Teaching Texas' 5.5 Million Children—While Avoiding Who They Are, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Teaching Texas' 5.5 Million Children—While Avoiding Who They Are

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

December 31, 2025

What is arguably already taking shape in Texas is an “avoidance curriculum”—one that seeks to evade the difficult truths of history by structuring out critical discourse, critical thought and, as a consequence, pedagogy itself. This reality begs a deeper question: Why do far-right conservatives exhibit such deep-seated shame about their own history—history that, in truth, belongs to all of us? And why must everyone else—most especially our public school children and youth—bear the consequences of this willful ignorance through a curriculum that avoids, rather than confronts, the complexities and painful truths of that history?

Reporting by Isaac Yu in the Austin American-Statesman on December 30 underscores a familiar and troubling pattern in Texas education policy: once again, communities of color and women risk being sidelined in the stories our children are taught to value. As the state undertakes a sweeping rewrite of its social studies standards—standards that will shape lesson plans, textbooks, and assessments for 5.5 million students—the process has become mired in political conflict over slavery, civil rights, Indigenous histories, and whose experiences are deemed central.

The rewrite is being steered primarily by the Texas State Board of Education, with support from the Texas Education Agency under Commissioner Mike Morath. Yet the advisory structure raises red flags: among nine content advisors, only one appears to have experience in Texas public schools, while several are conservative activists. Hence, not at all diverse. This imbalance matters because it produces predictable gaps, silences, and biases in what is included—and excluded—from the curriculum. Curriculum decisions are never neutral; they reflect values, power, and determinations about whose knowledge is considered legitimate.

Early signals from the new “comprehensive” framework suggest a narrowing of perspective—boosting Texas history while eliminating standalone world cultures courses and delaying sustained engagement with nonwhite histories until later grades. As Yu's story recounts, SBOE member Staci Childs poignantly asks, when do students who “look like me” get to see themselves in the curriculum?

Sadly, this shouldn't even be a question in the first place. That said, representation of women and people of color in the curriculum is the central question, especially considering Texas' rapidly changing demographics, as reported by the Texas Education Agency (2024).

Source: 2024 Annual Report - Student Demographics, Texas Education

Agency.

Of the roughly 5.5 million children enrolled in Texas public schools, the majority are students of color. According to the most recent enrollment data from the Texas Education Agency, Latina/o/x students make up just over half of the total population—about 53 percent, or approximately 2.9 million children. This makes Latina/o/x students not only the largest racial or ethnic group in Texas schools, but the "demographic center" of the system, if you will.

White students account for about 24 percent of public school enrollment, totaling roughly 1.3 million students. Black students represent about 13 percent, or approximately 720,000 children statewide. Asian students make up about 5 percent of enrollment, numbering roughly 275,000 students. Native American (American Indian/Alaska Native) students comprise less than 1 percent of the total—close to 55,000 children across the state.

In other words, nearly three out of every four students in Texas public schools are students of color. This demographic reality stands in sharp contrast to ongoing curriculum debates that risk narrowing historical representation, raising fundamental questions about whose histories, identities, and contributions are centered—and whose are deferred or diminished—in the education of Texas’ children.

Texas has time—final standards are slated for classrooms in 2030—but time alone will not ensure equity. Representation is not an add-on. It is foundational to civic understanding and belonging. If this rewrite proceeds without meaningful inclusion of scholars, teachers, and communities who reflect Texas’ full diversity, we risk entrenching an avoidance curriculum that tells far too many students that their histories—and by extension, their lives—do not actually matter in the story of our nation’s grand American narrative.

Texas is overhauling what students will learn in social studies and history. Here's what to know

By Isaac Yu,Staff WriterDec 30, 2025

People demonstrate Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, at the William B. Travis Building in Austin over the need for expansive and diverse social studies curriculum.William Luther, Staff Photographer / Staff photographer

A rewrite of Texas’ social studies curriculum is underway, with lawmakers, teachers and history enthusiasts at odds over exactly how to present the history of Texas and the United States to the state’s 5.5 million public school students. 

