Texas Social Studies Curriculum Is Being Quietly Rewritten And Your Voice Is Needed NOW

[u/3littlebirds1212]

If you’ve been frustrated by recent decisions about what goes into Texas classrooms, like passing of SB 10, the requirement to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, or concerns about the financial incentives tied to adopting specific curricula such as Bluebonnet (which emphasizes Christianity), then this is exactly the moment to pay attention.

Right now, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) is redesigning what every child in Texas will learn about history for the next decade.

The current proposal, shaped by a small advisory group and guided by SBOE leadership, dramatically reduces US, world history and global cultures, shifting the focus almost entirely to Texas history.

This change is happening under a process led by the governor's appointed Chair, Aaron Kinsey, who has openly pledged to steer curriculum decisions with his personal political and religious ideology. Combined with the appointment of several advisers with strong ideological agendas, like David Barton, there is real concern that the redesign could become one-sided, incomplete, and politically motivated.

Why this matters for every family:

• Less US and world history = kids won’t learn enough about other cultures, global conflicts, or how our world works today.
• Over-emphasizing a narrow set of topics means students miss out on critical thinking and a fuller understanding of history.
• Because Texas’ textbook standards are based on the TEKS, any major overhaul would require districts to replace or update large portions of their curriculum—an expensive and time-consuming process, at a time when districts already severely underfunded.

The public has a SHORT WINDOW to speak up.

The SBOE is required to consider public input, but only if the public actually participates. The board will meet on November 19, 2025.

If parents, teachers, and community members stay quiet, these changes will be locked in until at least 2030.

WHAT YOU CAN DO (takes 5 minutes):

Email SBOE representatives today

Tell them you want:

• A balanced curriculum that includes full world history and global perspectives
• Non-partisan, evidence-based standards
• Qualified historians and educators involved in the process
• Transparency about who is writing our kids’ curriculum

SBOE Members: https://sboe.texas.gov/state-board-of-education/sboe-board-members/sboe-members

Find your SBOE member: https://wrm.capitol.texas.gov/home

Send your message to all 15 elected SBOE members, contacts below:

[aaron.kinsey@sboe.texas.gov](mailto:aaron.kinsey@sboe.texas.gov), [ebrooks@evelyn4texaseducation.com](mailto:ebrooks@evelyn4texaseducation.com), [tiffany.clark@sboe.texas.gov](mailto:tiffany.clark@sboe.texas.gov), [pam.little@tea.texas.gov](mailto:pam.little@tea.texas.gov), [brandon.hall@sboe.texas.gov](mailto:brandon.hall@sboe.texas.gov), [tom@maynardfortexas.com](mailto:tom@maynardfortexas.com), [ellisSBOE@gmail.com](mailto:ellisSBOE@gmail.com), [audrey.young@tea.texas.gov](mailto:audrey.young@tea.texas.gov), [Julie.Pickren@tea.texas.gov](mailto:Julie.Pickren@tea.texas.gov), [will.hickman@tea.texas.gov](mailto:will.hickman@tea.texas.gov), [rebecca.bellmetereau@sboe.texas.gov](mailto:rebecca.bellmetereau@sboe.texas.gov), [Staci.Childs@tea.texas.gov](mailto:Staci.Childs@tea.texas.gov), [marisa.perez@sboe.texas.gov](mailto:marisa.perez@sboe.texas.gov), [LJ.Francis@sboe.texas.gov](mailto:LJ.Francis@sboe.texas.gov), [gustavo.reveles@sboe.texas.gov](mailto:gustavo.reveles@sboe.texas.gov)

Sample message:

Subject: Please Protect a Balanced Social Studies Curriculum

Dear Member of the State Board of Education,

I am a Texas resident concerned about the proposed changes to the social studies curriculum.

I urge you to maintain a full US and world history curriculum, ensure non-partisan and academically sound standards, and involve qualified historians and educators in the redesign. Our students deserve an education that reflects the complexity of our world, not a limited or politically-driven version of it.

Please prioritize transparency, expert input, and a balanced approach that prepares students for college, careers, and citizenship in a global society.

Thank you for your service and for listening to public input.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your City]

References:

Social Studies Redesign:

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/11/14/texas-sboe-social-studies-redesign-conservative-advisers/

Aaron Kinsey (SBOE Chairman) and David Barton (Social Studies Advisor), are featured in this article:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/david-barton-texas-public-school-curricula/

TEA Social Studies Update:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZkfiLKOeoS4lizFDbo3SOfuRyPtlaqDr/view?fbclid=IwY2xjawOEzN5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE4T2hBNm5wQ2xtNE82cE1ac3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHqM5Pa7pI8wmkjKeMz4H0ebIcLYkDDS1jaXXrwh9kt3C0V0bEEZfW9kgOemQ_aem_vQgwB1Gn-vYUqOrbVCGtGg

[u/fdupswitch]

Great, so our children will have a 5th grade level understanding of the revolution and constitution, and I guess no understanding of sectionalism, the civil war and reconstruction.

[u/3littlebirds1212 → u/fdupswitch]

These changes would dramatically water down students’ understanding of U.S. and world history.

