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 

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.

Moving Moccasins group brings Native American artists into schools and classrooms, https://austinpowwow.net/great-promise-dancers/

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.

Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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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).

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Time: 9:30am – 11:00am

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

Room Assignment:  Ground floor room G-100B

Registration:  Social Studies TEKS Review: Information Session Registration.

 

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

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

With respect and solidarity,

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

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

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

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

"White Backlash Is A Type Of Racial Reckoning, Too," By Hakeem Jefferson and Victor Ray | FiveThirtyEight

This piece by Hakeem Jefferson and Victor Ray is a bit disheartening, but real, capturing quite well the this moment we find ourselves in of white ethnonationalist backlash and retrenchment. 

Here is where a full accounting of history is much-needed in our state curriculum and public schools, yet this is also what sits at the crosshairs of right-wing, ethnonationalist public policy enthusiasts. In the meantime, if you're in Texas, advocates for teaching the truth need to be present at the April 5, 2022 meeting of the Texas State Board of Education to testify on the K-12 Social Studies Standards. More on this later as the date approaches. 

In the meantime, check out these pertinent news: Scholar who called Biden election a 'literal coup' advising Texas social studies curriculum review. Clearly, we need credible members on these curriculum review teams. If you're interested in being on one of these teams, reach out to whoever represents you and ask to be on one of the teams. In particular, it would be helpful to get historians and social studies experts, professors, graduate students, and teachers to serve as evaluators, in particular, to counter-balance Professor 

Stephen Balch who is a conspiracy theorist.
This link gives you access to the implications of Senate Bill 3, Texas' "anti-Critical Race Theory bill," to state curriculum: Senate Bill 3, 87th Texas Legislature, Second Called Session – Update to Instructional Requirements and Prohibitions.

The Texas State Board of Education has always been a space of contestation. The stakes are as high today as they've ever been. Let's defend the teaching of truth in history and in our social studies curriculum, generally. 

From an organizing perspective, now, more than ever, our African American, Latina/o/x, Asian American and Native American communities with white allies need to come together and form coalitions of conscience so that we can effectively challenge the white backlash we're witnessing right now in local, state, and national-level politics.

We also all need everybody to vote. If you're in Austin, here is the info on
Travis County: Early Voting Locations 2022. If you're not in Austin, here is an informational County Elections web page from the Texas Secretary of State where you can locate voting information for every county statewide.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Jefferson, H. & Ray, V. (2022, Jan. 6). White backlash is a type of racial reckoning, too, FiveThirtyEight, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/white-backlash-is-a-type-of-racial-reckoning-too/

JAN. 6, 2022, AT 6:00 AM

White Backlash Is A Type Of Racial Reckoning, Too

By Hakeem Jefferson and Victor Ray | FiveThirtyEight

Filed under Racial reckoning



PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES