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...
Recently, we exposed how the Texas Council for the Social Studies (TXCSS) and its parent, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) have derailed past attempts to bring a high-quality History education to Texas students. The TXCSS, however, is not the only organization meddling in Social Studies reform. The American Historical Association (AHA) holds...
Great news! The State Board of Education voted this September to teach students history in grades 3-8. You would think that Texas schools are teaching history now, but, sadly, you would be mistaken: the current Texas framework only contains two years of actual history content in Kindergarten through 8th grade. One would think that a...
Native Americans have their own fable that corresponds to the West’s “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In their cosmology, they’re not worried about the wolf, so much; as author Tony Hillerman points out, “some Native American tribal beliefs cautioned against a human in wolf’s clothing.” The principle is the same, however, and it applies to the...
Your child can access pornographic materials through their public school’s library. Let that fact sink in. Your child can access pornographic materials through their public school’s library. That is the reality for too many parents across the state of Texas. When an advocate attempted to read a passage from Sarah J. Maas, a popular writer of...
Kicking, headbutting, and thrown objects. The loss of an eye from a coat hangar. These are not scenes from a movie or novel, but the stories of educators, administrators, and teachers who shared their experiences in Texas public schools with the House Committee on Public Education. Texas has a crisis of discipline in its schools....
Every parent deserves transparency, quality, respect, and choice in their child’s education. That’s our mission at TPPF’s Next Generation Campaign and we’re excited to report big wins this week! Transparency & Quality: As national scores continue to show us, there is a huge gap between the TEKS (what we expect Texas children to learn) and...
In its second meeting of the year, the State Board of Education (SBOE) took three critical votes which will: improve the TEKS drafting work groups, allow better communication during the charter school application process, and protect children from obscene library materials. Improving TEKS Drafting: The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) are the state standards...