follow @SocialstudiesAdvocate on Instagram

 Friends,

Tomorrow begins an important week at the Texas State Board of Education that meets from the 22nd-26th.

There will be two press conferences tomorrow morning. 

The first on is the following at 10 AM sponsored by the Latino Texas Policy Center. The second at 12PM is sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network. TFN will have a horse-drawn funeral procession for the death of religious freedom in Texas. 

I somehow don't have a notice on the second one, but I spoke yesterday with Executive Director Felicia Martin who said that there will be one at the noon hour.

Both press conferences take place at the Barbara Jordan State Office Building | 1601 N. Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas 78711. If you're in mourning regarding the loss of religious freedom, wear black.

All should care deeply about this as what gets decided this week will be etched in stone for the next 10 years. Read the LTPC's full policy analysis HERE. 

LATINO TEXAS POLICY CENTER 

MEDIA KIT Texas State Board of Education Social Studies TEKS Vote June 26, 2026

MEDIA CONTACT 

Natalie A. Sanchez-Lopez, M.P.P. Executive Director & CEO Latino Texas Policy Center Phone: 361-510-1365 Email: natalie@latinotexaspolicycenter.com Website: www.latinotexaspolicycenter.com

MEDIA ADVISORY 

What: Press Conference on the Hidden Financial Costs of the Proposed Texas Social Studies TEKS Revisions 

When: Monday, June 22, 2026 @ 10AM 

Where: Barbara Jordan State Office Building | 1601 N. Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas 78711 

Who Will Speak: 

• Natalie Sánchez-Lopez, Executive Director & CEO, Latino Texas Policy Center • Gustavo Reveles, Texas State Board of Education, District 1 • Marisa Perez-Diaz, Texas State Board of Education, District 3 • Zeph Capo, President, Texas AFT • Julia Brookins, American Historical Association 

Why: The State Board of Education is scheduled to take a final vote on June 26, 2026 regarding proposed K–12 Social Studies TEKS revisions. A new independent policy analysis commissioned by the Latino Texas Policy Center estimates implementation costs ranging from $811 million to more than $1.65 billion statewide. 

STORY AT-A-GLANCE 

Headline: New Analysis Finds Proposed Texas Social Studies Standards Could Cost Between $811 Million and $1.65 Billion 

Key News Peg: 

The Texas Education Agency's fiscal note states the proposed TEKS revisions will result in "no additional costs to the state." A new independent analysis finds substantial implementation costs would instead be borne by local school districts, taxpayers, educators, museums, and cultural institutions. 

Why This Matters: 

The proposed standards represent the most significant restructuring of Texas social studies curriculum in more than a decade. 

Major proposed changes include: 

• Moving Texas History from 4th grade to 8th grade • Replacing portions of existing World Cultures content • Introducing a new chronological K–8 history sequence • Integrating Biblical content throughout elementary grades • Requiring new instructional materials statewide 

POLICY ANALYSIS - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

The State Board of Education (SBOE) is undertaking a sweeping overhaul of social studies Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for all grades K–12. What will be the costs from the proposed changes? Latinos and allies rightly identify the cost as barriers to academic success and future adult opportunities – resulting from reductions in historical integrity and inclusivity (their contributions), and overall education quality. 

The Texas Education Agency (TEA), which claims no additional financial costs to the state, does not account for the full cascade of downstream implementation costs. Millions of unfunded education costs that will affect school districts, teacher preparation and historic sites and cultural institutions. 

Read full policy analysis HERE 

KEY FINDINGS 

Estimated Statewide Costs 

Instructional Materials: $314M–$479M 

District Curriculum Development: $135M–$430M 

Teacher Retraining: $73M–$154M 

Projected Social Studies $85M–$215M 

Bluebonnet Development: 

STAAR Assessment Redesign: $14M–$36M 

Historic Sites and Museums: $14M–$44M 

Teacher Attrition and Replacement: $38M–$77M 

Potential Litigation: $5M–$50M+ 

TOTAL ESTIMATED COST: $811 Million–$1.65 Billion+ 

TOP FIVE REPORTER ANGLES 

1. The Hidden Cost Story: TEA says implementation costs are effectively zero. Independent researchers estimate costs exceeding $1 billion. 