State education officials regularly review and revamp standards for all subjects. But the social studies rewrite in particular has become a thorny political process, with lawmakers clashing over the portrayal of slavery, civil rights, Indigenous people, the Alamo and other subjects. 

READ MORE: Texas SBOE backs far-right plan to deemphasize world history, cultures

The process will ultimately result in new state standards, known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, which form the basis of classroom teachers’ lesson plans, future textbook editions and the new iteration of the standardized STAAR test. 

Here’s what you need to know:

Who is writing the new curriculum?

The task of rewriting the curriculum is largely delegated to the 15-member State Board of Education, whose members are elected by voters. Currently, the board is made up of 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats. The Texas Education Agency, led by Commissioner Mike Morath, also provides assistance.

Teachers, educators, and members of the public from across Texas are also asked to provide input through several working groups convened by TEA, though those have yet to be formed.

READ MORE: Inside the 'power struggle' that led to former Alamo CEO Kate Rogers' ouster

State board members have also appointed nine content advisors to help guide the curriculum. They include several conservative Christian activists as well as the recently-ousted CEO of the Alamo Trust. Only one of the nine advisors appears to have experience working in a Texas public school.

Once the work groups form a draft curriculum, which is expected in January, the state board of education has a chance to amend and debate it before providing final sign-off in June. 

Why is Texas' social studies curriculum being overhauled now?

All state standards are reviewed by the State Board approximately every 15 to 20 years. The reviews can result in small or significant revisions.

The social studies standards were last scheduled to be reviewed in 2022. Working groups met over the course of nearly a year to draft the new state standards.

READ MORE: State board scraps new Texas social studies guidelines as critics decry ‘wokeness,’ LGBT themes

But once the drafts reached the state board, members began clashing over certain hot-button topics, with the most conservative members claiming the curriculum had been infused with “wokeness” and LGBT themes. 

Those tensions derailed the negotiations, and the board ultimately scrapped the drafts and voted to start fresh three years later. 

What changes are being made?

The state board has not yet released draft curriculum. But earlier this year, members agreed to a new framework that will determine which broad topics are introduced for grades 3-8. 

The new framework, known as the “comprehensive” model, introduces a novel chronological approach to history and signals that the process will result in drastically different new standards. The model, favored by conservatives on the board, boosts the proportion of Texas history, and removes standalone world cultures courses. Third grade will now begin with “birth of Western civilizations” and eighth grade will become a Texas history-only capstone course. 

Democrats on the board say the new framework reduces representation, will be more difficult for teachers to explain and delays lessons about nonwhite people to later grades.

“Looking at this storytelling thing, when do people that look like me, get to learn about themselves before the fifth grade?” said Staci Childs, D-Houston, pointing to herself and other Black or Hispanic members of the board. 

The standards are also being revised to align with recently-passed state law that requires students to be taught about the perils of communism.

The law says students must learn about "atrocities attributable to communist regimes," including the Cambodian genocide, guerilla movements in Latin America and the "oppression and suffering experienced by people living under communist regimes." The lessons must also touch on modern threats posed to the U.S. and its allies by communist regimes and ideologies. 

When will the new curriculum take effect?

The full standards will enter classrooms in the fall of 2030, according to the board’s most recently-approved timeline. They will apply to both traditional public and open-enrollment charter schools. 

The communism provisions, however, were written by lawmakers outside of the typical review cycle and will be incorporated during the 2026-2027 school year. 

Dec 30, 2025

Isaac Yu

ReporterOriginally from Garland, Texas, Isaac Yu is a politics reporter based in Austin. He previously wrote for the Texas Tribune, Wall Street Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached at isaac.yu@hearst.com.

The Texas SBOE is Considering PragerU’s "Avoidance Curriculum": It's a Whitewashing of an Already Whitewashed Curriculum

PragerU is neither a certified, nor university- or research-based curriculum, much less a university. It's an organization founded by Dennis Prager, a conservative radio host, that produces conservative content on politics and society that you can learn more about in this piece by Robert McCoy in The Progressive.