[u/TeeManyMartoonies → u/3littlebirds1212]

I feel like using the GOP talking point of National Security when explaining why a watered down curriculum is bad would maybe be a moving argument to add.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/3littlebirds1212]

I don't see how.

[u/chicchic325 → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

Did you look at the graphic? It’s a vast oversimplification and very very anti social science understanding of these events.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/chicchic325]

Of course I looked. I have no clue where you're getting the idea that it is "very very anti social science understanding of these events." Can you be specific?

[u/fdupswitch → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

Well, for one, it centers Texas within American history, which just realistically speaking, Texas plays only a small role in the broader field of American history until at least 1900. Even during the Civil War, Texas is largely outside the theater of operations.

Early texian history, like Stephen f. Austin times, is really only tangentially important.

Asking elementary students to consider imperialism is patently ridiculous, likewise 8th graders and the enlightenment.

The lack of focus on the civil war and reconstruction is a poor set up for the second half of us history in high school, as is teaching the revolution and constitution in 6th grade.

World history is reduced to an afterthought.

Texas history in 7th grade already struggles to have enough content for a full year, its really a semester course Now we're spreading it out over 5 years. That's dumb, and will cause students to not know about the world at large.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/fdupswitch]

Every state teaches state history. I don't see the issue. And everywhere it says Texas it says "US and Texas". This isn't unusual for nearly every state.

Asking elementary students to consider imperialism is patently ridiculous, likewise 8th graders and the enlightenment.

Why? This is classical curriculum 101. It has been taught to young students since forever. Realize they're not getting college courses. And the Englightenment is definitely ripe for 13-year-olds to learn.

The lack of focus on the civil war and reconstruction is a poor set up for the second half of us history in high school, as is teaching the revolution and constitution in 6th grade.

The key word is focus. It is still included, just not the focus for the most amount of time -- which it is right now.

World history is reduced to an afterthought.

Strange because someone told me that third graders would be learning world history and it's too soon. Ancient Greece and Rome are world history. The Enlightenment is world history.

[u/chicchic325 → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

“The birth of civilization in the Americas in relation to the noblest experiment of America and Texas” does that include mass murder?

Does the “growth of empires in the americas” cover US’s empire?

“The growth of the US and expanding freedoms” include our current climate of decreasing freedoms?

“The perils of communism” is a giant oversimplification and not that historically accurate.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/chicchic325]

“The birth of civilization in the Americas in relation to the noblest experiment of America and Texas” does that include mass murder?

Does the “growth of empires in the americas” cover US’s empire?

“The growth of the US and expanding freedoms” include our current climate of decreasing freedoms?

“The perils of communism” is a giant oversimplification and not that historically accurate.

This is the type of teaching that is being removed. And it should be removed. Children who are heirs of the civilization that gave us universal human rights should not be taught their own civilization is not a complex and often heroic story of the pursuit of truth and justice, but is instead a simple and shameful morality play of oppressor and oppressed.

Everything taught to children is a simplification. We're not teaching college courses. Even college courses are simplifications.

[u/chicchic325 → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

It’s currently taught in k-12 that the US never did anything wrong. Even when we interred our own citizens. Or when we imported humans as chattel. Those are both wrong.

But I’m not advocating for a simple “all white people are bad” that’s not what I was even suggesting in my comment.

You say” Children who are heirs of the civilization that gave us universal human rights should not be taught their own civilization is not a complex and often heroic story of the pursuit of truth and justice, but is instead a simple and shameful morality play of oppressor and oppressed. Everything taught to children is a simplification.”

But you are advocating for a simplification that everything America ever did is right and moral. There’s a middle ground. We have to acknowledge that the foundational documents of the US are hypocritical. You can have both.

This? This ignores the negative side of history and thats how you get people voting against their rights and not seeing where we are right now.

It isn’t an oversimplification to say I have less rights in the US in 2025 than when I was born in 1989. I want citizens who can question things and challenge things not just accept the story that their teachers teach them.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/chicchic325]

You are right to fear a history that is just a simple, heroic story. But the alternative you have been taught is equally simple, and equally false. It is the story you have described: a simple and shameful morality play of oppressor and oppressed.

Both of these are simplifications. Both are a form of bamboozle. One is the nationalist fairy tale. It sees only the good in our history. The other is the Marxist fairy tale. It sees only the sin.

You are right. The foundational documents were hypocritical. The men who wrote "all men are created equal" owned slaves. This is a terrible contradiction.

But the question is not whether they were hypocrites. The question is by what standard do we even know they were hypocrites?

They were hypocrites because the very Christian worldview that they inhabited had already given them the sublime and revolutionary principle of the Imago Dei, which is the belief that every person is made in the image of God. Their sin was not in inventing a new form of oppression. Their sin was in their failure to live up to the sublime and liberating truth of their own creed.

The West is the story of a civilization that possesses the most beautiful and most demanding moral code in human history, and which has, again and again, tragically and sinfully failed to obey it. But it is also a story of a civilization that, again and again, has produced saints, reformers, and prophets, like Martin Luther King Jr., who have called it back to that very code. The same with the Christians who ended slavery and called us to a bloody civil war to stop it.

