Matthew McCormick is a K-12 Education Policy Analyst for the Next Generation Texas initiative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
As the Texas State Board of Education prepares to approve standards for the new required Personal Financial Literacy course, the California nonprofit that pushed the course, Next Gen Personal Finance, has been outed as promoting instructional materials that advance racial grievance, in addition to taking an overall shallow approach to financial literacy. The State Board...
In the wake of the approval of the statewide Required Literary Works list, members of the education cartel have claimed that the decision of nearly two-thirds of the democratically elected members of the State Board of Education should be disregarded because they, the defenders of our current failed system, know best. This group, which includes...
For the last two legislative sessions, certification and attrition have dominated the teacher pipeline discussion, but if legislators wish to ensure a sufficient supply of effective teachers in Texas classrooms, they must reform the root of the problem, university schools of education. To say that the teaching profession has been in upheaval for the better...
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) should adopt a required literature list that supports the literacy and knowledge-acquisition of Texas students and not allow leftist organizations like the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts (TCTELA) to pressure them into adopting a watered-down, politically driven list. Texas public schools have failed at both...
During the week of June 22, the State Board of Education is expected to approve the revisions to the Social Studies Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). This revision a major reform to how history is taught to Texas students, replacing a model where Texas, American, and World history were presented as isolated subjects and...
The new literature list currently being developed by the State Board of Education has the potential to reverse the crisis in higher literacy in Texas while teaching students a love of the history and culture that created our great nation. Opponents to the current plan, however, who mostly come from current educators and academia, reject...
On April 7, the State Board of Education is set to give its final approval to new Social Studies Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), a much-needed reform to the standards that determine what educators teach. Here’s what you need to know: The current Social Studies TEKS are profoundly inadequate. The flaws of the K-8...
Do you tell the young people in your life to follow The Golden Rule? Have you been urged to “turn the other cheek” instead of harming someone who has harmed you? Or maybe Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” is your favorite song, but you’re not sure where that hard line about “the valley of the shadow of...
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has released its recommendations for required reading for Texas students that will be presented to the State Board of Education (SBOE) in January 2026. This list will ensure that every student receives a comprehensive reading course to support their growing literacy and academic development, knowledge of the world, and moral...
It sounds like a tired complaint, but it’s true. The kids just aren’t reading anymore. And even when they are, they aren’t reading very well. At almost every level of testing, around half of Texas students aren’t meeting grade level expectations on the state assessment. But the problem runs deeper than that. Over the last...
In this article, I explained how library organizations focus on Leftist obsessions like race and sexuality instead of education. The downsides of Leftist content in classrooms are obvious—instead of acquiring knowledge, students are indoctrinated into Marxist views of history, economics, and biology. But the real danger of this focus on Leftist drivel, however, runs much...
In late January, the State Board of Education will begin the process of reversing decades of declining literacy by considering a preliminary list of required readings for Texas public schools. This charge was delivered to the SBOE by the Legislature in response to disappointing state and national assessment results and university educators sounding the alarm...