The Texas State Board of Education is considering new requirements for how social studies is taught in the classroom.<\/p>\n
The new guidelines were brought forth by lobbyists who say the state is failing students the way it’s currently teaching history.<\/p>\n
“They’re failing, students are failing. We can look at the social studies 8th grade exam in Texas, and we have only about 30% of kids that are passing, they’re failing,” said Mandy Drogin, of Texas Public Policy, a conservative think tank from Austin, which has pushed for the changes.<\/p>\n
Drogin pointed to poor performance of Texas students in social studies, saying repeatedly that only 20% or 30% are passing standardized tests.<\/p>\n
According to data published by the Texas Education Agency showing test performance for students, those numbers appear incorrect. 77% of Texas students approached grade level scores in social studies statewide last year, the number was slightly higher the year before….the lowest score we could find in state data was in 8th grade, where 58% approached grade level.<\/p>\n
Drogin didn’t respond to our questions about the discrepancy. <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, the group feels strongly that these changes need to be made. <\/p>\n
“Population, as we grow up and want them to launch and to continue the freedoms that Americans enjoy today. And Texas is a leader. So goes Texas, so will go America. So it’s vital that our students have a complete and total picture of history and where we have come from and why we are where we are and the greatest, most benevolent nation to ever exist in the world,” said Drogin.<\/p>\n
Critics say there are a number of problems with the new curriculum, saying it limits the teachings of people of color and the role they played in Texas and American history, and is largely centric on biblical teachings and no other religions besides Christianity.<\/p>\n
“There is such an obvious ideological slant towards Christianity. It’s so important. I want my child to learn about world religions. We’re a Christian family, and I can teach him how to be a Christian and teaching my child how to to be religious and teaching my child religion is my job as his mom and us as family,” said Ellen Alexandrakis, a Richardson mother and former teacher who reviewed the new curriculum. “It’s not the school’s job to teach my child to be religious, so to speak, but it is the school’s job to [teach] my child about religions in the world. And there’s a really big difference.”<\/p>\n
There’s another issue at play. Teachers were called in to review the curriculum, and they had serious concerns about the amount of data it requires to be taught. <\/p>\n
“There’s 60 plus learning objectives for second graders, and second grade teachers are not gonna have enough time because social studies in second grade is not prioritized. Second grade teachers typically give social studies 30 minutes for an entire week,” said Steven Pruitt, a teacher chosen by the state to review the plan.”For every learning objective, there’s a statement that clearly says students should be, you know, proud patriots, and there’s not enough references to citizenship or just understanding what happened in the past, but there seems to be an emphasis on patriotism and pride in being a U.S. Resident.”<\/p>\n
Critics have said that if this passes, parents will have to start teaching additional history at home, as it skips over lots of important contributions of people of color. Opal Lee’s granddaughter spoke of her concern about the lack of African-American history.<\/p>\n
The State Board of Education will take up the matter this summer, but many members have shown signs of support for the curriculum.<\/p>\n
This week there’s growing objections to it, and critics are asking parents to write state board members and weigh in. <\/p>\n
“This is bigger than your school district is. The schools in Texas, the public schools in Texas, have to do what the SBOE says. If these tweaks pass, they’re in effect for 10 years. For my son, that is the rest of his K-12 education. That’s how his social studies learning will be and it’s not okay and it is not acceptable to me. And so parents need to be writing their legislators. They need to write their representatives on their school boards. They need [to] write the representatives on the State Board of Education. Everyone, let it be known that this is not acceptable for our kids,” said Alexandrakis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas State Board of Education is considering new requirements for how social studies is taught in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11949,163,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-244939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-carter-in-the-classroom","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-headlines","12":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}