2. Texas History Leaves Elementary School:Texas History moves from 4th grade through 8th grade, potentially affecting student learning and cultural identity formation. 

3. Impact on Museums and Historic Sites: Organizations such as The Alamo and LBJ Library anticipate reduced visitation and costly program redesigns. 

4. Teacher Readiness: Approximately 77,000 social studies teachers would be expected to implement a framework for which no existing preparation pipeline currently exists. 

5. Church-State Questions: The integration of Biblical content raises constitutional questions that legal scholars warn could generate future litigation 

FAST FACTS 

★ 77,000 Texas social studies teachers affected 

★ More than 6.3 million students impacted 

★ 1,020 Texas school districts affected 

★ More than $103 million already spent on Bluebonnet Learning development 

★ More than 595 districts have adopted portions of Bluebonnet Learning 

★ Final SBOE adoption vote scheduled for June 26, 2026 

SUGGESTED INTERVIEW SOURCES 

Economic Impact on Texas & Latino Community Perspective 

Natalie Sanchez-Lopez Executive Director & CEO of the Latino Texas Policy Center 

Email: natalie@latinotexaspolicycenter.com | Ph. (361) 510-1365 

Policy and Fiscal Analysis: 

Christopher Carmona, PhD, Author of:The Hidden Financial Education Cost: Proposed Texas Social Studies TEKS Revisions 

Email: natalie@latinotexaspolicycenter.com | Ph. (956) 854-1717 

State Board of Education Perspectives 

Gustavo Reveles, Texas SBOE District 1 

Email: gustavo.reveles@sboe.texas.gov | Ph. (915) 256-3273 

Marisa Perez-Diaz, Texas SBOE District 3 

Email: marisa.perez@sboe.texas.gov | Ph. (512) 422-9019 

Teacher and Classroom Impact 

Zeph Capo, President, Texas American Federation of Teachers (Texas AFT) 

Email: zcapo@texasaft.org | Ph. (713) 670-4348 

Historical and Academic Analysis & Parent Perspective 

Julia Brookins, American Historical Association 

Email: jbrookins@historians.org | Ph. (773) 272-5209 

QUOTABLES 

"Before Texas commits to an untested curriculum restructuring, taxpayers deserve a complete and independent fiscal analysis." ~ Natalie Sanchez-Lopez 

"The state is telling Texans this overhaul is free. It is not. It simply moves the bill onto school districts, teachers, museums, and taxpayers." ~ Christopher Carmona, PhD 

KEY DATES 

June 22, 2026 SBOE Committee Hearing - Public Testimony 

June 22, 2026 @ 10:00 a.m. 

LTPC Press Conference @ Barbara Jordan Building 

June 26, 2026 State Board of Education - Final Adoption Vote 

ABOUT THE LATINO TEXAS POLICY CENTER 

The Latino Texas Policy Center is an independent, nonpartisan statewide policy organization dedicated to increasing Latino policymaking power through research, leadership development, coalition-building, and evidence-based policy solutions. LTPC focuses on education, economic mobility, civic participation, and long-term community wellbeing. 

www.latinotexaspolicycenter.com 

Read full policy analysis HERE 

What the Proposed Texas Middle School TEKS Leave Out About Indigenous Peoples, by The Social Studies Advocate

Friends,

I invite you to read this deeply concerning analysis published in The Social Studies Advocate on what the proposed Texas middle school social studies TEKS leave out about Indigenous peoples.

The piece documents serious omissions, biases, and erasures in the proposed grades 6–8 standards, including the absence of sustained attention to tribal sovereignty, the Doctrine of Discovery, boarding schools, allotment, the Indian Citizenship Act, the Indian Reorganization Act, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and the contemporary presence of Indigenous nations and communities in Texas. These are not minor gaps. They shape how generations of Texas students will understand land, history, law, citizenship, and the peoples who were here long before Texas existed.

