texas critical thinking law

The Texas Legislature Has Targeted Critical Race Theory, But Is It Being Taught In Public Schools?

Cracking down on Critical Race Theory is on Gov. Greg Abbott's agenda for the Texas legislative special session that began this week. But Texas educators say they don't teach it, and experts say most people — including critics — don’t even know what is.

At the last Fort Worth Independent School District board meeting on June 22, chants of "USA, USA" and other phrases occasionally interrupted business.

Nearly 100 speakers showed up, many to blast the district for what they deemed an invasion of Critical Race Theory (CRT) into the curriculum.

“I’ve seen critical racist theory enter the school,” speaker Kathryn Pompa said. “CRT is reformulated Marxism, a neo-racist world view that exists to agitate, enable radical identity politics, divide people.”

“This cultural ideology is not a solution to unity but a tool for bondage, destruction, and further separation and clearly, the enemy of our day,” added Janna Clark.

Blanca Martinez pounded her fist on the lectern and yelled “CRT is a poison. It’s a poison to the mind. It corrupts!”

Trustees listened quietly.

The Fort Worth school district says it does not teach CRT and never has.

In Texas and across the country , Critical Race Theory has become a political lightning rod. Many Republican-led states are working to ban the school of thought from classrooms — even though teachers say they don’t even teach it.

This spring, Texas passed two laws taking aim at CRT . Republican Gov.Greg Abbott didn’t think they went far enough, so he included CRT on the agenda for the special legislative session that started this week.

Educators say most people, including critics, don’t even know what is.

What Is Critical Race Theory?

Nikki Jones teaches African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Jones described CRT as a way to understand how race influenced the historical laws of this country — laws that justified everything from slavery to violence.

“It’s a way to see race,” Jones said. “To see understandings of race, to see racism, in places where it may not otherwise on the surface of it be apparent.”

CRT is a decades-old intellectual movement born out of law schools that teaches that racism is embedded in systems and structures in the U.S. — such as legal institutions — rather than just being the product of individual prejudice. It is taught in some law schools and universities, but there's little evidence children and teens are learning the concept in grades K-12.

One of the Texas laws targeting CRT is House Bill 3979. Houston-area Rep. Steve Toth (R-The Woodlands) says he wrote it to help children.

“Kids are being scapegoated,” Toth said. “We're seeing Critical Race Theory popping up all over schools.”

Toth’s bill takes on CRT without ever naming it. He said students are being "indoctrinated," describing a situation a constituent from Highland Park, a high-income, predominantly white enclave surrounded by Dallas, shared with him.

“A parent in Highland Park sent me a copy of the book that her 8-year-old son was asked to read. “It's called 'Not My Idea: A Story About Whiteness,'" Toth said. "I thought that the whole idea of stereotyping, racial profiling was a bad thing, and Critical Race Theory goes into profiling white people. They're being taught that crap now in school.”

"You can't discriminate and say that one race or one gender is responsible for the ills of the past"

Highland Park says that’s not true. The school district said 82% of its students are white and less than 1% are Black. Spokesperson Jon Dahlander said the district can’t even find the book Toth mentioned.

“We don’t have the book in any of our school library catalogs,” Dahlander said. “Nor have we been able to find it on any of our campuses.”

Dahlander also said that Highland Park does not teach Critical Race Theory.

“Period. End of story,” Dahlander ephasized.

A Political Battle

Toth's bill tells history teachers how to teach complex subjects that include explaining racism.

“You can't teach that one race is better than the other. You can't teach that one gender is better than the other. You can't discriminate and say that one race or one gender is responsible for the ills of the past," Toth said. "We need to teach about the ills, but you can't blame this generation for those things of the past .”

State Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) says history should be taught equitably and truthfully.

“There were instances in this country, where even in the articles of secession in 1861, it was said that the Caucasian race is superior to the African American race. That’s history," West said. "I think that it would be totally unfair if you said you can’t teach what history has shown us to be the position in the past.”

Senator Nathan Johnson represents Highland Park. He said he sees no need for Toth’s bill because CRT isn’t taught in any Texas school district — no matter what others believe.

“It's not uncommon for people to genuinely believe things that aren't true, particularly when their political leaders tell them they’re true,” Johnson said. “This is a political stunt.”

Gov. Abbott is up for reelection next year, and faces at least two primary opponents further to his right. By doubling down against CRT in the special session, he's joining conservatives across the country in vilifying a curriculum that the majority of K-12 educators in Texas say does not exist.

UC-Berkeley’s Jones says with this legislation, Texas has fallen in line with other states where legislators passed laws that legitimize fear.

“It is not, in fact, true that Critical Race Theory is racist,” Jones said. “It is not, in fact, true that it encourages people to hate this country.”

"Critical Race Theory is being taught to kids about as often as we teach physics to second graders."

At the Fort Worth school board meeting, some people who like what the district’s doing also spoke out.

Fort Worth ISD has created a racial equity plan. Those who defend it say critics are confusing it with CRT.

“Critical Race Theory is being taught to kids about as often as we teach physics to second graders. Children are not being indoctrinated to hate themselves or anyone else," speaker Kent Bradshaw said. "Save that fight for when your kid goes to law school. That’s where they teach CRT.”

Kimberly Williams said she worries how this push will discourage teachers from directly talking racial injustice, and what that could mean for the future.

“As an African American female educator, we know that when racial equity is not consciously addressed, racial inequality is often unconsciously replicated," Williams said.

Audience cheers followed her words.

Got a tip? Email Reporter Bill Zeeble at [email protected] . You can follow him on Twitter @bzeeble .

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Texas ‘critical race theory’ bill limiting teaching of current events signed into law.

Texas is one of a handful of states that have approved legislation that prescribes how teachers discuss current events and prohibits students from receiving credit for participating in civic activities.

Gov. Greg Abbott has signed the controversial bill that prescribes how Texas teachers can talk about current events and America's history of racism in the classroom, according to Texas Legislature Online. His signature makes Texas one of a handful of states across the country that have passed such legislation, which aims to ban the teaching of "critical race theory" in K-12 public school classrooms.

Critical race theory is an academic term that studies how race and racism have impacted social and local structures in the United States. Over the past year, GOP leaders have decried its teaching in public schools, pointing to limited examples in various school districts across the state. In 2020, former President Donald Trump had banned federal employees from training that discusses "critical race theory" or "white privilege," calling it propaganda.

Several versions of the bill passed back and forth between the two chambers as Texas Democrats raised concerns the bill would have a chilling effect on classroom conversations. An amended version sent back to the House had appeared dead at one point after state Rep. James Talarico , D-Round Rock, tanked it on a procedural violation. But it was revived by the Texas Senate later that evening after senators reverted back to an earlier approved version of the bill and sent it to the governor's office. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had signaled support for the legislation since the start of the legislative session.

