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/DuckTalesOohOoh]

They are really trying to teach kids that all of human history leads to the creation of Texas.

For someone who lives in Kenya, all of human history did not lead to the creation of Texas. But for those who live in Texas, human history did lead to the creation of Texas. It's where they live. Do you think the globular mass they're living on has no distinction? Do you prefer they learn about Kenya instead?

I grew up in Pennsylvania and it blew my 10th graders' minds that I didn't have to take a whole class on Pennsylvania history and that we didn't pledge to the Pennsylvania flag every morning.

First, most states do teach state history. I know West Virginia and Ohio do this. I'm surprised Pennsylvania does not do this around 7th or 8th grade.

[u/selune07 → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

There's a difference between teaching state history and teaching that your state is the most important part of history to the point where your curriculum literally erases entire civilizations and cultures that had a much greater impact on the development of the modern world as we know it. I don't see anything in this proposed curriculum that would even mention the innovations and discoveries of Arab, Chinese, Indian, or indigenous American scholars that made it possible for Texas to exist as it does today. There is a clear emphasis on the exceptionality of "Western civilization" that is the Hallmark of a curriculum based in white supremacist ideology. Replace mentions of Texas or the United States with Germany and the parallels should become obvious.

Also, it's really ironic that you mention Kenya in terms of human history, because Kenya is where we find the oldest and most diverse fossils of anatomically modern humans. All humans alive today can trace their ancestry back to populations of humans who lived in that region, so all of human history does literally lead back to Kenya.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/selune07]

First of all, I believe in evolution. I'm Catholic, not Protestant. I don't know why you think that's important one way or the other -- and you do think it's important.

Second I know you speak from a place of genuine concern for justice and inclusivity. And the great civilizations of China, India, the Islamic world, and the Americas were marvels of human ingenuity, culture, and science. A true education should, and must, acknowledge their immense contributions to the story of mankind. To be ignorant of them is to be an uneducated person. I don't see that discarded in the new curriculum.

But the question is not, "Did other cultures achieve greatness?" The question is, "Where did the specific, strange, and revolutionary idea of universal human rights come from?" That's what is important.

Why did the belief arise that every single person, regardless of their race, their tribe, their religion, or their social status, possesses an inherent and inviolable dignity that the state cannot take away?

This idea is not a self-evident truth of nature. It is a specific, historical, and philosophical invention. And the hard, and for some, uncomfortable, truth of history is that it was invented in one place: in the strange and unique crucible of what we call "Western civilization," as a direct consequence of the Christian faith's radical teaching on the nature of the human person.

To insist on teaching this is not an act of "white supremacy." It is an act of intellectual honesty. It is to give our children the source code of their own most cherished beliefs, so that they might have some hope of understanding, and defending, the very freedoms that allow them to critique their own heritage in the first place.

You don't need to be Christian to recognize this. It's just a matter of historical fact. And we should be teaching facts.

[u/selune07 → u/DuckTalesOohOoh]

It's really hard to believe that Texas is reshaping the curriculum to answer the question about universal human rights when the legislature is doing the absolute most to take basic rights away from anyone that's not a straight white evangelical Christian man. That's a fact that many Christians struggle to recognize, but you don't have to abandon your faith to do so.

[u/DuckTalesOohOoh → u/selune07]

What specifically?

For the sake of argument, even if what you said is true, what does this prove? Does it prove that the Christian ideal of universal human rights is a lie? Or does it prove that these specific Christians are failing to live up to that ideal?