{"id":350762,"date":"2026-06-26T00:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350762\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T00:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:42:15","slug":"texas-moves-forward-with-state-centered-social-studies-curriculum-trimming-world-history-and-diversity-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350762\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas moves forward with state-centered social studies curriculum, trimming world history and diversity lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe State Board of Education<\/a> is nearing the finish line in its massive rewrite of what Texas public school students will learn about world and state history.<\/p>\n

The curriculum overhaul, progressed by the Republican-led board with input from nine appointed advisers, would shift the focus in social studies classes to a Texas-centered approach, deemphasizing lessons about world cultures and injecting more content about Christianity\u2019s role in the founding of the United States.<\/p>\n

What you need to know<\/p>\n

The board heard about eight hours of public testimony on the social studies rewrite June 22, kicking off five consecutive days of meetings<\/a> with a final vote scheduled for June 26. Some educators and students expressed concerns that the proposal lacks significant teachings about civil rights history, Japanese internment in the 1940s and people of color\u2019s contributions to the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese proposed standards actually defy the Constitution and highlight only one group of Americans as the founders who built this country with the exclusion of others, both in the past and in the present,\u201d Ruth Nasrullah, who is Muslim, said June 22.<\/p>\n

Some Republican board members pushed back, saying that the rewrite was necessary to teach students about American exceptionalism and Texas heritage in an attempt to undo what they called \u201ca watering-down of American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want our students to love our country,\u201d SBOE member Julie Pickren, R-Pearland, told reporters June 22.<\/p>\n

The education board has spent the bulk of its meetings this week making amendments to a 143-page social studies proposal<\/a>, which includes hundreds of standards that students would be expected to learn and meet in each grade. If adopted on June 26, the new social studies curriculum would be introduced in elementary school classrooms in the 2030-31 school year and rolled out to older grades in future years.<\/p>\n

The rewrite is part of a periodic review of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS<\/a>, for social studies, which dictate what the state\u2019s 5.5 million public school students should learn at each grade level. The State Board of Education reviews standards for all curriculum areas every 15-20 years, and board members previously began revising the social studies standards in 2022. Records show that at the time, they voted to delay that work until 2025 amid pressure from some conservative critics.<\/p>\n

Board members took initial votes on their elementary and middle school proposals earlier in the week and had not finished editing the high school standards before press time. Days earlier<\/a>, they signed off on a first-of-its-kind reading list for K-12 students, with a final vote on that policy also set for June 26.<\/p>\n

Zooming in<\/p>\n

The board voted June 23 to cut some depictions of slavery and racism from the curriculum standards, including removing lessons that would have taught students about slave revolts and pulling back in-depth discussions of Jim Crow segregation policies.<\/p>\n

Among the cuts were a requirement that students learn about \u201cthe central role of the expansion of slavery\u201d in the U.S. Civil War and content specifying that \u201cAfricans were enslaved in the United States because of the color of their skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The changes were generally supported by the SBOE\u2019s 10 Republican members and opposed by the five Democrats on the board. Some of the amendments were made at the recommendation of the board\u2019s nine appointed content advisers, which include scholars, professors, consultants and one public school teacher.<\/p>\n

Some Democratic board members said they did not feel they had appropriate input in the revision process and questioned why the board was referencing a document created by the content advisers over feedback from educators.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt serves an injustice to what we were called to do as elected officials [by] our constituents, knowing that we don\u2019t have a voice in this moment to bring what we worked on to this table,\u201d SBOE member Tiffany Clark, D-DeSoto, said June 23. \u201cOur voices are being left off constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

LJ Francis, a Republican board member from Corpus Christi, argued that the SBOE has the final say in the social studies rewrite.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the leaders of this process,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody has the right to make amendments and receive up or down votes, so I don\u2019t think we should be crying if our amendments don\u2019t pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proponents of the rewritten standards have said they will improve students\u2019 understanding of Texas and U.S. history, translating to better performance on state assessments. This year, the Texas Education Agency reported that about 51% of Texas students met or exceeded grade-level expectations on the eighth-grade social studies and U.S. history segments of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur history is inspiring. It’s remarkable. And today, our students are not learning it\u201450% of Texas students across the state are not proficient in grade level social studies standards,\u201d SBOE member Brandon Hall said June 22. \u201cSo, what we’re doing now is clearly not working, and this is a major overhaul that will improve this.\u201d<\/p>\n

One more thing<\/p>\n

Educators and Texas Education Agency staff have warned the SBOE that the proposed standards include \u201ctoo much content\u201d across multiple grades.<\/p>\n

As written, the new standards would significantly increase the amount of information students learn each school year. Historians have said that the density of content required in each grade could limit teachers\u2019 ability to hold in-depth discussions on some topics and force students to memorize large collections of facts.<\/p>\n

In a June 11 post on its website<\/a>, the American Historical Association urged its members to submit public comments and contact SBOE members about \u201comissions and distortions that diminish students\u2019 understanding of the past\u201d in the proposed standards. The association highlighted the board\u2019s focus on Western history; limited mentions of the role of women and Black people in major historical events; and the exclusion of the word \u201cracism\u201d across grade levels.<\/p>\n

During a June 24 discussion, SBOE member Evelyn Brooks, R-Frisco, said she was concerned that the board was writing more detailed standards than it had the authority to.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we writing knowledge [standards] or are we writing curriculum?\u201d Brooks asked. \u201cWe are not curriculum writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

TEA staff have urged the board in its amendment process this week to remove content when possible instead of creating new topics, although board members have frequently opted to make one-to-one changes by cutting one standard when adding another.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The State Board of Education is nearing the finish line in its massive rewrite of what Texas public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[60273,132,134,133,124987,17782,124981,124992,62168,124989,124982,124988,124993,124990,124980,124991,124977,124985,124978,124121,2914,2810,124983,124984,3343,11362,124117,92073,124979,11523,60270,124986],"class_list":["post-350762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-2030-31-school-year","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bible-references","tag-brandon-hall","tag-evelyn-brooks","tag-historians","tag-julie-pickren","tag-k-12-reading-list","tag-lj-francis","tag-mandatory-book-list","tag-sboe-content-advisers","tag-sboe-friday","tag-sboe-june-meeting","tag-social-studies-requirements","tag-social-studies-rewrite","tag-social-studies-staar","tag-social-studies-standards","tag-social-studies-teks","tag-state-board-of-education","tag-texas-education-agency","tag-texas-education-policy","tag-texas-elementary-schools","tag-texas-history","tag-texas-public-schools","tag-texas-sboe","tag-texas-social-studies","tag-texas-social-studies-curriculum-overhaul","tag-texas-teachers","tag-tiffany-clark","tag-world-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350762","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=350762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}