On the audio, which was secretly recorded and posted on YouTube by Lynn Davenport, a conservative commentator and public school parent, TEA Deputy Commissioner Steve Lecholop is heard on the phone with an unidentified mother who was displeased with the Joshua Independent School District and transferred her child to a parochial school.

Lecholop asked the woman if she wanted to share her story with a speechwriter working for the governor, who wants to allow parents to take the money that would have funded their students’ learning at a public school and spend it instead on alternative schooling options, such as tuition for private school. Abbott has touted such an idea as one of his priorities this session.

Lecholop, a former San Antonio ISD school board member, tells the woman in the call that sharing her story would be “a good way for you to stick it to Joshua ISD.”

“Your tax money should be allowed to go to your child’s education,” Lecholop said on the recording, which was provided to The Texas Tribune. “Instead, you’re paying your property taxes, but you’re also paying tuition and so it’s like double dipping.”

But Lecholop acknowledged that such a program could have a negative financial impact on districts because losing students would also mean losing state funding.

“School districts, what they have to do if they lose a student, [is] be smart about how they allocate their resources, and maybe that’s one less fourth grade teacher,” Lecholop said.

The recording appears to be the first time a top TEA official has spoken explicitly in support of expanding voucher-like programs in the state.

The TEA, which is tasked with overseeing and supporting K-12 schools in the state, tends to shy away from publicly entering political debates and has walked around the question of whether an expansion of voucher-like programs would harm public schools. During a Texas Senate committee hearing earlier this month, when a senator asked TEA Commissioner Mike Morath his thoughts on vouchers possibly taking money away from public schools, he said only that it “potentially depends on how any program like that would be structured.”

[Texas Legislature gears up to tackle long-standing and fresh issues in public education. Here’s what you need to know.]

The call also gives a glimpse into how closely state education officials might be working with the governor’s office to support his agenda. Abbott previously tasked the TEA with developing standards that ban books with "overtly sexual" content in schools and told the agency to find out which schools had “pornographic” books.

Abbott appoints the agency’s commissioner. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, the TEA said Lechelop’s comments during the conversation were meant to “help address concerns raised by a parent and to connect her with an opportunity to share more about her child’s educational experience.”

The TEA did not immediately respond to a question about whether it’s appropriate for an agency employee to help the governor with a political issue. When asked if Lecholop’s comments represent the agency’s view on the expansion of voucher-like programs this session, the TEA said it “is in favor of all students having access to a high-quality education. The Agency supports school systems in this effort to improve outcomes for all public school students in Texas.”

Shannon Holmes, executive director of the Association of Texas Professional Educators, an organization that opposes vouchers, said in a statement that the recording was “reprehensible.”

“The very agency charged with state-level provision of the constitutional and statutory duty to provide access to a free public education to all Texas children shouldn’t actively collude with the governor in rank partisan politics aimed at tearing down the very education system it is the agency’s sole function to support,” Holmes said.

The debate over “school choice” is going to be a hotly debated topic this session as top lawmakers have signaled that expanding such programs is a top priority.

School choice is a term used to describe programs that give parents state money to send their kids to schools outside of the state’s public education system. Texas already practices some forms of school choice, as parents can choose to send their children to free charter schools or transfer them to schools within or outside of their district.

The most common school choice program is vouchers, which are state-sponsored scholarships for private schools. This term has also become shorthand for opponents when talking about measures that would take taxpayer money from public schools.

Education savings accounts have emerged as a top voucher-like option this session, with Abbott voicing his support for legislation that would enact such a program. Other states that have approved savings accounts allow parents to receive the money that the state pays public schools to educate their children and instead use the funds to pay for their children’s private school, online schooling or private tutors.

Lawmakers in the past have tried to pass voucher-like programs but have failed as rural lawmakers have stood in the way. In rural communities, both school officials and lawmakers fear that such programs would hurt their school districts, which act as important community hubs and are usually some of their biggest job creators.

Conservative lawmakers believe the backing from parents and conservative groups displeased with public schools over pandemic response mandates and about how race and history are taught in the classroom will give them the momentum to expand voucher-like programs this Legislative session.