This brief recounting of what it contains is a bright, neon warning sign of an agenda for right-wing dogma, lies, distortions, and indoctrination by via "selective omissions and mythologizing, molding the historical figures depicted into vehicles for rightwing messaging and cudgels in the modern conservative culture war." 

Geez, it's a whitewashing of an already whitewashed curriculum. Check out, for example, this May 3, 2023 piece by Austin American-Statesman's columnist Bridget Grumet titled, Grumet: Protests are a part of U.S. history. What story will Texas' textbooks tell?

If anything, PragerU amounts to an "avoidance curriculum," that seeks to avoid the difficult truths of history by structuring out critical discourse, thought, and pedagogy itself. This, of course, begs the question of why far-right conservatives have such a deep-seated shame of their own history? And why is it that everybody else—most particularly our public school children and youth—have to pay the price of not just their willful ignorance, but for a curriculum that they themselves did not receive.

Although the SBOE Agenda for their November meeting has not yet been posted (see SBOE website for prior agendas), one of its members told me to look out for the SBOE's consideration of PragerU at its November 14-17 meeting of the board. We must not allow this organization any access as a vendor to Texas public schools. 

-Angela Valenzuela

PragerU’s Propaganda Is Now Being Taught in Schools

The media group was just approved to spread its brand of historical disinformation to classrooms in Florida, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire.

Dennis Prager,Gage Skidmore

September 23, 2023 Robert McCoy  THE PROGRESSIVE

In 2022, the conservative media organization PragerU launched PragerU Kids, an online video series intended for K-12 students as a purported antidote to leftwing indoctrination in schools. “Woke agendas are infiltrating classrooms, culture, and social media,” PragerU’s website says. “Is there anywhere that’s still safe for our children? Yes! It’s called PragerU Kids.”

This summer, Florida’s Department of Education approved the organization’s videos for use, “at district discretion,” as supplemental material in K-6 classrooms—perhaps an unsurprising decision from a state that is currently waging a war on “woke indoctrination” (read: instruction about race and sexual orientation) in public schools. Although Florida was the first to do so, at the time, PragerU told Fox News that “[m]ore states are coming on board.” Indeed, it has since been reported that New Hampshire followed suit, with its board of education approving PragerU as an educational vendor for a financial literacy course on September 14. Oklahoma has now also announced a partnership with PragerU Kids to develop an Oklahoma-specific history curriculum.

Among the material now greenlit in Florida and Oklahoma is Leo and Layla’s History Adventures, a cartoon program intended for third through fifth graders. The series follows the titular protagonists, a brother and sister, as they time travel to seek the advice of historical figures on developments within their school, community, and social circle. Most episodes follow an encounter between Leo and Layla and a renowned figure from the past, who offers the show’s young viewers “lessons that teach the truth about Western civilization.”

But Leo and Layla falls far short of these lofty aims, as PragerU Kids appears less keen on creating a program that offers an honest glimpse into the past than on warping it with selective omissions and mythologizing, molding the historical figures depicted into vehicles for rightwing messaging and cudgels in the modern conservative culture war.

In one episode, for instance, while watching the news, Leo and Layla hear about local police abolitionists who “want the U.S. system torn down.” To learn more about “abolition,” they time travel to 1852 to meet Fredrick Douglass, who recounts his disagreements with fellow abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and teaches the siblings the virtues of compromise. Garrison, PragerU’s Douglass says, “refuses all compromises, demands immediate change, and if he doesn’t get what he wants, he likes to set things on fire.”

“We’ve got that type in our time, too,” Leo and Layla interject, and Douglass admonishes them to avoid “radicals” like his ex-friend Garrison, heeding only those “willing to work inside our system.”

The video creates an impression of Fredrick Douglass as a staunch anti-radical, committed to combating injustices only within the bounds of the “system.” But nothing could be further from the truth. While PragerU describes Douglass’s falling out with Garrison, it curiously fails to mention his friendship with John Brown, who influenced Douglass to look beyond mere moral suasion as a means to oppose slavery.

