Texas board starts shaping guidelines determining how history will be taught

Texas board starts shaping social studies lessons

AUSTIN, Texas — Kindergartners would learn about a Texas revolutionary and first-graders would discuss the idea of holding public officials accountable under proposals approved Thursday by the State Board of Education, which began reshaping the guidelines for social studies lessons.

The board was wading through dozens of amendments, with the debate expected to stretch well into the evening, before an expected first vote on the new standards. The guidelines will dictate what some 4.8 million students from kindergarten through 12th grade are required to learn in social studies, history and economics classes for the next decade. A final vote is expected in March.

What’s decided in Texas could affect what school children elsewhere learn as well. The guidelines will be used by textbook publishers who develop material for the nation based on Texas, one of the largest markets.

In vote after vote, the board added more names to the list of historic figures elementary school students would be expected to learn.

“We’re choking our kids with a list of names,” board member Pat Hardy, a Republican from Fort Worth, said as astronauts James A. Lovell, Ellen Ochoa and Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low were added to the third-grade list.

Jose Antonio Navarro, a Texas revolutionary and contemporary of early Texas leader Stephen F. Austin, was added to the kindergarten curriculum in response to a public push for more examples of notable Mexican Americans.

Even in their name-adding frenzy, however, the board voted to leave former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros out of the fourth-grade lessons.

Other discussion centered on whether first-graders are old enough to learn about the accountability of public officials.

“It ought to be in every single grade, so maybe by the time they get out of high school they understand that we need to hold our elected officials accountable,” said board member Geraldine Miller, R-Dallas. “Maybe that’s the problem, that we’ve got to start early.”

“I would like to know how in the world a first grader can hold public officials accountable?” countered board member Mavis Knight, D-Dallas. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for this grade level.”

The amendment passed, however, and the topic could soon become required for first-grade classrooms.

The board also debated the merits of having second-graders read Aesop’s Fables. Some board members questioned whether the students were too young to decipher fact from fiction in the fables. The prevailing side argued that they could handle it.

Early squabbles over how much prominence to give civil rights leaders such as Cesar Chavez and the inclusion of Christmas appeared to have been smoothed over in the draft now being considered. But those issues could still re-emerge as board members continued to raise amendments.

Another flashpoint could come over how much emphasis should be given to the religious beliefs of the nation’s founding fathers. Some activists have sought to promote and highlight their Christianity. But many liberal activists who testified before the board on Wednesday implored the board to respect the constitutional separation of church and state.