Disclosure: Association of Texas Professional Educators has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/14/texas-education-agency-vouchers/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Jan. 31, 2023

For the first time since making parental rights a priority early last year, Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday voiced his most explicit support yet for a “school choice” policy, saying that Texas needs to create an education savings account program.

“That will give all parents the ability to choose the best education option for their child,” Abbott said during a Parent Empowerment Night event in Corpus Christi. “The bottom line is this: This is really about freedom.”

Abbott’s comment comes as the Texas Legislature prepares to take on public education issues; the top lawmakers have signaled that enacting a “school choice” program is at the top of the list. Abbott has voiced his support for expanding such a policy but never has been this clear on what sort of program he would support.

“School choice” is a term used to describe programs that give parents state money to send their kids to schools outside of the state’s public education system. The most common model is school vouchers, which are state-sponsored scholarships for private schools. This term has also become shorthand for opponents when talking about measures that would take taxpayer money from public schools.

Texas already practices school choice, as parents can choose to send their children to free charter schools or transfer schools within or outside of their district.

Texas has tried to pass school choice legislation in the past but has failed as rural lawmakers have stood in the way. In rural communities, both school officials and lawmakers fear that something like an education savings account would take money away from their schools as Texas funds schools based on attendance.

“No one knows what is better for a child’s education than their parents,” Abbott said. “Parents deserve the freedom to choose the education that is best for their child.”

Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, filed Senate Bill 176, which could become the most expansive piece of school choice legislation in the state if it were to pass. It would create an education savings account program that would allow parents to use state funds to pay for their children’s private school, online schooling or private tutors.

Under Middleton’s legislation, families that opt out of the state’s public education system would receive the average amount of money it costs Texas public schools to educate a child, which is currently about $10,000 a year. The money would roll over on a year-to-year basis and could be used to help families pay for higher education, according to the bill. The funds for the program could come from both taxpayer money and donations.

Education savings accounts were pitched to lawmakers back in 2017, but the proposal didn’t get much traction.

For some Republicans, this session is seen as an opportunity to get school choice legislation across the finish line as they believe they will have enough backing from parents displeased with public schools over pandemic response mandates and about how race and history are taught in the classroom.

Abbott says parental rights are a priority this session, but state law already ensures that parents have rights. The “Parental Rights and Responsibilities” section of the state education code gives parents a wide range of access and veto powers when it comes to their children. They can remove their child temporarily from a class or activity that conflicts with their religious beliefs. They have the right to review all instructional materials, and the law guarantees them access to their student’s records and to a school principal or administrator. Also, school boards must establish a way to consider complaints from parents.

During the event, Abbott leaned on parental frustration as the reason that education savings accounts are needed. He said some parents were angry over masks being required, some over their kids having to learn virtually and some were upset over the kind of “sex content” being taught in schools.

“We must reform curriculum, get kids back to the basics of learning and we must empower parents to be more involved in the education of their children,” Abbott said.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/01/31/greg-abbott-school-choice-public-education/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The Texas Education Agency announced Thursday a plethora of proposals that would, among other changes, require public schools to install silent panic alarms and automatic locks on exterior doors.

Other proposals include inspecting doors on a weekly basis to make sure they lock and can be opened from the outside only with a key. Two-way emergency radios would also have to be tested regularly. Schools would need to add some sort of vestibules so visitors can wait before being let in, and all ground-level windows would have to be made with bulletproof glass.

These proposed requirements come about five months after a gunman killed 21 people, including 19 children, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. The gunman entered a door that had been closed by a teacher, but the automatic lock failed.

If approved, schools would have to start putting in place these safety measures starting in 2023. Before the end of this year, the education department will collect public comments on the proposed rules.

The state has allocated $400 million for increased safety measures that will be disbursed to districts. In the coming weeks, the education department will make a grant application available to districts. Districts will receive those grants based on enrollment, while smaller, rural schools will receive the minimum $200,000.

Proposing these safety measures is the latest action the state has taken to secure schools in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. In June, the education department announced that it would check all the locks on exterior doors prior to the start of the 2022-2023 school year and review every district’s school safety plans.

