For the past few months, the elected Texas State Board of Education has come under national fire and been placed under a national spotlight.
The board is conducting a routine rewrite of the state’s social studies curriculum for the public schools, and Republican board members are insisting on a balanced approach to teaching history, which includes detailed discussion of the Founding Fathers and the Federalist Papers. The board, which contains 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats, is expected to approve the revised curriculum today. Preliminarily, conservatives defeated an attempt to postpone adoption of the revised curriculum and have won most of the preliminary votes on amendments taken today.
The board has been attacked by the national media and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who claim the board has a political agenda. But conservative groups including the Liberty Institute, Americans for Prosperity, and the Texas Conservative Coalition, praised the document. “The updated standards present a balanced approach to American history and social studies, and they will give students a solid understanding of the founding principles of our nation, including the roots of our nation’s religious, ethnic, and philosophical heritage,” said state Rep. Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands), who is chairman of the Texas House’s public education committee, in a press release distributed by the Texas Conservative Coalition.
The conservatives on the board have insisted that the economics curriculum use the phrase “free enterprise” rather than “capitalist” and that patriotism and American Exceptionalism (the belief that America is a special nation that serves as a beacon of freedom and democracy worldwide) get emphasis in the document. They also took great pains to ensure that prominent racial minorities appeared in the curriculum.
But that wasn’t enough for several racial minorities in the Texas Legislature. In fact, members of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus and the Legislative Black Caucus threatened the board, suggesting that they would vote against funding textbooks if the standards are passed as currently proposed. (However, most members of those two caucuses already regularly vote to take authority away from the elected board, so their threat is basically to continue to vote the way they are already voting.)
The draft standards are online and can be viewed at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=3643.
Several Democrats tried to delay the more than year-long process of rewriting the curriculum, even though the board took more than 18 hours of testimony Wednesday and a similar amount in March. Conservatives voted down the proposed delay and moved forward with the rewrite. “Delaying a final vote on the updated curriculum standards would be a disservice to the voters who elected this Board, to the members who have diligently served their state, and to the hard work and dedication of the many people who have worked together to draft the updated standards,” said Texas Conservative Coalition President Wayne Christian (R-Center). “The State Board of Education has the full support of the Texas Conservative Coalition as they proceed with final adoption of the update curriculum standards, which will provide Texas public school students with a well-rounded and full appreciation of American history and social studies.”