From his first meeting with Brown in 1847 onward, Douglass would later write, “my utterances became tinged by the color of this man’s strong impressions.” In 1849, Douglass said he would “welcome the intelligence tomorrow” that a slave revolt was sweeping the South, and, in 1852, the year in which Leo and Layla’s fictional visit is set, Douglass told a Pittsburgh crowd, “The only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter is to make half a dozen or more dead kidnappers.” In other words, Douglass’s political views at the time were practically the opposite of those in his PragerU portrayal.

In another Leo and Layla episode, the siblings consult Benjamin Franklin during his tenure as ambassador to France on the notion of “the American dream.” The diplomat tells the children that, in 1780s France, most people are “stuck doing the same thing their entire lives” due to hereditary titles within the ancien régime; across the Atlantic in America, however, “individual citizens determine the outcome of their lives.” When Layla notes that, despite the absence of a monarchy or nobility in the United States, some are still “born into better situations than others,” Franklin holds that “the natural outcome from equal opportunity” is that “some will always have less and some will always have more.”

Notably, however, PragerU’s rendition of Franklin fails to address Layla’s observation: that true equality of opportunity has yet to be achieved in the United States, where the playing field is stacked against those born into less wealth. Surely, in reality, Franklin, who held some fascinating ideas about the public’s right to regulate “superfluous” private wealth and inheritance—going so far as to propose amending Pennsylvania’s constitution so the state could “discourage” the “enormous Proportion of Property vested in a few Individuals”—would have offered a more thoughtful response.

In perhaps the most controversial episode of the series, the children seek clarification about the contested legacy of Christopher Columbus from none other but the Genoese navigator himself. When the young time travelers question the cartoon Columbus about his brutal enslavement of Native Americans, he shrugs off the charge. Slavery is “as old as time” and “better than being killed,” he says, before asking, “how can you come here to the fifteenth century and judge me by your standards from the twenty-first century?”

The episode overlooks the fact that, even among his contemporaries, Columbus was regarded as a ruthless tyrant. On Hispaniola, a governership marked by maiming and torture of Spanish colonists led Columbus to be removed from his post and arrested by the Spanish monarchy. “Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place,” Spanish historian Consuelo Varela told The Guardian after colonial testimonies about Columbus’s reign came to light in the early 2000s. This is not even to mention, of course, the well-documented horrors he wrought on the Native American population, whose perspective PragerU presumably felt was not worth including in the Leo and Layla episode.

The series, at times, blurs the line between history instruction and religious proselytizing, with some episodes dedicated to Biblical figures like Moses and to other religious figures like Mother Teresa.

A similar saintly glow is painted around Ronald Reagan, who extols the virtues of Reaganomics in the first Leo and Layla episode. “You’re amazing Mr. Reagan! You saved everyone’s lives and made them better at the same time,” Leo decisively exclaims: a statement that only holds true if one’s definition of “everyone” excludes those impacted by the Reagan Administration’s union busting, mishandling of the AIDS crisis, brutal foreign policy in Central America, and those for whom the benefits of “trickle-down” tax cuts for the wealthy never trickled down, to name a few who might object to Leo’s sentiment.


While Leo and Layla is a show about history, or at least PragerU’s version of it, an entire episode is dedicated to smearing renewable energy—flying in the face of both the cartoon’s typical format and the scientific consensus. Rather than time traveling to meet a historical figure, Leo and Layla teleport to meet their uncle, a fictional environmental scientist, at a windmill farm. The siblings are told that they have been misled about solar and wind power, which, he says, actually damages the environment. “Look around you,” their uncle says, gesturing to the surrounding windmills, “does this look natural to you?” This unfounded message becomes explicable—but no less troubling—when one considers that PragerU is a notorious purveyor of climate denial, which was propelled in no small part by the funding of fracking industry billionaires.

When the news broke that Florida had approved PragerU as an educational vendor, Marissa Streit, the CEO of the rightwing media organization, told WESH, “We want our kids to accomplish academic excellence without it being laced with political narratives. Kids should be learning without being indoctrinated with left-wing propaganda.”