As Texas moves forward with different safety measures, experts have said there is no indication that beefing up security in schools has prevented violence. Rather, they can can be detrimental to children, especially Black and Hispanic children. Black students are overrepresented in all types of disciplinary referrals and are more likely to have their behavior addressed by school police officers than their white peers.

Advocates and Uvalde parents have criticized the state’s response in the months after the shooting, demanding state lawmakers raise the minimum age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle in the state from 18 to 21 years old.

They have called on Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session to make this happen. Abbott, who has signed legislation to expand gun rights, hasn’t budged.

"Texas has banned more books than any other state, new report shows" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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Texas banned more books from school libraries this past year than any other state in the nation, targeting titles centering on race, racism, abortion and LGBTQ representation and issues, according to a new analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit organization advocating for free speech.

The report released on Monday found that school administrators in Texas have banned 801 books across 22 school districts, and 174 titles were banned at least twice between July 2021 through June 2022. PEN America defines a ban as any action taken against a book based on its content after challenges from parents or lawmakers.

The most frequent books removed included “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, which depicts Kobabe’s journey of gender identity and sexual orientation; “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison; “Roe v. Wade: A Woman's Choice?” by Susan Dudley Gold; “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez, which follows a love story between a Mexican American teenage girl and a Black teen boy in 1930s East Texas; and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a personal account of growing up black and queer in Plainfield, New Jersey.

“This censorious movement is turning our public schools into political battlegrounds, driving wedges within communities, forcing teachers and librarians from their jobs, and casting a chill over the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual freedom that underpin a flourishing democracy,” Suzanne Nossel, PEN America’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Across the country, PEN America found that 1,648 unique titles had been banned by schools. Of these titles, 41% address LGBTQ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ. Another 40% of these books contains protagonists or prominent secondary characters of color.

Summer Lopez, the chief program officer of free expression at PEN America, said what’s notable about these book bans is that most are on books that families and children can elect to read, not any required reading.

Florida and Pennsylvania followed Texas as the states with the most bans, respectively. Florida banned 566 books, and 457 titles were banned in Pennsylvania, where a majority of books were removed from one school district in York County, which is known as being more conservative.

Lopez said her organization could not recall a previous year with as many reported book bans.

“This rapidly accelerating movement has resulted in more and more students losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship,” Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America’s free expression and education programs and the lead author of the report, said in a statement.

Texas’ book challenges can be traced to last October, when state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, sent a list of some 850 books about race and sexuality — including Kobabe’s — to school districts asking for information about how many of those are available on their campuses. This one move spurred parents to challenge and successfully remove books they believe are not appropriate and “pornographic.”

The Keller Independent School District in Tarrant County was one of the first to successfully remove “Gender Queer” from school libraries after a group of moms complained it was “pornographic.”

This recent series of book bans has unfolded against the backdrop of a national debate over critical race theory, a college-level academic discipline that examines how racism is embedded in the country’s legal and structural systems. It is not taught in Texas’ public schools. However, some conservative politicians and parents have assigned the term “CRT” to dismiss efforts in public schools to incorporate a more comprehensive and inclusive public school curriculum, something they equate to indoctrination.

Conservatives in some school districts have used the book bans and rancor over social studies teachings to help bring rally support and attracted unprecedented money to win school board seats campaigning under the promise to clear out “critical race theory” and “pornographic” materials from schools. In the midst of continuing Republican-led political fights over how issues related to race, gender and sex are allowed to be taught in public schools, Gov. Greg Abbott has put a promise to increase parental rights at the center of his reelection platform.

However, Texas parents already have the right to remove their child temporarily from a class or activity that conflicts with their religious beliefs. They have the right to review all instructional materials, and state law guarantees them access to their student’s records and to a school principal or administrator. Also, school boards must establish a way to consider complaints from parents.

PEN America’s analysis also found that these bans have been largely driven by organized groups formed over the last year to combat “pornographic” and “CRT” materials in school.

“The work of groups organizing and advocating to ban books in schools is especially harmful to students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who are forced to experience stories that validate their lives vanishing from classrooms and library shelves,” Friedman said.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/19/texas-book-bans/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

By Brian Lopez, The Texas Tribune

After facing pressure from conservatives over proposed updates to the state’s social studies curriculum scheduled for this year, the State Board of Education on Tuesday took a step to delay the revision until 2025.

