(The Center Square) – Historians and teachers are highlighting issues with new state standards being proposed by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) that will transform how Social Studies is taught in Texas.
The State Board of Education, some of whose members won’t be returning after the next election, are voting on Tuesday to adopt new state education standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for K-12 Social Studies curriculum.
Key changes in the 239-page document include shifting Texas history (currently taught as a stand-alone history course in fourth grade) to middle school, primarily eighth grade. Historically, elementary students go on more field trips than middle school students. Under the new plan, this also changes, requiring historic sites and museums to adjust presentations at significant costs.
Kate Rogers, former CEO of The Alamo Trust, said in a statement that the financial impact “could extend beyond the classroom, creating a cascade of costs for historic sites and museums that serve student audiences. At a major site like the Alamo, these costs typically fall into three primary categories: staff training, educational materials, and onsite interpretation.”
She explained that staff must be retrained to comply with the new standards, docent scripts and new training protocols would need to be developed as well as “multiple rounds of facilitated instruction for both employees and volunteers. For an institution with dozens of frontline interpreters, these efforts can range from approximately $75,000 to $200,000.”
State historic sites would also have to redesign their educational materials to align with the new TEKS, including rewriting lesson plans, updating teacher resources, among others pushing costs to upwards of $175,000.
“The most significant and variable expense comes from changes to onsite interpretation,” she said. “Even modest shifts in language or emphasis can require reprinting panels, updating digital content, or re-recording media. More substantial reinterpretation – particularly at high-profile or politically sensitive sites – can drive costs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. For a site like the Alamo, a realistic estimate for moderate updates ranges from $150,000 to $500,000, with more extensive changes exceeding $1 million.
“Taken together, TEKS-driven adjustments can conservatively cost a major historic site between $300,000 and $800,000, with higher totals possible depending on the scope of reinterpretation.” The numbers are estimates, and don’t “fully capture indirect costs, including leadership time, stakeholder management, and reputational risk – all of which can further shape institutional decision-making,” she adds.
Federal sites wouldn’t make such changes. A Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum spokesperson said, “If students are learning about the topics we support in lower grades, students will not be able to engage with the museum content with anything more than basic understanding, limiting the ability for a museum to be a place of deeper learning.” If the new TEKS are implemented, there will likely be “far fewer classes/schools visiting the museum and thus limit student engagement in the community learning spaces that they live in. As a business, there will be a massive impact on our bottom line.”
The spokesperson also said the new TEKS “is incompatible with our core mission to support the use of primary source documents in the classroom or as a site of learning for the timeframe and subject areas we support as an institution.”
Multiple teachers argue the content is age inappropriate and problematic, posting comments in response to the proposal. Instead of focusing on Texas history, the new framework for third through fifth grades, for example, prioritizes Greco Roman history and European Middle Ages, they argue. One third grade assignment instructs students to “compare ancient Egyptians pyramids and obelisks built to honor rulers with similar building designs in the Washington and San Jacinto monuments that honor important leaders or events;” and “describe Moses as a historical figure who led the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery and later served as inspiration for African Americans held in slavery in America and Texas.”
The Biblical story of Moses being taught in secular public schools is due to a new Blue Bonnet curriculum authorized by the state legislature. The Baker Institute argues it “marks a sea change not only in educational policy but also in church-state relations in Texas public schools. For decades, religious content in Texas public schools … has largely been restricted to middle and high school social studies courses, …. More substantial Bible content has traditionally only been found in elective high school level Bible courses offered in some school districts.”
It notes that biblical text being taught to public school students as young as five is being done “largely in the absence of texts and teachings from other religions that make up contemporary society in Texas and nationally.”
Teachers are also criticizing the TEKS defining slavery (“unfair treatment of someone based on race resulting in enslavement”); describing the Boston Massacre as political propaganda; comparing the ancient Greek Battle of Thermopylae to the Battle of the Alamo; teaching “Ancient Israel and connections to America and Texas” and how “ancient Israelite historical events” contributed to western civilization the U.S. and Texas; teaching the ancient civilizations of ancient Rome, the U.S. and Texas “to understand that important tenets of Christianity during the time of the Roman empire influenced Western Civilization, America, and Texas,” among other examples.
A TEA-recommended list of literary works, developed with input from more than 5,000 Texas English teachers, has also been published.