But PragerU’s founder and namesake, Dennis Prager, embraces characterizations of the group’s content as indoctrination. At this year’s Moms for Liberty summit, the Miami Herald reports, Prager conceded that accusations of “indoctrinat[ing] kids” are “true,” saying, “We bring doctrines to children. That’s a very fair statement. But what is the bad of our indoctrination?”

The effort to introduce PragerU content into public schools highlights what media critic Eric Alterman once observed as a conservative propensity to “work the ref”—or, accuse neutral institutions of harboring a leftwing bias in order to push that institution to the right. In this case, PragerU’s “anti-woke” Republican proponents seek not only to scrub schools of what they (falsely) deem pernicious leftist influences—which is troubling enough in itself—but also to teach rightwing dogma. As a result, this coming school year, students could potentially be taught junk history like Leo and Layla rather than material that engenders actual engagement with the reality and complexity of the past.

That, to answer Dennis Prager, is “the bad” of PragerU’s “indoctrination.”

Robert McCoy is a former editorial intern at The Progressive.

A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good! Since 1909, The Progressive magazine has aimed to amplify voices of dissent and voices under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of championing grassroots progressive politics.

"Anti-Woke" or "Avoidance" Curriculum? Protests are a part of U.S. history. What story will Texas' textbooks tell?

Under the auspices of taking down "woke curriculum," House Bill 1804, covered by Bridget Grumet in today's Austin American-Statesman, amounts to a serious whitewashing and micromanaging of a public school curriculum that is already whitewashed. This bill clearly reflects the continuing politics over CRT from the from the 2021 legislative session.  The Rs are milking this for every last drop to establish, if you will, an "avoidance curriculum," that seeks to muzzle critical discourse, pedagogy, and thought.

If this were otherwise, we, in the Ethnic Studies community would not have been advocating all these years for Ethnic Studies—meaning Mexican American, African American, Asian American, and Native American Studies. What we should be doing instead is advocating for Morales' HB 45 that creates a pathway to a high school diploma via the taking of Ethnic Studies courses.

I love this meme that is so appropriate to the politics of this moment:

"Imagine, if you will, a country so ashamed of its history that it punishes people for teaching that history."

Imagine that. Legislators should consider taking an Ethnic Studies or sociocultural course so that they can see how they themselves benefit from a broadened, expansive view of the world. Anything short of a more inclusive, critical curriculum that tells it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—reflects a deep-seated shame that they themselves have of their own history. Still, the rest of us shouldn't have to pay the price of their willful ignorance.

-Angela Valenzuela

Grumet: Protests are a part of U.S. history. What story will Texas' textbooks tell?

Bridget Grumet

Austin American-Statesman

Writing letters and asking nicely hadn’t worked.

So on a warm March day in 1990, Maria R. Palacios joined the dozens of people who left their wheelchairs and crutches at the base of the U.S. Capitol, then crawled up the 83 stone steps toward the building where the Americans with Disabilities Act was stalled.

The next day, Palacios watched as about 100 of her fellow protesters, some of them in wheelchairs linked together in chains, were arrested for refusing to leave the Capitol Rotunda — a pressure campaign that helped push Congress to finally pass the landmark civil rights legislation for people with disabilities.

“When we talk about the importance of civil disobedience, we’re talking about survival,” Palacios, who lives in Houston, told me by phone this week. “At some point, when we have had enough, that is when we pour out into the streets, and we are willing to sacrifice, and we put our bodies on the line.”

I don’t know how you tell that story without appreciation for the activists or the righteousness of their cause. But that is what a proposed measure in the Texas House would require.

House Bill 1804, aiming to rein in what critics have called a “woke” curriculum, says textbooks “may not include selections or works that condone civil disorder, social strife, or disregard for the law.”

“Condone” is a loaded word. American history turns on moments in which protesters have stood up against some form of injustice, using civil disobedience, a decision to violate certain laws, to make a point. Is it “condoning” their tactics to note when they succeeded? Should teachers and textbooks be neutral about the discrimination that demonstrators sought to end? Is the key takeaway from their experience the trespassing arrest?