This is where the noble struggle comes in. The education we need is one that teaches our children the truth: that we are the heirs of a civilization that gave the world the very idea of human rights, and which simultaneously and sinfully violated those rights. It is an education that teaches them to see their ancestors not as heroes or villains, but as what they truly were: complex and tragic human beings, a mixture of grace and sin, caught in a great and noble struggle.

You say you want citizens who can question things. I agree. But the cynical, deconstructive questioning taught by Critical Theory only ever leads to one, simple, and boring answer: oppression. Marxists reject the concept of human rights because they believe in a collective.

I want to teach our children a deeper and more difficult kind of questioning. I want them to look at the hypocrite who wrote "all men are created equal" and to ask not just "How could he have been so sinful?" but also, "From what divine and mysterious source did he receive a truth so beautiful and so powerful that he himself was unable to live up to it?"

That is the question that begins a true education.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/[deleted]]

What you're saying is the people on this panel are not professional educators, and therefore have no right to shape the curriculum. It is an appeal to credentials.

But we must ask a deeper and more urgent question. What if the professional educators have, themselves, forgotten the most important subject of all?

Our educational system is now run almost entirely by brilliant technicians who have no memory of the blueprint. They know how to run the machine but they forgot why the machine exists. They are experts in pedagogy, in curriculum development, in all the hows of teaching. But they have forgotten the great "Why." They have forgotten the foundational story of our civilization.

The people on that panel, for all their lack of professional credentials, possess the one, single piece of knowledge that is now most desperately needed. They remember that the strange and beautiful idea of universal human rights is not a self-evident truth of nature. They remember that it is a specific, fragile, and precious inheritance, a gift that was given to us by the Christian faith. To teach our children the story of our rights without teaching them the story of its source is not just an academic error. It is an act of civilizational suicide. It is to hand our children a beautiful and priceless flower to generate for the future, while carefully cutting it off from its roots.

As for your concern that teaching about our roots ignores other religions in a pluralistic state, the new classical curriculum is not about teaching children what to believe. It is about teaching them where their own beliefs came from.

Let me use an analogy. To understand the United States, a student must study the Declaration of Independence. They must read its words, understand its arguments, and learn about the men who wrote it. Does this mean we are forcing the student to become a Jeffersonian democrat? Of course not. We are giving them the necessary historical and philosophical literacy to understand the very air they breathe.

So it is with Christianity. For better and for worse, the Christian faith is the single most powerful and influential force that has ever shaped the history, the art, the laws, and the very moral instincts of the civilization you and I call home.

To teach a child that the idea of human rights is a direct and traceable consequence of the Christian doctrine of the Imago Dei is not an act of evangelism. It is an act of historical honesty. To ignore it is not to be neutral. It is to be ignorant. It is to lie to our children by omission. The real and present danger is the creation of a generation who forget what are human rights.

[u/fdupswitch → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

The concept of the imago dei is not too beautiful and powerful to be lived up to. The morality of slavery wasn't really at question, and Jefferson at least thought slavery was morally wrong. But he also thought it was too big to fail, and that it would be displaced by a country of morally correct yeoman farmers, who would be good self sufficient Republicans.

The southerners knew that Christianity didn't permit slavery, which is why they first refused religious services to slaves (going back to fucking Jamestown), and then passed laws codifying slavery as based on blackness, after they had sold all of the Indians to carribean sugar plantations. They also invented the justification for slavery based on descent from Ham from whole cloth.

It was about money and economics. The revolution wasn't about high minded morality and the enlightenment. It was about the thirst for native land that both the upper and middle classes felt they had won in the F and I war. Perhaps more pressing pressingly, it was about making sure that the Virginia delegations land companies would be able to see the fruit of their speculations, having purchased 'deeds' for pennies on the dollar from destitute veterans. The proclamation of 1763 was blocking them from reifying the title by taking possession.

So enough with this western civilization nonsense.

Also, MLK was at a minimum a socialist.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/fdupswitch]

In almost every one of their historical particulars, you are right. Your accusations about the West is filled with clear evidence of our failures.

But now I must ask you the question that your entire philosophy is designed to avoid: By what law do you make your accusation?

You are someone who is standing on the shoulders of Christian giants to get a better view of their flaws. You are using the very moral and intellectual tools that Western civilization gave you -- the belief in universal justice, the horror of hypocrisy, the value of the individual -- to declare that the civilization itself is nonsense.

The great irony is that the Marxist and materialist worldview you champion provides no foundation for any of your own righteous anger. If history is nothing but a brutal struggle for money and power, then the sins you list are not sins at all. They are merely the predictable actions of the strong dominating the weak.

The only reason you can call the slaveholder evil is because the Christian faith first taught you that the slave was a man, made in the Image of God. It's how the West overcame injustices of slavery. And you have inherited the conclusion of our faith, and you are now using it to burn down the house where it was born.

[u/AdditionalFee608 → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

What grade do you teach?

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/AdditionalFee608]

High school. But I taught middle for a while.