Instead, the board agreed in a 7-2 preliminary vote to only adjust the curriculum with directives to comply with the state’s 2021 law targeting “critical race theory.” Those include adding civics and literacy standards. A final vote on the decision is set to take place Friday, the last day of the board’s weeklong meeting.

“This is essentially a motion that’s saying we’re giving up,” said board member Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a Democrat.

The elected board had been evaluating a recommendation that would have had Texas students spend kindergarten through second grade learning about Texas, U.S. and world history. From the third to fifth grades, students would have focused on world history. In grades sixth through eighth, students would have focused on American and Texas history.

That proposal would have eliminated dedicated years — fourth grade and seventh grade — for students to specifically study Texas history. In a separate vote on Tuesday, the board voted 8-5 in favor of using Republican board member Will Hickman’s proposed order of teaching history as a starting point. His method has children getting two dedicated years of U.S. history and two of Texas history.

The Texas Education Agency asserted that the original proposal would have increased the teaching of Texas history overall, as it would have been taught in more grade levels. But opponents argued it diminished the teaching of Texas exceptionalism.

On Monday, the Texas Freedom Caucus, a group of hardline Republican lawmakers in the state House, wrote a letter to the education board threatening legislative intervention if no “substantial changes” were made to the proposal.

“In a stunning reversal of the spirit in which the Legislature passed several reforms meant to protect children last session, the proposed changes require educators to, among other things, violate Texas laws by, for example, teaching subjects associated with critical race theory,” the letter said.

The Texas history provision was one of many changes being floated. Other proposed updates included possibly teaching second graders about Juneteenth with a book that describes George Floyd’s murder as “brutal” and “race-driven” and how the incident spurred national attention to the holiday. The LGBTQ Pride movement would have been taught in eighth grade alongside the Civil Rights and women’s liberation movements.

But while the proponents of the changes said they would be a step forward for inclusion and diversity, lawmakers and parents who spoke out in opposition this week argued that they represent the “critical race theory” and indoctrination that the state’s leadership opposes.

Board members who voted to delay the vote said they did not like the proposed order in which kids would be taught Texas, U.S. and world history, even though the board had initially accepted the framework months ago. Now, the board members said they needed more time to research and come up with a new order.

Delaying the process could allow more conservative, “anti-critical race theory” candidates to be on the State Board of Education when the standards are revisited. Several Texas Republicans against critical race theory advanced to the State Board of Education general election in November after winning their primaries this spring.

The State Board of Education, an elected 15-member board, takes up revisions to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for social studies about every decade. The curriculum sets the standards for how the state’s 5.5 million public school students of all grades learn the subject.

The debate over this year’s revisions has grown heated as conflict continues to swirl over how America’s history of racism should be taught and what books kids should be able access on campuses. State lawmakers made their move last year by passing laws to limit how America’s history of slavery and racism is taught in schools. The laws were promoted as a response to the supposed spread of “critical race theory,” an academic discipline not usually taught in schools that posits that racism is embedded in all aspects of society. Meanwhile, an organized segment of parents and school boards around the state have tried to limit diversity plans and discussions in school about LGBTQ people, claiming their children are being indoctrinated.

State Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, author of one “anti-critical race theory” law and a member of the Freedom Caucus, warned that if the State Board of Education didn’t change the proposed standards then lawmakers would take action next legislative session — or the state may sue.

During Tuesday’s meeting, most of the arguments from parents and conservative advocates complained that the draft recommendation didn’t sufficiently promote American exceptionalism, touched on critical race theory at times and wrongly included lessons on the Pride movement or the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, known as GLAAD.

Jolyn Potenza, a resident of Southlake — a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb that has become a hotspot for fights over race and education — said she and hundreds of the city’s parents oppose the recommended curriculum because it promotes a “globalist view.”

“It reduces the mention of America’s resilience, trust in God and celebration of our Declaration of Independence and freedom week,” Potenza said.