This law, which goes into effect Sept. 1, includes a list of founding documents that Texas students must be taught. It also includes a list of additional historical documents written by people of color and women that House Democrats had added. It also mandates that students be taught "the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong."

Still, many educators and education advocacy groups had opposed the bill, which states that teachers cannot be compelled to discuss current events and if they do, they must "give deference to both sides." Opponents say it limits honest conversations about race and racism in American society and will force teachers to equivocate on controversial or sensitive topics that will result in less educated students.

It also prohibits students from getting credit or extra credit for participating in civic activities that include political activism or lobbying elected officials on a particular issue.

The version signed by the governor also bans the teaching of The New York Times' 1619 Project , a reporting endeavor that examines U.S. history from the date when enslaved people first arrived on American soil, marking that as the country's foundational date.

Supporters of House Bill 3979 , which mirrors legislation making its way through state legislatures across the country, argue they are trying to combat personal biases bleeding into public education, pointing to a few individual instances in school districts across the state where parents have raised concerns.

Throughout legislative debates over the bill, they expressed concerns that teachers are unfairly blaming white people for historical wrongs and distorting the founding fathers' accomplishments. In recent years, there have been calls for more transparency about historical figures' racist beliefs or connections to slavery.

But education advocacy groups said the law is ultimately politically motivated.

"The specific references by Republicans to banning Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project make it clear that they want this to be a wedge issue for state and local political races," said the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers in a statement in late May. "The bill is part of a national movement by conservatives trying to sow a narrative of students being indoctrinated by teachers. Our members rightfully have expressed outrage against this insult of their professionalism to provide balanced conversations with students on controversial issues."

Governors in Idaho and Tennessee have signed similar bills into law with more than a dozen other states considering legislation.

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Texas Lawmakers Take Aim At Critical Race Theory

Texas' governor says a new education bill designed to keep critical race theory out of the state's classrooms doesn't go far enough. Texas school districts deny they even teach critical race theory.

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 3979 into law Wednesday, banning Texas public schools from being able to teach students critical race theory.

Critical race theory is a social theory that asserts that racial issues in society are influenced, created, and maintained by societal structures and cultural assumptions. It focuses on the intersections between gender, race, class, national origin, and how each factor can change a person’s experience within society. In the US, specifically, it posits that white supremacy, white privilege, and institutional racism are perpetuated through the legal system.

GOP-backed HB 3979 makes Texas the twenty-second state to prohibit critical race theory from its curriculum. The bill does not specifically mention critical race theory by name, but it outlines what can and cannot be discussed in Texas public schools. The ban on critical race theory is couched among a number of educational goals like developing “each student’s civic knowledge,” including focusing on the civil rights movement, women’s suffrage, the writings of the founding fathers and mothers, writings from Frederick Douglass’ “North Star,” Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education .

The bill specifically forbids any teacher in Texas from including in their curricula the ideas that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic principles of the United States,” that “the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States,” or that “meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race.”

HB 3979 also mentions, pointedly, that “a teacher, administrator, or other employee of a state agency, school district, or open enrollment charter school may not … require an understanding of The 1619 Project.” The 1619 Project is a project that reframes the country’s history through an investigation of slavery and race in the US by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative.

The bill does mandate that students be taught the history of white supremacy, slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Klu Klux Klan, along with the ways in which each is morally wrong.

Abbott signed the bill with a terse statement, noting that the issue of critical race theory will be added to a special session agenda and saying, “House Bill No. 3979 is a strong move to abolish critical race theory in Texas, but more must be done.” HB 3979 takes effect on September 1.

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Senate passes critical race theory ban at Texas’ public universities

The bill’s author said the proposed law promotes academic freedom; critics say it will create fear among nonwhite, lgbtq faculty..

By Philip Jankowski

1:55 PM on Apr 11, 2023 CDT — Updated at 7:55 PM on Apr 12, 2023 CDT

AUSTIN — The Texas Senate gave initial approval Tuesday to a bill that aims to ban teaching critical race theory from classrooms and lessons on public college campuses.

The bill is the latest challenge from state Republican lawmakers to the academic framework that has become a rallying cry for conservatives in recent years. The proposal would create a process for students and members of the public to file complaints against college professors teaching the framework and have them fired, regardless of tenure.

The proposal from Mineola Republican Bryan Hughes is part of a slate of higher-education bills in the Senate that are among Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s top priorities during this year’s legislative session. Other bills include eliminating tenure at public universities and prohibiting colleges from maintaining offices for diversity, equity and inclusion — also known as DEI.

The bill passed on a 19-12 party line vote Tuesday and was later passed on final reading in the Senate with the same margin.

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Critical race theory is an academic philosophy that examines laws and government policies and structures under a lens of systematic racism. The ideas of the intellectual framework have existed since the 1960s and were never officially taught at public schools.

Related: What is critical race theory? Behind the concept that is impacting Texas school elections

Related: How ‘critical race theory’ came to dominate education debates in Texas

Despite this, critical race theory has remained a political target for Texas conservatives and across the nation. It was a dominant issue during 2021′s session as lawmakers passed bans on teaching it in K-12 public classrooms.

Republican lawmakers have derided the theory as divisive, under a belief that it defines people by their race and teaches hatred of the U.S.

The proposed law, Senate Bill 16 , states that a college professor cannot compel a student to adopt a belief that any race, sex or ethnicity is superior to another and that no social, political or religious belief is better than another.

Hughes said the purpose of the bill was to preserve academic freedom and promote discourse at the state’s higher learning institutions.

Critics of the bill have called it overly broad and say they believe it will have a chilling effect on academic discourse involving race and equity and disproportionately affect nonwhite and LBGTQ professors.

Hughes’ proposed law does not name critical race theory explicitly and is far less prescriptive than bans the Legislature passed in 2021. The vagueness of the bill became a point of contention among Democrats.

While the bill was written with critical race theory in mind, Hughes said it would prevent professors from forcing any beliefs upon students. Democratic lawmakers quizzed Hughes with various hypotheticals, including an example from Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, on whether an avowed socialist student could file indoctrination complaints against a University of Texas business professor forcing capitalist beliefs on them.

Hughes said the bill prohibits a professor from requiring a student to adopt any belief but it does not place any restrictions on the content of curriculum.

“It has no effect on what a teacher can teach,” Hughes said. “They can teach whatever they want to.”

But when pressed by San Antonio Democratic Sen. Roland Gutierrez, Hughes would not say that college professors could still teach critical race theory in Texas even if the bill is passed.

