If you missed this piece by Isaac Yu, Texas’ new history curriculum could give the state unprecedented control over textbooks (07/13/26), you will definitely want to check it out.
A Few Takeaways
Some of the facts reported include:
- 5.5 million public school students are affected by the Texas’ SBOE expectation that they learn about history and literature with Christianity and biblical readings blended into the standards
- TEA will be spending, or has spent, $67 million on Florida-based company MGT Solutions to develop Bluebonnet materials for reading and social studies aligned to the new standards, as well as other subjects
- TEA has already spent at least $100 million to develop the curriculum
- The total cost of the history rewrite alone is estimated to be about $800 million and $1.7 billion over the next five years.
- The costs of textbooks, lesson plans, and teacher training are covered in that amount.
Perhaps, the worst part of this news:
- Public school districts will have get the over 170 mandated works on literary lists. This includes everything from novels to picture books
- Districts will have to redesign their entire curriculum
- Districts will have access to $1 billion dollar pool to get it done, but that’s not been set yet
- Indirect costs include retraining or reassigning teachers, especially those who may not be certified to teach social studies
Instead of blowing all this money revamping the curriculum, Texas legislators, governor, and TEA commissioner might have spent it on supporting public schools current needs. Right now, they are mostly broke and federal funding is lacking.
Add decreasing enrollment to the picture, property taxes being cut in the future, this really looks like an unfunded mandate…that is, the companies making the curriculum materials get richer (and probably those coming up with standardized testing assessments) while public schools lose staff and funding.
Disappointing.