But Carisa Lopez, senior political director at the Texas Freedom Network, a left-leaning watchdog group often involved in public education issues, told board members that they should “reject the avalanche of falsehoods and misinformation” coming to them and do what is best for Texas students.

“Things have gone completely off the rails when extremists make outrageous claims and then quote the Bible,” Lopez said. “Don’t let those pushing a political agenda hijack your process at the 11th hour.”

The proposed curriculum updates include teachings on the role of the Founding Fathers and documents such as the U.S. Constitution. They call for learning the value of patriotism and include learning about Christianity and the role of Jesus. But there are also teachings about the dark parts of America’s history such as centuries of slavery and the incarceration of Japanese Americans after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Orlando Lara, a parent, said he wants his daughter to learn how to be a global citizen as well as an American one.

“Just because she’s an American citizen, it doesn’t mean she’s more important or valuable than anybody else in the world,” Lara said.

Leading up to the meeting, the Texas Freedom Caucus claimed that teaching Pride — a movement dedicated to the uplifting of LGBTQ voices, celebration of LGBTQ culture and the support of LGBTQ rights — is a “controversial” issue and thus violates state law.

That law says if a teacher talks about a controversial issue, they should explore both sides of the topic without giving preference to one side.

“The lesson is based on the assumption that the ‘pride’ movement is good for society,” the caucus members wrote.

Toth said discussions about the Pride movement should be between a child and their parents.

Mary Castle, senior policy advisor for Texas Values, a conservative organization, said the board should remove mentions of the Pride movement and GLAAD. Castle said including these mentions gives teachers space to promote advocacy and involvement in the LGBTQ community.

“We have seen the evidence of how they use this to introduce inappropriate books in the libraries and appropriate materials in the classroom,” Castle said.

But Democrats on the board questioned why the board wouldn’t include a social movement that is part of American history.

Member Marisa B. Perez-Diaz, a Democrat, also questioned how the state can teach kids to love America if their history and experiences are ignored.

“That’s a missing piece to this puzzle and part of those stories are that America hasn’t always been exceptional,” Perez-Diaz said.

Disclosure: Texas Freedom Network has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/30/sboe-social-studies-curriculum/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

But, as applause faded, shouts of “We’re not done” began.

Parents and community members aren’t resting in the aftermath of Arredondo’s firing, as anger persists throughout a town in mourning. Many have organized with specific goals in mind: They want to hold more people at the school district accountable for safety and transparency issues, including the school board and Superintendent Hal Harrell. And, in a recognition that even a perfect police response might not have saved many lives on the day of the shooting, they are putting pressure on politicians in Austin to raise the minimum age at which a person can obtain an assault rifle.

Vicente Salazar, whose granddaughter Layla Salazar was killed in the attack, said the fight for accountability and justice hasn’t ended. He wants to see the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office held accountable, criminal charges filed against Arredondo and a change of Republican leadership that has been in control in Texas.

“Getting fired is one thing, but having justice is another thing,” Salazar said. “We need new leadership in Texas so we can have change.”

Some families affected by the shooting have banded together to form LivesRobbed, an organization that will focus on “civic engagement, education and direct action around the impacts of gun violence.”

Salazar said the shooting has alerted people about who their elected officials are, what they do, how they do it and who they do business with.

“Uvalde right now is wrapped around a buddy system. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” Salazar said. “People have to gather together and vote the right way, but they got to vote from the heart, not from their pocketbooks.”

Much of that activism has centered around gun laws. On Saturday, Uvalde families and people who survived the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School will rally in Austin to demand Gov. Greg Abbott call a special legislative session to raise to 21 the minimum age for purchasing an AR-15.

“With kids across Texas returning to school in the coming weeks, Abbott’s inaction is unconscionable,” read a joint statement from Uvalde parents and March For Our Lives, a student-led gun control group that emerged after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida. “Every day he doesn’t take action is another day he gambles with our lives.”

A Texas House investigative report on the shooting concluded that it’s impossible to know whether a faster law enforcement response would have saved any lives in the shooting, given how the 18-year-old gunman fired the majority of his rounds from his AR-15 before police arrived inside the school.