“If they are trying to compel that belief as we’ve discussed and as each senator and I have discussed, that’s the problem, but academic freedom, intellectual diversity are specifically preserved under this statute,” Hughes said.

“So that would be a yes?” Gutierrez asked.

“I’ll stand on the words of the bill,” Hughes said.

After final passage Wednesday, the bill will head to the House for consideration.

Philip Jankowski , Austin Bureau Correspondent . Philip Jankowski has covered government, politics and criminal justice in Texas for 13 years. He previously worked for the Austin American-Statesman, the Killeen Daily Herald and the Taylor Press. Philip is a graduate of the University of Texas-Austin.

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Texas' 'critical race theory' may be tricky for teachers to navigate

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Critical race theory is an academic framework used to examine structural causes of racial inequality. Now, Gov. Greg Abbott said it cannot be taught to students K-12 in Texas public schools.

Dr. Portia Hopkins, an American studies professor at Lee College in Baytown, said this new law may be tricky for teachers to navigate, saying there is not a lot of clear instruction on what teachers cannot do.

"You might get into a situation where you're talking about a current event. This current event is very clearly connected to a past historic event like the Civil Rights movement, Civil Rights amendments and now, it's not really clear to me how much context I can give the students in order for them to understand the social, political and cultural context that these particular historic events are happening within," explained Hopkins.

SEE ALSO: How Texas 'critical race theory' bill could impact teachers

Coretta Mallet-Fontenot is one of the teachers who will be working with this new law. She teaches 11th grade at Chavez High School.

"When you have the truth, and the truth is based on facts, not opinions. It's based on facts. You should be able to teach that regardless of how beautiful that truth is or how damaging that truth may be," said Mallet-Fontenot.

She said she's worried about the impact it will have on her classroom.

"Being able to give kids the historical context in which those things were meant to affect or direct society's attention to is going to be very limited, because now when I teach 'The Crucible,' how or will I be allowed to make the connection to McCarthyism and those hearings that took place?"

Still, some are glad the legislation passed. A man named Steve, who did not disclose his full name, said he believes it's dividing the country.

"I'm pleased that it was signed. It needed to be done. Again, I am not against the teaching of critical race theory as a theory, I'm against it being taught, forced upon people. I'm against it being used as a wedge in this country," Steve expressed.

SEE ALSO: TX Bill seeks to strip required lessons on people of color and women from "critical race theory" law

When it comes to how much this legislation will actually impact the classroom, Hopkins said it may not be a dramatic change.

"Probably not much, you know? The TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) still requires you to teach about the Civil Rights movement. The TEKS still requires you to talk about Fredrick Douglass and Du Bois. The TEKS still requires you to cover certain things. What I will say is going to continue being a challenge for instructors is how critical race theory or the 'abolition' of critical race theory is going to be enforced at the local level," said Hopkins.

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What Does the Critical Race Theory Law Mean for Texas Classrooms? Teachers Speak Out

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As policymakers across the country debate how the nation’s racist history and its impacts should be approached in classrooms, teachers have been caught in the fray.

Education Week spoke to teachers across the state of Texas— one of the 11 states that have put limits on how teachers can discuss race and racism in the classroom —to understand how they feel about the national conversation and how they think it will change the education students receive.

Texas’ restrictions are among the broadest in the nation, and they will affect nearly 5.5 million students, nearly three-quarters of whom are students of color. (Texas lawmakers could still enact additional restrictions—though on July 12, Democratic legislators fled the state , preventing a quorum and delaying any action during the special session.)

Below, teachers share their thoughts on what the Texas law means for schools and social studies teaching. These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Lakeisha Patterson, 3rd grade English/language arts, reading, and social studies teacher at Deepwater Elementary School, Houston area My initial reaction to House Bill 3979 was shock, and then it led to disappointment, which then led to anger. Given our current state of race and social justice issues the United States is facing, I was shocked that a bill like this would even be presented. I was disappointed because it silences the voices of our educators from sharing factual, honest information and dialogue with their students in the classroom. And I was angered because I felt like this was just another example of Texas whitewashing history.

We were virtual the majority of our first semester, and I had a student, her virtual background said Black Lives Matter. Well, I had a student who asked, “Why would she have that background?” So we had an open and honest conversation about why people feel that it’s important to raise up Black Lives Matter, what the historical background was from some of the current events that occurred in the United States in 2020, as well as the civil rights movement. This spun into an entire conversation. Mind you, this is not in our TEKS [Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards]. This is just me, an educator, having an opportunity and a platform to share with my students where they’re at, and what’s going on in society, and how they feel about that and how that impacts them. This bill limits conversations like that.

This bill prohibits teachers from being authentic. It prohibits us from sharing personal experiences, sharing that, yes, there are stains in our American history. And we have to acknowledge those. We have to admit that this is what happened, we learn from it, and we ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

Chandra Wright, 4th grade reading, writing, and social studies teacher at West Handley Elementary School, Fort Worth I’m trying to figure out, how do you approach [classroom discussions under HB 3979]? I don’t know. Because if I say too much, if I really do answer their questions the way I’m supposed to, I don’t want to get in trouble. But you don’t want to leave a kid hanging. You want to tell them the truth, what’s happening in the world, not have them find out from other sources that may not be accurate.

Jennifer Drabbant, former math teacher at Cedar Ridge High School, Round Rock When I testified [in favor of the new law], I didn’t do it on behalf of the school, or as a math teacher. I did it just as a person with an opinion and a parent. I’m a single mom to twin daughters. They’re 9. The reason I wanted to testify for it is to make sure that people like my daughters, because they’re [mixed race] Mexican, Black, and white, I don’t want people to look at them like they have it bad, that they are already down in society before they even had a chance. If they have a hard life later on, it’s because of their own decisions.

Probably the most common thing any conservative teacher can tell you is that in our classrooms, it’s perfectly acceptable for teachers to put up pride flags, BLM posters, all of that, right? It’s perfectly acceptable for them to give their points of view on politics. And I don’t have any problem with that. I like these types of discussions. But then there’s people like me who get shut down for just giving my point of view.

For example, one year, I got the Travis County GOP volunteer-of-the-year award. I put it on my desk, and the reaction, oh my gosh. I think I got rid of [the award] within two days. At first, my students saw it and they were like, “Wait, Republican party? Wait, do you support Trump?” All of a sudden, teachers started coming into my classroom and looking at that award and then leaving. It’s not balanced. There’s only one point of view in schools that is allowed, and that’s going to go off onto the students, in my opinion.