The greater concern is that some threads of history will become so politically charged (and legally fraught) that teachers might simply avoid them.

“It’s erasing history,” Palacios said, as I told her about the bill. “They don't have the right to erase history.”

(Indeed, this issue isn't solely about history. On Tuesday afternoon, troopers cleared out scores of chanting protesters from the Texas Capitol, at least one of them in handcuffs, as lawmakers considered a measure banning gender-affirming medical care for youth.)

Rep. Terri Leo-Wilson, a first-year GOP lawmaker from Galveston, did not respond to my request to discuss her bill. In a statement to the Dallas Observer last week, however, she said, “What HB 1804 requires is that when acts of civil disobedience are covered in materials it is noted when those movements have used illegal means to accomplish their purpose.”

Fears of ‘creating social justice warriors’

Though HB 1804 has a deep bench of supporters — five authors and 50 co-authors — it’s still pending in committee.

This sweeping bill touches many aspects of education. It would require science textbooks to “clearly” distinguish scientific theory from fact. It would also require any materials discussing America to “present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage.” (It’s unclear how much information about our nation’s shortcomings would be allowed.)

The committee substitute version of the bill drew attention last week for adding language that would ban content on sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual activity from any instructional materials used before high school.

Texas needs to “instruct students in math, science (and) other subjects in an objective manner, and not spend a high amount of time and resources on creating social justice warriors,” Jonathan Covey, policy director for Texas Values, told the House Public Education Committee last month.

I agree that it’s not the job of schools to create activists (and I haven’t seen any evidence they are). But textbooks should not tiptoe around the role that civil disobedience played in our history, either.

Touchstones like the Boston Tea Party and the civil rights movement would remain in some form, I’d imagine. But what about other movements, such as those for disabled access?

“Rosa Parks was asked to move to the back of the bus,” Palacios said. “Disabled people, even to this day, continue to fight for the chance to get on the bus.”

On basic rights, there’s no counterpoint

The Coalition of Texans with Disabilities has raised concerns that HB 1804 “would block the factual teaching of the disability rights movement in public schools,” alongside other civil rights movements.

J Canciglia, an advocate with the coalition, pointed to a long history of protests: Disabled activists shutting down New York City traffic on Madison Avenue in 1972. Protesters holding sit-ins at government buildings in 1977. And, of course, the demonstrations culminating in the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

At the same time, HB 1804 says instructional materials must “present contrasting points of view regarding significant political or social movements in history in a balanced and factual manner.”

One would hope we’re not still debating whether people deserve basic human rights. The cost of accommodations for those who are disabled is hardly a counterpoint.

“Students with disabilities deserve access to the works of these key historical figures within the movement,” Canciglia told the House Public Education Committee. “They also deserve to be free of ‘contrasting views’ regarding the acquisition of their rights.”

A fair presentation of history shouldn’t strip out the advocacy and even civil disobedience that led to change. The next generation of Texans should be able to find their origin stories in our history books, and that includes people who have struggled in numerous ways to be recognized and treated with respect.

And what about those who are fortunate enough to live without the sting of discrimination? They need to learn the history, too.

“It’s because of the other people who have been on the frontlines of activism, it's because of the people who put their bodies on the line and whose lives have been risked — it’s because of those people that you’re able to say, ‘Well, I have not been oppressed,’” Palacios said. “I say to them, ‘You’re welcome.’”

Grumet is the Statesman’s Metro columnist. Her column, ATX in Context, contains her opinions. Share yours via email at bgrumet@statesman.com or via Twitter at @bgrumet. Find her previous work at statesman.com/news/columns.

Welcome to the "Culture Wars" 8 States Debate Bills to Restrict How Teachers Discuss Racism, Sexism

Although this piece fails to mention Texas, much less House Bill 3979 that just moved out of the Texas Senate early this morning, that's on its way to the Governor Abbott's desk, this piece succeeds in exposing this broader Trumpian agenda as follows:

"The language outlining 'divisive concepts' in the proposed legislation copies sections of Trump’s executive order from September of last year, which banned federal trainings designed to confront racism, sexism, and bias. President Joe Biden has since rescinded that order."