Since May, politicians like state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, whose district includes Uvalde, and Abbott’s 2022 opponent, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, have repeatedly called for raising the purchase age for such a powerful weapon, to no avail.

Abbott said in a statement Thursday that the “first step for accountability on behalf of the victims, their families, and the Uvalde community” came with the firing of Arredondo. He said there must be accountability at all levels.

“This is a good start, but there is more work to be done,” Abbott said. “The investigations being conducted by the Texas Rangers and the FBI are ongoing, and we look forward to the full results being shared with the victims’ families and the public, who deserve the full truth of what happened that tragic day.”

When asked about legislative actions such as raising the minimum age to acquire a gun, Abbott believes “all options remain on the table,” and more will be unveiled as the Legislature debates solutions, his press secretary, Renae Eze, said.

Daniel Myers, an Uvalde resident, said he still believes more people in Uvalde need to get involved. There was a great turnout for Arredondo’s hearing on Wednesday night, but it’s a lot of the same people.

“I honestly believe that auditorium ought to pack out because the other families got children that are going to go to the schools that these police officers are going to be patrolling,” Myers said. “You would think they would pack that place up.”

Arredondo, a longstanding community member of Uvalde, graduated from the district high school. His father was born in the small, mostly Hispanic town of about 15,000 people. He worked for the city police department for 16 years, left and then came back to Uvalde two years ago to captain the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s police force.

Many have placed much of the blame for the fumbled response to the shooting at his feet. Police took more than an hour to breach the classrooms where the shooter holed up, even as children and teachers were dying inside. Experts have said that Arredondo, as one of the first responders on the scene and chief of the police department with jurisdiction over the school, should have taken command of the scene and moved faster.

In a 17-page statement released minutes before Wednesday night’s meeting, Arredondo’s lawyer insisted that the chief never retreated on the scene and did what he felt was most prudent given the information he had.

“Any allegation of lack of leadership is wholly misplaced. The complaint that an officer should have rushed the door, believed to be locked, to open it up without a shield capable of stopping an AR-15 bullet, without breaching tools, are all reasonable expectations, when they are wholly unreasonable actions as it is tantamount to suicide,” wrote his lawyer, George Hyde, who added that none of the 375 other officers on the scene urged him to respond differently.

Diana Olvedo-Karau, a lifelong Uvalde resident, said every single law enforcement officer who was in Robb Elementary and did not break into the classroom sooner needed to be fired. And she said she believes that the superintendent, Harrell, needs to be terminated, too. She pointed to details in the House report that suggested there was a culture of complacency when it came to school safety and reports of locks not working at Robb Elementary.

“Why did he not know there were issues with doors and keys and locks and people not following policy at the campus level?” Olvedo-Karau said.

According to the House report, multiple witnesses said employees often left interior and exterior school doors unlocked, while teachers would use rocks, wedges and magnets to prop them open. This was partly because of a shortage of keys.

But the head custodian testified he never heard of any problems with the classroom door the shooter entered before opening fire, and maintenance records during the school year do not contain any work orders for it.

Olvedo-Karau said the community should focus on holding Lt. Mariano Pargas responsible for that day as well. Pargas was the acting city police chief the day of the shooting and was suspended in July.

Gutierrez, the state senator, said after the meeting Wednesday that accountability needs to go beyond local school officers to the county sheriff and the Texas Department of Public Safety, who also were present at Robb Elementary the day of the shooting.

Jesse Rizo, whose niece Jackie Cazares was killed in the shooting, said he is hoping criminal charges are brought against Arredondo and some sort of accountability for every officer who was in Robb Elementary.

“There’s not a whole lot to debate,” Rizo said. “You look at someone that didn’t do their job, didn’t follow their protocol there and you simply hold them accountable.”

Rizo said he also believes Abbott didn’t do enough for the grieving community nor did he spend enough time in Uvalde.

“I totally understand that you’re busy, but get to know the families and get to feel what they’re going through and the struggles that they’re going through,” he said.

In a statement, Abbott said he has visited Uvalde over the past several weeks, “meeting individually with over 30 victims’ families” and he remains in contact with local leaders.

