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State Board of Education member Julie Pickren (right) questions state Rep. Salman Bhojani, D-Euless, during a meeting at the Barbara Jordan Building in Austin on Monday, June 22, 2026. The board is considering revisions that would place greater emphasis on Christian history and biblical content in public school classrooms.<\/p>\n
Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Republicans on the State Board of Education advanced a proposed social studies rewrite<\/a> after significantly scaling back what Texas public school students learn about slavery and civil rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Tuesday night, the board voted to cut previously proposed lessons\u00a0that explained racial segregation and slave revolts. Also gone are provisions that had specifically acknowledged that African Americans were enslaved in the United States \u201cbecause of the color of their skin,\u201d and that southern states seceded from the Union in part to preserve the practice of slavery.<\/p>\n LIVE UPDATES: Follow along as the State Board of Education overhauls the state’s social studies standards<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Members did not explain the reasoning behind many of the changes.<\/p>\n But many of the concepts were dropped at the recommendation of the board\u2019s panel of appointed advisors, a mix of historians and conservative activists. The advisors have taken on an\u00a0expanded role in helping draft the standards<\/a>, while work groups of classroom teachers have largely been sidelined.\u00a0<\/p>\n The board will take a final vote Friday on the standards that determine what Texas students\u00a0must learn in social studies classes from kindergarten to 12th grade<\/a>. The controversial rewrite would emphasize U.S. history and Christian concepts<\/a>, while dialing back lessons on world cultures and other religions. If approved, the new lessons would begin rolling out to public schools in 2030 and become part of standardized tests.\u00a0<\/p>\n Republicans on the board described the goal of the overhaul as boosting public school students\u2019 knowledge of American exceptionalism and Judeo-Christian values.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe just want our students to love our country,\u201d Julie Pickren, a Pearland Republican, said during a GOP prayer session outside the Monday hearing.<\/p>\n On the whole, the new standards would dramatically boost the number of historical figures and events that public school students must learn about in each grade.\u00a0<\/p>\n But historians told Hearst Newspapers that, taken together, the changes would flatten nuance and encourage students to memorize rote facts and figures, rather than wrestle with important debates. They said it\u2019s especially true in the standards\u2019 proposed telling of abolition and civil rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n READ MORE: Texas to pay $8.4 million to fix errors in Christianity-infused Bluebonnet curriculum<\/a><\/p>\n Members of the board\u2019s Republican majority expressed a desire throughout the week to elevate \u201cheroes\u201d of American history, like Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln. The standards will require students to learn about more historical figures, including civil rights activist\u00a0Claudette Colvin and Opal Lee, the Texan whose activism led to the recognition of Juneteenth as a federal holiday.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But the proposal drops or trims back lessons on figures who fought desegregation or abolition, including Alabama Gov. George Wallace, the Ku Klux Klan and Confederate leaders.<\/p>\n The board also cut a detailed explanation of how Jim Crow laws perpetuated segregation, and renamed the Tulsa Race Massacre, believed to be the worst case of racial violence in American history, to the \u201cTulsa Race Riots.\u201d<\/p>\n Those changes lead to a \u201cwhitewashed,\u201d smoothed-out view of the country\u2019s struggle against racial injustice, said Steven Mintz, a history professor at the University of Texas-Austin.<\/p>\n