In Texas, as elsewhere, these laws which are largely unenforceable, will
nevertheless have a chilling effect on the teaching of racism, sexism, and systemic oppression in many of our nation's schools. When we know that one cannot teach not only U.S. history, but the U.S. Constitution itself, without addressing our country's racist past, all these bills are doing is whitewashing curriculum, even as they both exemplify and codify white fragility through what a local activist amply termed, "an avoidance curriculum."

Help yourselves, if you like, to last night's entire Texas Senate floor debate at this link that you can locate at 1:33:21 on the meter.

Welcome to the so-called "culture wars," my friends, an old, much-used trope. The whitewashing of curriculum is what you do when you seek to foment anger and distrust toward minorities and progressives as a means to hold onto your political incumbency because you lack either will or imagination to actually serve the people. And geez, do we have needs.

-Angela Valenzuela

#EndWhiteSupremacy

8 States Debate Bills to Restrict How Teachers Discuss Racism, Sexism


By Sarah Schwartz — April 15, 2021

Lawmakers in eight states have introduced legislation that may make it harder for teachers to talk about racism, sexism, and bias in the classroom.

Over the past few months, Republican legislators in Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and West Virginia have drafted bills that would ban the teaching of what they deem “divisive” or “racist and sexist” concepts. The bills use similar language as an executive order former President Donald Trump put in place to ban diversity trainings for federal workers.

Some of these new bills also aim to put restrictions on workplaces or state contractors. All of the legislation uses similar phrasing in listing topics that would be off-limits to teach, including:That one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;

That the U.S. or specific states are fundamentally racist or sexist;
That individuals, because of their race or sex, are inherently oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;

That individuals bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by members of their same race or sex;

That anyone should feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex

The language outlining “divisive concepts” in the proposed legislation copies sections of Trump’s executive order from September of last year, which banned federal trainings designed to confront racism, sexism, and bias. President Joe Biden has since rescinded that order.

Several of these bills have stalled or died in committee—in New Hampshire, where the legislation has been tabled, the state’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter has argued that it would violate First Amendment rights. In other states, though, the proposals are moving through the legislature.

In Idaho, the issue has derailed budget negotiations. House Republicans refused to fund the teacher salaries budget unless a provision was added prohibiting schools from advocating for social justice education, citing inaction on a separate “racist and sexist concepts” bill, according to Idaho Ed News.

The Iowa bill passed the state Senate in March, and has already paused state efforts to discuss race in schools. The Iowa Department of Education recently postponed a conference on social justice and equity in education, originally scheduled for April, in response to the bill, Iowa Public Radio reported.

“We are mindful of pending legislation that may impact the delivery and content of certain topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion and postponing the conference will ensure the Department and Iowa’s educators are best positioned to comply with any legislation,” an event page for the conference reads. The statement notes that the department will plan to hold a conference in the fall.

These bills come at the same time some states have taken other steps to limit the ways in which racism, sexism, and inequity are discussed in schools. In North Carolina, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, has formed a task force dedicated to “exposing indoctrination in the classroom,” asking parents to report lessons. Idaho’s lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, also a Republican, recently announced that she would form a similar task force.

And earlier this year, lawmakers in several states pushed to ban schools from teaching curriculum designed around the 1619 Project, a New York Times series that aims to reframe United States history by putting the legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at its center.

“Right now, we’re in a moment where terms like systemic racism aren’t only used at universities, or among people who talk about race. These are commonly used terms now. So we see a little shifting of the tide of what people understand racism to be,” said Kristen E. Duncan, an assistant professor of secondary social studies education at Clemson University. “Making schools a place where students would not learn about it that at all is kind of an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle.”

Waves of pushback can be expected when calls for social change include curriculum, said Andrew Hartman, a professor of history at Illinois State University, who has written a book about the history of the culture wars in American schools.