The Texas State Board of Education is scheduled to meet June 22–26, 2026, and I understand that Texas Freedom Network and other organizations may be organizing public opposition to these omissions, biases, and erasures. I will keep you posted as the date draws nearer.

In the meantime, please read and share widely. Also consider following The Social Studies Advocate on Instagram. These proposed standards deserve careful public scrutiny before they become the law of Texas classrooms.

In solidarity,

Angela Valenzuela

What the Proposed Texas Middle School TEKS Leave Out About Indigenous Peoples

A review of the proposed grades 6–8 social studies standards reveals systematic gaps in the treatment of American Indian history

The Social Studies Advocate

Apr 20, 2026

When Texas school districts begin implementing the proposed 2026 social studies TEKS in the 2030–2031 school year, students across the state will receive their foundational understanding of Texas and American history in grades 6 through 8. What they learn in those three years, and what they don’t, will shape how they understand the land they live on, the government that serves them, and the people who were here long before the state existed.

The analysis below is based on critiques offered by Dr. Scott Langston, Ph.D., a religion scholar and Native American studies researcher who retired from Texas Christian University, where he served as the inaugural Native American Nations and Communities Liaison, reviewed a draft of the proposed middle school TEKS and produced a detailed written analysis. Langston is the author of Exodus through the Centuries (Wiley/Blackwell, 2006) and co-author of Being in Relation: Indigenous Peoples, the Land, and Texas Christian University, 1873–2023 (TCU Press, 2025). He has been quoted in the Dallas Morning News on the history of Indigenous peoples in North Texas, including on Mirabeau Lamar’s policy of “exterminating war” against Native nations. His analysis of the TEKS draft is thorough, specific, and grounded in Texas-specific historical scholarship.

After much debate at the SBOE meeting from April 7 to 10, and numerous amendments until early in the morning, the version that emerged from the most recent round of Work Group B revisions and SBOE amendments addresses essentially none of the concerns Langston raised. This piece summarizes his critique and compares it against what the current draft actually contains.

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The Structural Problem: American Indians as Historical Rather Than Contemporary

The most fundamental concern is not about any individual omission. It is about the cumulative effect of how American Indian peoples appear, and disappear, across the grades 6–8 curriculum. We are specifically looking at grades 6-8 because this is when students will learn the bulk of U.S. and Texas history, from 1800 to modern day.

In the proposed standards, Indigenous peoples are present in the early grades as part of the westward expansion narrative, appear briefly during the Texas frontier period, and then largely vanish. There is no sustained treatment of American Indians through the 20th century and into the present. This is not a minor gap but a structural failure: it leaves students with the impression that Indigenous peoples belong to the past, frozen somewhere in the 19th century, rather than existing as contemporary peoples with ongoing legal relationships with the state and federal government.

This matters because those relationships did not end in the 1850s. Three federally recognized tribes and several non-recognized tribes reside in Texas today. The period from the late 19th to the early 21st century saw significant developments and shifts in U.S. American Indian policy, including, boarding schools, allotment of reservations (especially the Dawes Act of 1887), Indian Reorganization Act (1934), termination of federal relationships with tribes, federal Relocation program, Indian Adoption project, Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), Indian Child Welfare Act (1978) and the challenge to it in Haaland v. Brackeen (2023), American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), and McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020). This curriculum removes and excludes American Indians from U.S. history. It is a major gap in the curriculum.

These are not distant historical footnotes. They are active legal and political realities with direct Texas connections, and they appear nowhere in the proposed standards.

The Doctrine of Discovery: The Missing Foundation

The most significant omission is the Doctrine of Discovery, and particularly the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1823 opinion in Johnson v. M’Intosh. The Doctrine of Discovery was set out in a series of declarations by popes in the 15th century. Papal bulls provided religious authority for Christian empires to invade and subjugate non‐Christian lands, and impose Christianity on these populations. These papal bulls provided justification to European empires embarking on widescale colonial expansion.

