\u201cSome of the members on the board just don\u2019t understand simple things, like what the study of history is,\u201d Austin\u2019s outgoing State Board of Education representative, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, told the Chronicle.<\/p>\n
On March 3, Texans living in the State Board of Education\u2019s District 5, which encompasses<\/a> Travis, Hays, Bastrop, Caldwell, Guadalupe, and Blanco counties, will vote in the primaries for their new representative on the board that decides what students are learning in Texas public school classrooms.<\/p>\n As District 5 candidate Abigail Gray says, most Texans aren\u2019t aware of what the SBOE does, or what happens during their board meetings. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to find information about it unless you spend hours digging and really watching closely what\u2019s happening in the meetings,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n The State Board of Education sets the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum and approves the instructional materials used in every public school, an effort led by the Committee on Instruction. They also approve charter school applications (led by the Committee on School Initiatives), and decide how the $60.6 billion<\/a> Texas Permanent School Fund is used (Committee on School Finance).<\/p>\n While the SBOE is elected by their large constituencies (about 1.8 million Texans each), the chair, currently Aaron Kinsey, has been appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Kinsey, CEO of an aviation oilfield services company, has no experience working in education outside of his service on the board. The board is unpaid, but is reimbursed for their food and travel expenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a chairman who will fight against \u2026 CRT [Critical Race Theory], DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion], ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance], and whatever acronym the left comes up with next,\u201d Kinsey said<\/a> at the 2024 Texas Republican Party Convention. \u201cWho will fight for these three-letter words: G-O-D, G-O-P, and U-S-A.\u201d<\/p>\n The 15 board members, five Democrats and 10 Republicans, will meet five times<\/a> in 2026. This year, the board will adopt<\/a> revised Social Studies and Career and Technical Education TEKS curriculum standards for K-12. They will also issue<\/a> the required Reading Language Arts vocabulary and book lists that inform state standardized testing language and required reading in curriculum. With the exception of CTE, implementation of revised curriculum is planned for the 2030-2031 school year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m quite concerned with the rushed nature of this process. \u2026 The number of materials that were included on this list far outweighs the letter of the law,\u201d SBOE Member Marisa Perez-Diaz (D-San Antonio) said about the book list considered during<\/a> the Jan. 30 meeting.<\/p>\n The SBOE has heavily debated how issues like racism, slavery, Native American history, and civil rights will be taught in the K-12 Social Studies TEKS, which have been in revision since early last year. Educators have criticized<\/a> their framework for the TEKS, developed last year, as deemphasizing geography and world cultures while presenting Texas and American historical figures, like Thomas Jefferson or Robert E. Lee, without relevant connections to slavery.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cJulie Pickren [R-Pearland] seems to feel that history is about glorifying our role in the past, so she wants our students to learn about the great heroes from Texas and the United States,\u201d Bell-Metereau told the Chronicle. \u201cHistory is not a cheerleading session.\u201d<\/p>\n The SBOE was in headlines as their approved Bluebonnet Learning<\/a> curriculum, which includes references to the Bible and Bible teachings in elementary-level reading lessons, was made available to Texas school districts last fall with an extra $60 incentive per student, if the district chose to use it. Austin ISD declined to adopt Bluebonnet Learning early last fall.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like a broken record,\u201d Bell-Metereau said, on the separation of church and state in public education. \u201cI tell them that the Establishment Clause forbids the establishment of a religion. They claim to love the Constitution and love our history, and then they ignore it.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to make their particular group, whether it\u2019s a social group, a religious group, or racial group \u2026 seem to be superior,\u201d Bell-Metereau said about certain colleagues. \u201cEducation is not about saying our state\u2019s the best, or our cultural, racial, or gender group is the best. It\u2019s about thinking as critically and objectively as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n As of this month, 14 applicants seeking to open new charter schools in Texas will be up for review<\/a> and approval at the SBOE\u2019s June meeting, and historically, \u201cthey almost approve everything,\u201d said David DeMatthews, professor of education policy and leadership at UT-Austin.<\/p>\n Charters are public schools that are privately operated, and often designed around a nontraditional learning model or specialization. \u201cThere are a variety of reasons that people will push a particular charter, but \u2026 it\u2019s also a way of taking money from the public school system and funneling it into charters, which may have very specialized programs,\u201d Bell-Metereau emphasized.<\/p>\n The SBOE also manages and budgets the Texas Permanent School Fund, overseeing a team that invests the pot of money in different assets<\/a> \u2013 with 20% of the $60.6 billion in private equity. Despite the PSF being the largest educational endowment that exists in the country, Texas has only the 37th-best<\/a> spending per public school student in the state, and is 31st in teacher pay<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of these people, Pat Hardy, who used to be on the board, are proud of it. She said, \u2018Well, I\u2019m proud that we spend so little,\u2019\u201d Bell-Metereau said. \u201cWhat are we doing with that money, other than helping the stock market?\u201d<\/p>\n Bell-Metereau remembers that the first time she ever went to a Retired Teachers Association meeting, she couldn\u2019t help but cry. \u201cThey obviously had so little to make it on in life. And I just thought, \u2018This is a crime to treat our teachers this poorly,\u2019\u201d Bell-Metereau reflected.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200b\u200bI always say we\u2019re like those cartoons with Scrooge McDuck, where he\u2019s just sitting on his piles of gold, playing with his gold, and never giving money to anybody,\u201d she continued. \u201cThat\u2019s the SBOE, just glorying in how much money we have. And it\u2019s making money for people.\u201d<\/p>\n In the District 5 race, one of the five Democratic candidates is likely to win the seat, with the race to be decided in the primary March 3. But on a board with a heavy Republican majority, what can Austin\u2019s representative do to shape Texas public education?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be whether [they] are able to reach out, find points of agreement, and get the Republican members to go along with a vote that goes against the majority of Republicans,\u201d Bell-Metereau emphasized. \u201cAnd that has happened. \u2026 But if you go in with your guns blazing, they\u2019re never going to agree about anything, even if they agree.\u201d<\/p>\n