That experience showed me that the teachers that I’m surrounded with are OK with teaching the students that they are struggling or down or have a foot lower in society already just because of maybe how they look or their sexual orientation, gender, whatever. As far as this bill and critical race theory , it isn’t necessary to teach our youth that we’ve had a very ugly racist past. We have a very ugly, ugly past, but we are better as a country because of Western civilization and not in spite of it.

August Plock, 11th grade U.S. history teacher at Pflugerville High School, near Austin What I’m really concerned about is that this law is going to give ground to parents to file complaints on teachers that are teaching something that they personally disagree with and don’t want their child to be exposed to. It could potentially shut teachers down [because] they’re intimidated. I think it comes down to your school administration: Are they going to back you with a parent?

What if you’re a math teacher that just wants to have a conversation with students about something current events-related, and all of a sudden, [you’re told] you’re only supposed to talk about numbers, why are you talking to kids about George Floyd? Potentially any conversations you have with students now, could it be taken out of context? The kids especially want to talk about Black Lives Matter.

Joseph Frilot, 6th and 7th grade humanities teacher at IDEA Montopolis College Prep, East Austin I find the law to be highly racist. We, as a nation, were able to come together for the most part and agree that what happened to George Floyd was a tragedy, and that racism and police brutality has no place in this country. This is my first time actually witnessing police officers being held accountable. It felt like we were moving in the right direction. Then there’s this law passed in Texas, and it’s being passed in other conservative states, where teachers aren’t allowed to even talk about this topic.

It gives students the chance, and parents the chance, to just stop all types of conversations when it comes to race. And it gives those teachers who didn’t care about racism or who are racist to begin with, it gives them the chance to remain silent and complicit in what’s going on in our country when it comes to racism and oppression.

Anthony Lopez-Waste, 2021 Texas Secondary Teacher of the Year and a world history teacher at Canutillo High School, El Paso I do understand where parents would be concerned. They don’t want their kids being quote, unquote indoctrinated. I know there are some teachers that feel very strongly about certain things, whether it’s politics or religion or whatnot. I can understand parents not wanting a teacher trying to shove a belief system down their throats. But people are missing the point of, hey, our kids need to learn about how we got here. There are examples of coerced and forced labor throughout history. Every civilization has been enslaved at some point, and every civilization has been the enslaver at some point. For people to get all up in arms that, “You’re making us look bad” or “We’re teaching people to hate each other”—I just think that’s silly. And that’s politicians trying to drive their own narrative.

Joe Shehan, 7th-12th grade social studies teacher at Azle Christian School, near Fort Worth The insidious nature of critical [race] theory is that students who might be lumped into that broad spectrum of “oppressor” are going to get ignored in the name of equity and inclusion. Your lower-performing white student is not going to necessarily be the focus [if resources are allocated to programs that target students from marginalized groups]. That does not mean that the teacher is going to ignore them. ... My concern about HB 3979 is that it’s too narrowly focused on the classroom, and not focused on these structural issues.

I think the law is wrong-headed. I have talked to teachers, and not just teachers on the conservative side as I am. Prior to teaching at Azle Christian, I taught primarily in public schools in the inner cities of Dallas-Fort Worth. Are there teachers that are teaching critical race theory? Yes. There are. Now, let me be absolutely clear in this regard: I don’t think it’s because they’re sitting there trying to paint one race as inferior to another or one race as inherently racist to another. But at the same time, they’re working with students, where nuance isn’t really part of the students’ wheelhouse yet.

When you have a teacher who’s getting up, and all they talk about is white racism—even if that’s not the intent of the teacher, but that’s the focus of the curriculum—then a student comes out of that classroom thinking, “OK, well, then white = bad, Black = good.” I think what the lawmakers are trying to avoid is this effort towards painting with such a broad brush, that we have that idea that whites are just naturally racist.

At the same time, when you’re teaching the civil rights era, it was a systemically racist time in American history, and you have to teach it that way. The fact that the law is so vague in its language, I do see the concerns of teachers who are afraid that that’s going to prohibit them from being able to teach certain things or give the power to parents to come in and say, “Well, I don’t want my children reading Ibram X. Kendi in the classroom.” Well, why not? If it’s being paired with Voddie Baucham [a pastor who is an outspoken advocate of homeschooling and biblical patriarchy , and a critic of critical race theory] or Thomas Sowell [a free-market economist], then that’s good. That’s what we want in education. We want kids to be shown both sides of an argument and let them make that decision. If we start saying, “This can’t be taught,” and taking autonomy away from teachers, that is dangerous.

Juan Carmona, U.S. and Mexican American history teacher at Donna High School, near McAllen What [policymakers are] going to have to do in September is they’re going to have to get committees together. And those committees are going to have to write new [standards] which will be examined and have to go to the state board for approval, ... so none of this will happen right away.

But let’s just pretend it is the worst that we can believe. Then yes, you’re going to end up having to stifle class discussion, which in a sense, won’t educate our kids. They’re going to go and get their information probably from social media, things without evidence, without sources, just rumor and lies. We are casting our students aside, casting our learning aside for someone’s political agenda.

And some of the language is vague. It says [teachers must explore a topic from a variety of] “perspectives.” Whose perspectives? How do you evaluate a perspective? [Teachers can’t be compelled to discuss] certain current events. What certain current events? Probably a lot of teachers are going to be like, “Well, I don’t want to touch that.” Soon you’re down to studying history as a box that happened a long time ago and we can’t talk about how it applies to us, which is part of historical thinking skills.

We have schools right now that have African and Mexican American Studies [courses], and maybe they’ll stay, or maybe some might rethink them as this goes forward. And if they stay, I’m glad. But my fear is that we may not be able to expand into other districts, because maybe some people there will be like, “Well, we might violate that law.” It could be a scary situation for some people. So I think, not only are we silencing voices in the classroom, we’re silencing potential classes, all of which is to the benefit of our kids. This just seems like something that’s just going to harm them. Why would we want to do that? We should be expanding educational opportunities, not shrinking them.

A version of this article appeared in the August 18, 2021 edition of Education Week as What Does the Critical Race Theory Law Mean for Texas Classrooms? Teachers Speak Out

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Teachers, students speak out against Texas laws targeting critical race theory

Bans on anti-racist education could impact students’ development, teachers say.

For former U.S. Army Capt. Diane Birdwell, teaching world history has always been a personal journey into her family’s heritage.

The 60-year-old teacher often invokes her own family’s history when she teaches her 10th-grade students at a local Dallas public high school. In her maternal ancestry, she says she had family members who served in the Confederate Army. On her father’s side, her ancestors served as part of the Nazi German military.

“I don't shy away from it because I accept the fact that it's part of my family's past,” Birdwell told ABC News. “I deal with the fact that there are relatives in my family history who did things I would not have done and I accept that. I can acknowledge what they did.”

Every school year, when Birdwell teaches her students about WWII, she shows them her uncle’s Ahnenpass book, which he was required to keep under Hitler’s rule as a record proving that he was not of Jewish heritage.

“When we're talking about … the Nuremberg laws that Hitler put in place to separate Jews from German citizens that were Christian, you have a situation where you had to prove your ancestry,” she explained. “With this, you have these factual stamps and information on your family's ancestry, and you had to carry these with you wherever you went.”

“I inherited this and I show it in class to make sure they understand that this all really happened. The Holocaust was real, and don't think for a second it didn't happen,” she added. “Hopefully, our country can move and improve when you personalize history and that's what I'm trying to get them to do.”

Although these discussions are sometimes uncomfortable, the Dallas-based teacher said that talking about past injustices is necessary to prevent history from repeating itself.

However, she may soon have to change her candid teaching style if a GOP-led bill in Texas is voted into law. The current version of the state’s Senate Bill 3 would remove a mandate for educators to teach historic moments of slavery, as well as the Chicano movements, women’s suffrage and civil rights.

MORE: 'Anti-democratic': Some teachers blast new laws targeting discussions of race in schools

One of the most controversial pieces of the proposal would remove a requirement to teach students that the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy is morally wrong.

Critics of SB 3 say the bill attempts to legislate education policy to ban teaching anti-racism in K-12 schools. They say the educational efforts in these grades have been politicized and conflated as critical race theory , a higher education academic framework created over 40 years ago to explore how a history of racism and white supremacy may still be embedded in U.S. institutions, including the legal system.

“What legal scholars and their students did was they turned to the law, they turned to institutions, they turned to policies to understand how discrimination was perpetuated by these institutions, by these structures, by these policies, in order to make sense of continuing inequality,” Leah Wright Rigueur, an associate professor of American history at Brandeis University, told ABC News.

MORE: Critical race theory in the classroom: Understanding the debate

While Republican state lawmakers are working to pass prohibitions, critical race theory is not currently a part of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills requirements, which sets the requirements for the K-12 curriculums as mandated by the state Board of Education.

Texas is now one of 26 states that have proposed or passed laws restricting or banning classroom discussions on concepts relating to race and racism, which many Republican lawmakers say are divisive.

While many had come to accept critical race theory as a new way to understand the impacts of racism, former President Donald Trump helped spark debate over its legitimacy during his reelection campaign, and Republicans have lobbied against it ever since.

During a speech announcing his 1776 Commission in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17, 2020, Trump said that "students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation.”

Trump went on to sign an executive order titled “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” which banned anti-racist, racial and sexual sensitivity trainings for federal employees. He also denounced the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project by New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, which focused on the lasting impact of slavery in the U.S.

President Joe Biden has since reversed the executive order, saying he will prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion within his administration.

Battle in the school board

School boards across the country are holding meetings to debate critical race theory, with some parents accusing teachers of having a political agenda in the classroom. Politicians, parents and students are all weighing in on the debate over what children should learn and who gets to make that decision.

The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) is traditionally responsible for creating the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills — also known as TEKS — which is a basic curriculum for K-12 public education. Marisa Perez-Diaz has been a member of the SBOE since 2013, representing District 3, which includes the San Antonio region.

“This is the first time I've experienced this where the legislature is directly impacting the work that the State Board of Education is responsible for doing and dictating what needs to be taught and what needs to be included in schools. That's never happened and that should never happen,” Perez-Diaz said.

This week, she facilitated a meeting with students and educators across Texas to discuss recent education bills proposed or passed in the state. Burbank High School teacher Luke Amphlett was one of the participants.

“It's not accidental that this is happening at the moment of the largest multiracial uprising against police brutality in history,” he said. “This is happening in a moment where we're seeing the demographics of Texas shifting and a majority of students of color now in Texas schools.”

Alejo Pena Soto, a recent graduate of Jefferson High School in the San Antonio Independent School District, says SB 3 is “just ignorant in the sense that it's forgetting a lot of the history of where education comes from.”

That sentiment is one Perez-Diaz identifies with. She said she wants her four children to grow up knowing how their ancestors contributed to the fabric of this country.

“The work of understanding our histories is also very personal to me, because as a Latina, as a Mexican-American in Texas, I wasn't exposed to my history,” she said. “All I had to learn was what was passed down in oral history from my family.”

Perez-Diaz is a fourth-generation Mexican American and the youngest person to be a member of the SBOE. She’s also the first in her family to graduate college and an alumnus of Texas’ public school education.

“I am proud to be a Texan. I'm not proud of the policy and the laws that come out of Texas,” she said.

Texas has one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S. and more than half of the state’s student population is Hispanic.

Perez-Diaz says critical race theory has become the new catchphrase for conversations about race and diversity not just inside the classrooms but outside them, too. She says much of the fear surrounding it is baseless.

“No, critical race theory is not being taught in K-12 education,” she said. “It is a higher education framework that is engaged typically at the graduate level.”

“There are foundational issues in U.S. history that are very much connected to racial inequity, segregation, redlining, [and] all of those issues are not critical race theory,” she added. “That's history. That's our country's history.”

Texas State Rep. Steve Toth believes that history is important for students to learn, but he says the methods for teaching it should remain traditional.

“I think it's very simple: you teach [that] the past is the past,” he said. “I was taught in school about the Civil War. I was taught about slavery. I was taught about Jim Crow. But I wasn't blamed for it. Slavery was a sin of our past. Jim Crow is a sin of our past.”

Toth and other Republican lawmakers are pushing to ban critical race theory in K-12 public and charter schools, and threatening to take funding away if teachers are caught teaching it. He is the author of Texas House Bill 3979, one of the first of Texas’ bills that aimed to stop critical race theory from being used in classrooms. It was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June and will take effect in September.

“We have had dozens and dozens of teachers [who] called saying that they do not want to teach critical race theory in Texas classrooms, and this is [a] response to that,” he said.

One of the controversial pieces of Toth’s bill requires teachers to abstain from conversations that might lead to someone feeling “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.”

“If you want to say that the United States is still a systemic racist nation, that's a lie. If you want to say that there is racism in our land, that's the truth. Absolutely true,” Toth said.

Another section of his bill prohibits teachers from feeling compelled to discuss current events with students, saying that if it comes up, they must explore the news from “diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.”

“I honestly don't know how we responsibly teach social studies or civics education without engaging in conversations about current events,” Perez-Diaz said. “Our students, our scholars across the country, leave the classroom and experience the world as it is, right. So then, how do we come into the classroom and we expect them to ignore all of that noise outside when they have a lot of questions?”

For students, American history is personal.

For students like 14-year-old Chris Johnson of Aledo, Texas, our nation’s racist past is still a reality that haunts his daily life. Earlier this year, Chris and a fellow Black student were targeted by classmates who set up a “slave auction” on Snapchat.

That virtual post was initially called “n----- auction,” he said, adding that his classmates pretended to sell them: one for $100 and the other for $1.

Chris’ mom, Mioshi Johnson, said she reported the incident to the school administrators immediately. The school disciplined the students involved and outlined multiple steps to address the problem in the community. But she said they called the incident “cyber bullying,” not “racism.”

“It made it so that people didn't know what really happened. So there was no conversation about how egregious it was,” Johnson said. “There was no conversation about the direct racism that it was.”

Susan K. Bohn, Ed.D., the superintendent of Aledo Independent School District, said in a statement to parents, “I am deeply sorry that a few of our students engaged in racial harassment of two of our students of color. … It was totally unacceptable to all of us, and it should not have happened.”

Chris shared his painful story at a local school board meeting on April 19.

“I spoke up to stand up for myself and every other kid in Aledo to just show them that's not OK and we shouldn't be treated different,” he said.

“They weren't listening to what people were saying, so they needed to hear firsthand from the people that were affected by it,” he said. “If the government, politicians and even the school board would just listen to us, they would understand that we have every right to be a part of the solution.”

Chris says he wants his school district to take action and to make sure an incident like the one he went through never happens again.

“We're not just going to sit back. … We need to actually see them take initiative and change,” he said.

Both he and his mother agree that having honest dialogues about racism is crucial to becoming anti-racist.

“The division comes from not knowing, not being aware, not having someone to tell you or teach you,” she said. “When you take that away, you have instances of teenage boys saying slave trade, slave auction, slave farm because no one has taught them.”

Johnson said she believes that incorporating ideas of critical race theory into a curriculum gives students a fuller picture of their history.

“I don't see critical race theory as being something terrible. I don't see it being a blame game — ‘shame-you’ — type of theory. I believe that it's telling the whole entire story; parts of the story that people aren't learning anymore [and] will probably never hear about if people aren't teaching it.” she said. “When you know the whole story from the history to the present, it kind of brings it full circle to you.”

Athena Tseng, a 15-year-old high school junior in Frisco, Texas is a member of Diversify Your Narrative, an organization that works to incorporate the voices of Black, indigenous and other people of color into classroom curriculums. She was born in Arizona but her family is originally from Taiwan.

“I barely ever see history about my heritage, or anything in my classes, even in the books we read,” Tseng said. “To have diverse representation in our history and literature classes, or just overall, really helps with even just people of color being more comfortable in their skin.”

“I think if you're not exposed to … other cultures ... then I don't think people are going to go out of their way to do that and learn and grow,” she added.

As state lawmakers, parents and school board officials battle over how to teach American history, Birdwell says that opponents of critical race theory should consider how prohibitions in history education could impact students’ critical thinking development.

“These opponents of critical race theory or diversity education, what they're saying is they don't trust their children,” Birdwell said. “I think they really fear that their kids might pick up that their ancestors did some bad things. They might pick up that there is still a legacy in this country of racism and that we need to do something about it.”

On Aug. 3, Rep. James White, the only Black Republican State House member, submitted a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asking him to review the constitutionality of critical race theory education and anti-racism teaching.

Regardless of whether the latest bill, Texas SB 3, passes, Paxton's opinion could set a precedent for future legislation that could potentially impact diversity, equity and inclusivity training efforts in education as well as in other public agencies.

In the meantime, Birdwell says she will continue to follow her lesson plans as usual. She says history needs to come with context: facts alone are not enough.

“If you have to confront that racism of the past, then white citizens are going to have to confront that their families were alive when it happened,” she said. “That doesn't make [them] themselves bad people. It just means: accept that in the past, some of our stuff is not pleasant to learn or talk about.”

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Texas' ban on critical race theory in schools proves the GOP still doesn't understand MLK's message

Texas this week became the latest state to ban the teaching of critical race theory. The author of the bill, Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, has insisted that the measure was wholly in keeping with the vision of Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil rights activists like King called their protests “demonstrations” because they sought to demonstrate the realities of segregation and discrimination in undeniable terms.

“It echoes Dr. King’s wish that we should judge people on the content of their character, not [the color of] their skin,” Toth told a reporter this month.

This talking point is apparently the new Republican orthodoxy. At a campaign rally last year, then-President Donald Trump claimed that “critical race theory is a Marxist doctrine that rejects the vision of Martin Luther King Jr.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis likewise asserted that critical race theory was “basically teaching kids to hate our country and to hate each other based on race,” adding: “It puts race as the most important thing. I want content of character to be the most important thing.”

In making such comments, Republican officials reveal that they don’t really understand critical race theory — and don’t really understand Martin Luther King Jr., either.

Despite the moral panic from conservative politicians that it was designed with “kids” in mind, critical race theory has largely been limited to law schools and advanced graduate programs. (As many joked on social media, if your “kids” are really being taught critical race theory, you should be proud they’re in law school.)

Moreover, far from stressing that race is “the most important thing,” critical race theory challenges the idea that race is a thing at all. It starts with the premise that there is no biological or scientific justification for racial categories and that race was a socially constructed invention — a fiction, but one that has nevertheless been written into our laws and legislation.

Those who work on critical race theory are baffled by the seemingly deliberate mischaracterizations of their work.

Those who work on critical race theory are baffled by the seemingly deliberate mischaracterizations of their work. Kimberlé Crenshaw, the noted law professor at UCLA and Columbia and a pioneering scholar in the field, dismissed Trump’s and DeSantis’ specific claims as “false and slanderous.” As she explained in a recent interview , “Critical race theory just says let's pay attention to what has happened in this country and how what has happened in this country is continuing to create differential outcomes, so we can become that country that we say we are.”

Contrary to Republican cries that this scholarship is “ un-American ,” Crenshaw asserts that “critical race theory is not anti-patriotic.”

“In fact, it is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it, because we believe in the 13th and the 14th and the 15th Amendment,” Crenshaw says. “We believe in the promises of equality. And we know we can't get there if we can't confront and talk honestly about inequality.”

Talking honestly about inequality, it turns out, was a special point of emphasis for Martin Luther King Jr. He devoted a considerable amount of his activism and authorship doing it. But the limited knowledge that Trump, DeSantis and Toth all have of King’s work apparently begins and ends with that one line about “character.”

To appreciate this reality, and to see how wrong those are who see MLK and critical race theory as diametrically opposed, look no further than two iconic moments the Texas law encourages teachers to use: “Martin Luther King Jr.'s ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ and ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.”