The proposed standards explicitly emphasize the importance of strong property rights and the free enterprise system as core values. What Johnson v. M’Intosh establishes, however, is the legal foundation upon which American property rights rest, a foundation that, as the Court itself acknowledged, derived from European claims of discovery and explicitly did not recognize Indigenous peoples as owners of the land they had occupied for millennia.

In other words, students are being taught that strong property rights are a cornerstone of the American system, without being taught the legal history that defines whose property rights were recognized and whose were not. Students cannot fully understand American property law, westward expansion, or the free enterprise system without knowing it.

The Doctrine of Discovery does not appear in the current draft. Neither does Johnson v. M’Intosh.

Tribal Sovereignty: A Constitutional Relationship, Unnamed

Closely related is another structural omission: the proposed TEKS never establish that American Indian tribes hold the status of sovereign nations in a government-to-government relationship with the United States, a status grounded in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution and affirmed repeatedly by the Supreme Court.

Throughout the grades 6–8 standards, Indigenous peoples are referred to as “communities” or “tribes,” but never as “nations” with the legal standing that word implies. This has practical consequences for how students understand Texas history. When settlers moved into Mexican Texas, they were entering the territory of American Indian nations. When the Republic of Texas claimed land, it was asserting ownership over territory those nations had occupied for centuries. When Mirabeau Lamar pursued his policy of expulsion and extermination, he was conducting a war against sovereign peoples. None of this context is available to students if they have not been taught that tribes hold recognized national status under U.S. law.

The proposed TEKS do require students to compare the presidencies of Lamar and Sam Houston, “including views on annexation, American Indians, and Mexico.” But Lamar’s own words, “total extinction” and “total expulsion,” are not named. The standard as written does not require students to understand what Lamar’s policy actually entailed.
Major Omissions by Grade

Grade 6 (1800-1900)

The massive disruptions to Indigenous peoples caused by the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, and Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act are not connected to their consequences for American Indian nations who were displaced into Texas, which then created the conditions for later conflicts during the Republic period. Students cannot understand why various non-indigenous tribes were present in Texas without this context.

Several experts raised flags over the wording of this SE: “explain how the Trail of Tears impacted tribal relations along the Northern border of Texas.” Despite the numerous amendments raised during the week of April 7, it remains unchanged. This language shifts the impact of Jackson’s policies from the impact of U.S. policies on indigenous nations, to tribal relations. Additionally, it omits the decision in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), which recognized Cherokee sovereignty and the unconstitutionality of state encroachment on tribal territory under federal treaties, a ruling that both Georgia and the Jackson administration refused to enforce, proceeding with removal regardless.

In the Civil War and Reconstruction unit, there is no mention of the participation of Indigenous peoples in the war, or of slavery’s distinct application to Indigenous peoples.

Most significantly, the standards covering the late 19th century, the closing of the frontier, the Gilded Age, contain no mention of boarding schools or forced allotment of reservation lands. This is inconceivable for any credible curriculum. The boarding school system, which operated from the 1870s through the mid-20th century, was one of the most deliberately destructive policies in American history toward Indigenous cultural survival. The Dawes Act of 1887 and the Supreme Court’s 1903 decision in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, which enabled the forced allotment of reservation lands over tribal objection, shaped the lives of Indigenous peoples for generations. The Dawes Act and boarding schools are taught in current U.S. history standards in 11th grade. Neither appears in the proposed standards, and it begs the question, why are these being removed?

Grade 7 (1900-2000)

Grade 7 covers the Progressive Era through the early 21st century. Among the many topics covered across more than a century of American history, there is not a single mention of American Indian peoples in the course introduction. The standards move from the 1890s to the present as though Indigenous peoples ceased to exist at the close of the frontier.

The specific omissions are extensive. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 is absent. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which restructured the relationship between the federal government and tribal governments and remains foundational to understanding tribal governance today, is absent. The Termination policy of the 1950s, which ended the federal relationship with some tribes and proved devastating, is absent.

The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 is absent, despite the fact that Dallas was designated as a federal relocation center, bringing thousands of American Indians to North Texas over several decades. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 are all absent.

The Grade 7 standards do include the American Indian Movement and the Wounded Knee Occupation in the Civil Rights era section. However, the inclusion is decontextualized without the broader Red Power movement, the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, or the legislative achievements of the 1970s that were the movement’s most significant outcomes.

Grade 8 (Capstone Texas History Course)

In Grade 8 the omissions carry particular weight because this is where students are expected to develop a comprehensive understanding of the state’s past.

The course introduction refers to “the earliest human presence” in Texas without naming American Indians specifically, a terminological choice that obscures the millennia-long Indigenous presence in the region. Similarly, the use of “prehistoric” to describe ancient Indigenous cultures carries connotations of primitiveness that “ancient” would not.

The Gault Site, one of the most significant archaeological sites in North America for understanding early human presence on the continent, is not mentioned. Caddo Mounds State Historical Site, a Texas State Historical Commission site that documents the sophisticated culture of the Caddo people, is not mentioned.

The Grade 8 standards do include coverage of conflicts between the Republic of Texas and American Indian groups, including Fort Parker, the Council House Fight, and the Battle of Neches. But the framing does not require students to understand these events as Indigenous peoples defending their homelands and legal standing as nations.

The standards covering the Civil Rights era in Texas contain no mention of American Indians. The Indian Relocation Act’s connection to Dallas is absent. The contemporary Texas section, which closes the course, does not address the three federally recognized tribes currently residing

in Texas, the ongoing legal and cultural work of non-federally recognized tribes, or the existence of American Indians as contemporary peoples with active civic and economic lives.

Why This Matters Beyond Representation

The proposed TEKS emphasize the free enterprise system, strong property rights, and the foundational importance of constitutional law. Students cannot fully understand any of these things without understanding the Doctrine of Discovery, Johnson v. M’Intosh, the federal Indian trust responsibility, and tribal sovereignty. These are not alternative or oppositional values. They are part of the same legal and constitutional framework the TEKS claim to be teaching.

A curriculum that teaches strong property rights without teaching the legal history of whose property rights were recognized, and whose were not, by design, is an incomplete curriculum. A curriculum that teaches the U.S. Constitution without teaching the government-to-government relationships it established with tribal nations is an incomplete curriculum. These are not ideological claims. They are observations about what the documents say.

What You Can Do

The proposed TEKS are still subject to revision before final adoption. We remain concerned about the undisclosed financial relationship between Content Advisor Don Frazier’s Texas Center at Schreiner University and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, including the $70,000 in TPPF funding to that center, and what it means for the independence of this revision process. The standards as proposed reflect a consistent ideological perspective that raises legitimate questions about whether Texan students are receiving history education or something closer to political formation.

If you want to weigh in on these standards, you can:

Contact the legislature and demand oversight into the process as a whole. It has been rushed and the input of stakeholders, including experts and educators, has been significantly curtailed while politically motivated interest groups have had an outsized influence. Specifically reach out to members of the Senate Education Committee and House Public Education Committee, James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa. Ask them to pause this process and conduct a review of the connection between TPPF and Don Frazier.

Contact all the SBOE representative directly. Write or call with specific concerns about the treatment of American Indian history in the proposed grades 6–8 standards.

The most up-to-date drafts from the April Board meeting will be posted at least 30 days before the next SBOE meeting June 22 (so by mid-May). Submit written public comment to the SBOE ahead of upcoming hearings. Specific, evidence-based comments citing the standards by section number carry the most weight.

Share this analysis with educators, school board members, and community members who may not be following the TEKS revision process closely.

The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills are not just a list of topics. They are a set of decisions about what Texas students are expected to know and be able to do. The decisions embedded in the current draft, including what has been left out, deserve careful public scrutiny before they become the law of Texas classrooms.

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This analysis draws on Dr. Scott Langston’s written review of the proposed middle school TEKS and on the post-April 2026 draft of the proposed standards (Attachment II, Chapter 113, Subchapter B).