We were expecting the worst when the State Board of Education convened in Austin recently to consider updates to the state’s social studies curriculum standards, known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. After all the complaints about our impressionable youngsters being force-fed critical race theory, we would not have been surprised to see Walt Disney’s syrupy, long-vaulted “Song of the South” added to the required curriculum. Perhaps the board would follow Florida and essentially outlaw mention of the word “gay,” except as an adjective describing the capital of France.
We are pleasantly surprised about the proposed curriculum, but we weren’t the only ones concerned about how the board might implement Senate Bill 3, a new law targeting how history and race are taught. Educators not only were confused about what SB 3 allowed them to say, or not say, in the classroom, but they also felt under threat by a generally embattled environment at schools and school boards. They were aware that a Black principal in North Texas was put on paid leave after being accused of teaching critical race theory, which he denied doing. (He resigned after reaching a settlement with the district.) A similar fate recently met Clear Creek ISD Superintendent Eric Williams, who announced his retirement after less than two years following CRT-related accusations of indoctrination that stretched back from his previous post in Virginia.
As we’ve noted on numerous occasions, CRT, as it’s called, is not taught in Texas public schools at any level. Few seem to have a clear grasp of what it means. Republicans around the country have adopted the term as a convenient catch-all label for anything about racism and its lingering effects that might come up in the classroom or might be included in school library offerings. Draft versions of SB 3 gave many Texas educators the impression that they must de-emphasize slavery and racism or any mention of unpleasant historical events that might embarrass students today.
A meddlesome Texas House member from Fort Worth, Matt Krause, called for an investigation into school-library holdings around the state. Krause relied on a list of 850 titles, mostly about race and LGBTQ issues, that had been compiled by a national right-wing group.
During the recent hearings, board member Aicha Davis, a Dallas Democrat, told state Sen. Bryan Hughes, sponsor of SB 3, that his law has already hurt public schools. She questioned whether the Mineola Republican had consulted with teacher groups before writing the bill.
“We always talk about teachers leaving in droves, and this was one of the reasons,” Davis said. “Teachers were literally scared to teach even the TEKS that existed because of this.”
The turn of events during the SBOE hearings gave us reason for hope. Among the witnesses, 126 in all, was Hughes himself. He told the board that SB 3 had been misinterpreted.
“That bill is not an attempt to sanitize or to teach our history in any other way than the truth — the good, the bad and the ugly — and those difficult things that we’ve been through and those things we’ve overcome,” Hughes said. “No one is saying that we don’t have systemic racism. But what we’re saying is we’ve made a lot of progress. We have a long way to go. But the way to get there is to come together as Americans.”
Hughes was appearing before the board for the first time since the law took effect last December. He told board members that the intent of SB 3 was to make sure that no student is told to feel guilty about any misdeeds their ancestors might have committed.
“We still teach that really bad things were done by people of particular races, and it may be that in teaching those things, students may feel guilty about that,” the lawmaker added. “What we’re saying is you don’t say, ‘Little Johnny, little Jimmy, you should feel bad because of what your forebears did.’ ”
We appreciate Hughes’ clarification, and we hope board members do their part to offer assurances to Texas educators that they can teach, for example, that the U.S. Constitution counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person and that the Texas Constitution banned emancipation. We also hope that the board gives thoughtful consideration to the recommendations crafted by advisory groups chosen to guide this once-in-a-decade process. Made up of experts in various fields of the social studies — government/civics, economics, geography and history — the groups have compiled an impressive catalog of recommendations for the state’s social-studies curriculum. (Drafts of the updated curriculum are available online.)
After another set of hearings at the end of the month, the 15-member board — nine Republicans and six Democrats from districts around the state — will begin the tedious process of adopting, rewriting or rejecting the advisory groups’ recommendations. The process will be completed by November — if, that is, politics doesn’t rear its ugly head.
Our optimism depends on all of us to remember our own civics lessons from school. If you can’t remember that far back, that’s another reason to dig into the proposed curriculum as a refresher.
New members elected to the board in November could shift the political tenor of the board even further to the right. The favorite to win the District 7 seat, for example, is Julie Pickren, a former Alvin ISD school board member forced out of office after it was revealed that she was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. She’s considered so extreme that the departing incumbent, Matt Robinson, a doctor from Friendswood and a Republican, has endorsed Pickren’s Democratic opponent, Dan Hochman, a Galveston teacher.
If the board decides to postpone the adoption process until after new members take office, all kinds of mischief could be the result. Our concern is that Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — if, as expected, they’re still in office themselves — will pressure the board to do just that.
Included under the label “Citizenship” in the voluminous list of recommendations the board must consider is this social studies objective: “The student understands the importance of active individual participation in the democratic process.”
For “little Johnny’s” sake and “little Jimmy’s,” Texans need to do their electoral homework, all the way down the ballot to the State Board of Education. They need to study the issues and the candidates. They need to vote.
Houston Chronicle