In his landmark address at the March on Washington in August 1963, King did note his hope that “one day” his children would be judged by their character and not the color of their skin, but that was only one line in a more nuanced address.

While King looked ahead to that day, his vision remained firmly fixed on the realities of racism and discrimination in his own time.

More important, while King looked ahead to that day, his vision remained firmly fixed on the realities of racism and discrimination in his own time; he devoted the bulk of his address to identifying and articulating them. King chronicled the ways African Americans faced systemic patterns of discrimination and inequality, from “the unspeakable horrors of police brutality” to the discriminatory public and private policies that put African Americans on “a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”

“We’ve come here today,” King patiently explained again, “to dramatize a shameful condition.”

In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail , which he wrote four months before the March on Washington, King had already sounded out these same things, in greater length.

The letter, which was King’s response to chiding from moderate white ministers, patiently explained that the first “basic step” in his activism was the “collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist.”

Asserting that “privileged groups” fail to see how others often lack the same privileges and therefore dismiss their complaints, King rattled off for them — and us — a litany of the systemic and structural inequalities that faced African Americans, including police brutality, voting discrimination and an unequal economy that locked “the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.”

Notably, King spent a great deal of the letter outlining how “the unjust law” — which he defined as “a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself” — worked to prop up those racial and economic inequalities. The racist intent or racial impact of such legislation might not be overt, King noted. “Sometimes a law is just on its face,” he wrote, “and unjust in its application.”

Civil rights activists like King adopted the word “demonstrations” to characterize their protests, because they sought to demonstrate the realities of segregation and discrimination in undeniable terms. In the letter, King explained that he sought to expose the hypocrisies in Jim Crow laws and demonstrate the inequalities they obscured.

“We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive,” he wrote. “We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

King’s summons to identify and illuminate the racial, economic and political inequalities in American life runs counter to the conservative culture war against critical race theory and related publications like The 1619 Project. (In full disclosure, I am one of several historians who have written chapters for the project’s forthcoming book .)

Politicians like Trump, DeSantis and Toth are certainly welcome to believe that we should not, in fact, acknowledge the deep roots of racism in American society and how that shaped the nation around us, but they shouldn’t invoke the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. when they do so.

At the very least, they should follow their own recommendations and study what the civil rights icon actually wrote and actually said. It seems they might be in for an education of their own.

Kevin M. Kruse is a professor of history at Princeton University. A specialist in modern American political, social and urban/suburban history, he is the author and editor of several books, including "White Flight" (2005), "One Nation Under God" (2015) and "Fault Lines: A History of the United States since 1974" (2019). He grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and earned his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his master's and doctoral degrees from Cornell University.

clock This article was published more than  11 years ago

Texas GOP rejects ‘critical thinking’ skills. Really.

(Update: Stephen Colbert’s take; other details)

In the you-can't-make-up-this-stuff department, here's what the Republican Party of Texas wrote into its 2012 platform as part of the section on education:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Yes, you read that right. The party opposes the teaching of “higher order thinking skills” because it believes the purpose is to challenge a student’s “fixed beliefs” and undermine “parental authority.”

It opposes, among other things, early childhood education, sex education, and multicultural education, but supports “school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded.”

When taken with the other parts of the education platform(see below), it seems a fair conclusion that the GOP Party in Texas doesn’t think much of public education. Unfortunately, this notion isn’t limited to the GOP in Texas but is more commonly being seen across the country by some of the most strident of “school reformers.”

It should be noted that after the plank in the platform was ridiculed, Texas GOP Communications Director Chris Elam told TPM.com that it was all a big mistake and that opposition to "critical thinking" wasn't supposed to be included. It can't be easily removed, he said, because the platform had been approved by a party convention and any changes would also have to go through the same process. That clears things up.

You can see Stephen Colbert's hilarious take on this episode by clicking here .

It also seems worth noting that there is some question as to whether critical thinking can actually be taught. University of Virginia cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham argues that it cannot be taught in this 2007 article.

First Willingham defines critical thinking this way: Critical thinking consists of seeing both sides of an issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms your ideas, reasoning dispassionately, demanding that claims be backed by evidence, deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts, solving problems, and so forth. Then too, there are specific types of critical thinking that are characteristic of different subject matter: That's what we mean when we refer to "thinking like a scientist" or "thinking like a historian."

Later in the article he writes: After more than 20 years of lamentation, exhortation, and little improvement, maybe it's time to ask a fundamental question: Can critical thinking actually be taught? Decades of cognitive research point to a disappointing answer: not really. People who have sought to teach critical thinking have assumed that it is a skill, like riding a bicycle, and that, like other skills, once you learn it, you can apply it in any situation. Research from cognitive science shows that thinking is not that sort of skill.

But of course, that isn’t what the Texas GOP is arguing. It sees “critical thinking” as something subversive. Scary stuff.

Here’s the rest of the education section of the Texas GOP’s 2012 platform:

American Identity Patriotism and Loyalty – We believe the current teaching of a multicultural curriculum is divisive. We favor strengthening our common American identity and loyalty instead of political correctness that nurtures alienation among racial and ethnic groups. Students should pledge allegiance to the American and Texas flags daily to instill patriotism.

Basic Standards – We favor improving the quality of education for all students, including those with special needs. We support a return to the traditional basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, and citizenship with sufficient discipline to ensure learning and quality educational assessment.

Bilingual Education – We encourage non-English speaking students to transition to English within three years.

Career and Technology Education (Vocational Education) – We support reinstatement of voluntary career and technology education, including adjusting the 4x4 requirements as needed, without detracting from non-vocational program requirements.

Classroom Discipline –We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. Corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas.

Classroom Expenditures for Staff – We support having 80% of school district payroll expenses of professional staff of a school district be full-time classroom teachers.

College Tuition – We recommend three levels of college tuition: In-state requiring proof of Texas legal citizenship, out-of-state requiring proof of US citizenship, and nonresident legal alien. Non-US citizens should not be eligible for state or federal grants, or loans.

Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

Early Childhood Development – We believe that parents are best suited to train their children in their early development and oppose mandatory pre-school and Kindergarten. We urge Congress to repeal government-sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development.

Educational Entitlement – We encourage legislation that prohibits enrollment in free public schools of non-citizens unlawfully present in the United States.

Funding of Education – We urge the Legislature to direct expenditures to academics as the first priority.

Higher Education – We support merit-based admissions for all college and university applicants to public institutions. We further support the repeal of the 1997 Texas legislative act commonly known as the Top Ten Percent Rule. All Texas students should be given acceptance priority over out-of-state or foreign students.