“When there are social movements pushing for justice in terms of race, and sexuality, and gender, these movements are going to generate a lot of controversy,” he said. “Conservatives are going to push back however they can. And if they control state legislatures, that’s a good way to do it.”
Bills’ sponsors say they oppose critical race theory

Legislators who have drafted these bills say they hope to prevent critical race theory from being taught in schools.

Critical race theory is an academic practice, a way of examining U.S. society that acknowledges how racism has driven and continues to drive inequity. Legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Alan Freeman, first developed the field. In the decades since, the framework has also been used to study education system, examining school segregation, and inequities in instruction, assessment, and school funding.

“It’s an approach to grappling with a history of white supremacy that rejects the belief that what’s in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it,” Crenshaw told TIME in September of last year.

Patricia Morgan, a Republican in Rhode Island who proposed the state’s divisive concepts bill, called critical race theory “a divisive, destructive, poisonous ideology” that encourages people to judge each other by the color of their skin.

“It makes white males oppressors ... and it makes everyone else the victims,” she said in an interview with Education Week.

But Adrienne Dixson, a professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois who has edited several books on critical race theory in education, said that these lawmakers “completely misunderstand” what the practice is.

“Critical race theorists would say, absolutely, that people shouldn’t be discriminated against by virtue of their race or sex. We don’t locate individuals as responsible for structural racism,” Dixson said. Instead, she said, scholars acknowledge that racism informed the country’s founding principles, and that some groups have to “agitate and organize and demand and protest” to secure rights.

“I think in a sense, they’re setting up strawmen, and claiming that things are happening [in the classroom] that I think are not happening,” Maureen Costello, the executive director of the Center for Antiracist Education, said of the legislators proposing these bills.

For example, teaching about the legacy of slavery and its far-reaching impact on the United States today is “not about assigning blame to the students in front of you,” Costello said. “It’s actually about inspiring them to do better in their lives.”

Decades of scholarship and testimony from people of color have long demonstrated the persistent racial bias and inequities that exist in the U.S., from education to medical care to housing. Still, some legislators reject the idea that racism and sexism are still forces that shape American society, and don’t want teachers telling this to students.

“What inequities do we deal with today? Everybody has equal opportunity,” said state Sen. Rick Brattin, who sponsored the Missouri bill.

“We’re a nation ... of equal opportunity for people to prosper or not prosper. To say that everyone should have equity in property and all things, that’s the antithesis of America. That’s socialism,” Brattin said.
Proposed legislation could have a chilling effect on teachers

This is hardly the first time that states or school boards have aimed to stop the teaching of certain subjects or ideas, said Hartman.

From the 1920s through the 1950s, Southern states led successful efforts to ban instruction in evolutionary biology. In the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, state legislators and local school boards tried to prevent teachers from examining capitalism through a critical lens, or prevented teaching about socialism or communism at all, he said.

Still, Hartman said, it’s hard to imagine how “divisive concepts” legislation would be practically enforced, or that states would take the measures to do so. But any laws passed on this issue could still have a chilling effect on teachers, he said, if parents take it upon themselves to enforce them.

“This bill is very intentional in its approach to shut down equity work in districts. I think they can sugarcoat it however they want. That is what the bill is intended to do,” said Jenny Risner, the superintendent of Ames Community School District in Ames, Iowa.

Leaders in the district, which participated in the national Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action in February as part of its ongoing equity work, were asked to speak in front of the state’s House Oversight Committee after parents brought concerns to lawmakers. Goals for the week included supporting all students to feel affirmed at school; examining how the voices, accomplishments, and successes of Black people were represented in curriculum; and questioning whether any district instructional practices prevented students from bringing their “whole selves” to school.

Anthony Jones, the district’s director of equity, is concerned about how state leaders might decide what is or is not “divisive,” potentially shutting down lessons that could lead to productive change.

“When we’re having conversations about things that we’re unaware of or even uncomfortable with, we need to lean into that so we can learn,” Jones said.