Juvenile Daytime Curfew - We strongly oppose Juvenile Daytime Curfews. Additionally, we oppose any official entity from detaining, questioning and/or disciplining our children without the consent of a child’s parent.

Local Control for Education – We support school choice and believe that quality education is best achieved by encouraging parental involvement, protecting parental rights, and maximizing local independent school district control. District superintendents and their employees should be made solely accountable to their locally elected boards. We support sensible consolidation of local school districts. We encourage local ISDs to consider carefully the advantages and disadvantages of accepting federal education money.

No Taxpayer Paid Lobbyists – We support the prohibition of any paid public school employee or contractor to lobby the legislature or the SBOE, unless on an unpaid basis and in an unofficial capacity. No registered lobbyist should be allowed to run for SBOE.

Parental Rights in Education – We believe the right of parents to raise and educate their children is fundamental. Parents have the right to withdraw their child from any specialized program. We urge the Legislature to enact penalties for violation of parental rights.

Sex Education – We recognize parental responsibility and authority regarding sex education. We believe that parents must be given an opportunity to review the material prior to giving their consent. We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage.

Parental School Choice – We encourage the Governor and the Texas Legislature to enact child-centered school funding options which fund the student, not schools or districts, to allow maximum freedom of choice in public, private, or parochial education for all children.

Permanent School Fund – We believe that because the Permanent School Fund is not paid by taxpayers that the principle balance should be safeguarded and not viewed as a source of additional funding for our state budget.

Political Community Organizing in Texas Schools - We believe neither Texas public schools should be used nor their students should be instructed by groups such as SEIU or other community organizers as instruments to promote political agenda during the instructional school day.

Private Education – We believe that parents and legal guardians may choose to educate their children in private schools to include, but not limited to, home schools and parochial schools without government interference, through definition, regulation, accreditation, licensing, or testing.

Religious Freedom in Public Schools – We urge school administrators and officials to inform Texas school students specifically of their First Amendment rights to pray and engage in religious speech, individually or in groups, on school property without government interference. We urge the Legislature to end censorship of discussion of religion in our founding documents and encourage discussing those documents.

School Surveys and Testing – Public schools should be required to obtain written parental consent for student participation in any test or questionnaire that surveys beliefs, feelings, or opinions. Parental rights, including viewing course materials prior to giving consent, should not be infringed.

State Board of Education (SBOE) – We believe that the SBOE should continue to be an elected body consisting of fifteen members. Their responsibilities must include:

— Appointing the Commissioner of Education

— Maintaining constitutional authority over the Permanent School Fund

— Maintaining sole authority over all curricula content and the state adoption of all educational materials. This process must include public hearings.

The SBOE should be minimally staffed out of general revenue.

Textbook Review – Until such time as all texts are required to be approved by the SBOE, each ISD that uses non-SBOE approved instructional materials must verify them as factually and historically correct. Also the ISD board must hold a public hearing on such materials, protect citizen’s right of petition and require compliance with TEC and legislative intent. Local ISD boards must maintain the same standards as the SBOE.

Supporting Military Families in Education – Existing truancy laws conflict with troop deployments. We believe that truancy laws should be amended to allow 5 day absence prior to deployments and R&R. Military dependents by definition will be Texas residents for education purposes.

Traditional Principles in Education – We support school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems. We support curricula that are heavily weighted on original founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Founders’ writings.

School Health Care – We urge legislators to prohibit reproductive health care services, including counseling, referrals, and distribution of condoms and contraception through public schools. We support the parents’ right to choose, without penalty, which medications are administered to their minor children. We oppose medical clinics on school property except higher education and health care for students without parental consent.

U.S. Department of Education – Since education is not an enumerated power of the federal government, we believe the Department of Education (DOE) should be abolished.

Zero Tolerance – We believe that zero tolerance policies in schools should specify those items that will not be tolerated at schools. The policy should be posted on ISD websites.

Transparency – We support legislation requiring all school districts to post their expenditures online or made readily available to the public.

Foreign Culture Charter Schools in Texas – We oppose public funding of charter schools which receive money from foreign entities. We demand that these Charter Schools have accountability and transparency to local parents, taxpayers, the State of Texas, as do current public schools, including U.S. citizenship of public school trustees.

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Texas power outage map: Severe storms leave nearly 800,000 homes, businesses without power

Editor's Note: There are still thousands without power in Houston, Texas and surrounding areas. Click here for an updated story on power outages and restorations efforts.

Severe storms hit southeastern Texas on Thursday, killing four people, downing trees and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes in the Houston area and surrounding areas.

Houston woke up to scenes of destruction on after severe storms with winds of up to 100 mph spewed debris across roads, and littered the ground downtown with broken glass. Officials confirmed that four people died in the storm.

"We're in recovery mode," Houston Mayor John Whitmire said.

In a news conference on Thursday evening, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said two of the deaths were caused by falling trees, while a third person died in a crane accident.

At the news conference, Whitmire urged residents to continue to stay home amid the dangerous road conditions. Widespread power outages had also knocked out traffic lights across the city, posing traffic control hazards for morning commuters. Whitmire said officials were also "concerned" about the dangers of broken glass on roadways.

"Downtown is a mess. It's dangerous due to the glass and the lack of traffic lights," he said. "So stay at home. I can't emphasize that, repeat that enough."

"Please do not drive in Downtown Houston tonight, or for that matter, anywhere else in the region that sustained storm damage," the National Weather Service office that serves Houston and Galveston said on social media Thursday night . "Widespread debris, glass and electrical lines are in the streets. Follow local news media and emergency management officials recommendations."

Flights were grounded at Houston's two major airports because of the weather. Sustained winds topping 60 mph were recorded at Bush Intercontinental Airport, the Associated Press reports. The Houston Independent School District also canceled classes Friday at all of its schools.

Houston storm coverage: Houston in 'recovery mode' after storm kills 4, widespread power outages

Texas power outage map

There were over 772,000 power outages reported across the state as of 6 a.m. CT Friday morning, according to a USA TODAY power outage tracker .

There were over 414,000 outages reported in Harris County, by far the highest total in the state. Fort Bend County had over 29,000 reported outages while Chambers County had over 24,000 reported outages.

Texas severe weather watches and warnings

Friday's forecast sees a potential for more rain in the Houston and Galveston area, although the NWS says it is not expecting "anything near as robust as Thursday's line of storms."

Most of the rain is expected to fall along and south of the I-10 corridor, with an additional half inch to inch forecast south of I-10. Rain chances are expected to taper off going into the late afternoon and early evening hours, according to the NWS.

Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY

Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X  @GabeHauari  or email him at [email protected].