But Rizo noted that a special legislative session hasn’t been called. He said the best thing people can do is vote and that right now, the threat of O’Rourke potentially beating Abbott is a form of accountability, he said.

“It’s not until they see that there’s an army of people that are going to come and vote that they can begin to see that there’s a wave coming,” he said.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/25/pete-arredondo-firing-aftermath/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The Uvalde school board agreed Wednesday to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district’s police chief broadly criticized for his response to the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, in a unanimous vote that came shortly after he asked to be taken off of suspension and receive backpay.

Arredondo, widely blamed for law enforcement’s delayed response in confronting the gunman who killed 21 people at Robb Elementary, made the request for reinstatement through his attorney, George E. Hyde. The meeting came exactly three months after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary. Arredondo didn’t attend the meeting.

“Chief Arredondo will not participate in his own illegal and unconstitutional public lynching and respectfully requests the Board immediately reinstate him, with all backpay and benefits and close the complaint as unfounded,” Hyde said in a statement.

About 100 people showed up to the meeting Wednesday. Many chanted “coward” and “no justice, no peace.” Four people spoke during a public comment period before the board went into closed session to deliberate Arredondo’s employment.

Arredondo was one of the first law enforcement officers to respond to the shooting at Robb Elementary on May 24. Nearly 400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers waited more than an hour to confront the 18-year-old gunman after he entered the school.

The board began deliberating his fate behind closed doors shortly before 6 p.m. Trustees faced intense public pressure to fire Arredondo, whom many state leaders have publicly blamed for the delayed response to the shooter.

Hyde asked school officials to read a statement on Arredondo’s behalf at the meeting. They did not comply with the request.

A new law requiring Texas schools to display donated “In God We Trust” posters is the latest move by Republican lawmakers to bring Christianity into taxpayer-funded institutions.

Under the law, Senate Bill 797, which passed during last year’s legislative session, schools are required to display the posters if they are donated.

The law went into effect last year, but these posters weren’t popping up then as many school officials and parents were more concerned about new COVID-19 strains and whether their local public school would even open for in-person classes.

The “In God We Trust” law was authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the East Texas Republican who crafted Texas’ Senate Bill 8, which restricted abortion to the first six weeks or so of pregnancy starting Sept. 1, 2021. The abortion law artfully skirted legal challenge by relying on the public instead of law enforcement to enforce it.

Hughes’ “In God We Trust” poster law is also precisely written. Texas public schools or colleges must display the national motto in a “conspicuous place” but only if the poster is “donated” or “purchased by private donations.”

After an appearance for a Northwest Austin Republican Women’s Club event on Tuesday, Hughes touted the new law and praised the groups stepping up to donate the posters.

“The national motto, In God We Trust, asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God,” Hughes wrote on Twitter. “I’m encouraged to see groups like the Northwest [Austin] Republican Women and many individuals coming forward to donate these framed prints to remind future generations of the national motto.”

Patriot Mobile, a Texas-based cellphone company that donates a portion of its customers’ phone bills to conservative, “Christian” causes, on Monday donated several “In God We Trust” signs to all Carroll Independent School District campuses, claiming it is their “mission is to passionately defend our God-given, Constitutional rights and freedoms, and to glorify God always.”

“Patriot Mobile has donated framed posters to many other school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and we will continue to do so until all the schools in the area receive them,” the company said in a Facebook post. “We are honored to be part of bringing God back into our public schools!”

Carroll ISD includes Southlake, the mostly white, affluent Dallas-Fort Worth suburb. The community’s struggles with a school diversity and inclusion plan — as well as how parents opposed to the plan started a political movement there — were the subject of a seven-part NBC podcast released last year.

The Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition, or SARC, said in a statement that is not happy that the law mandates public schools put up these posters.

“SARC is disturbed by the precedent displaying these posters in every school will set and the chilling effect this blatant intrusion of religion in what should be a secular public institution will have on the student body, especially those who do not practice the dominant Christian faith,” the statement read.

Donations of the “In God We Trust” posters have also been made to the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, in the Houston area. The posters were a donation from The Yellow Rose of Texas Republican Women.

Moms for Liberty, a conservative nonprofit organization, donated posters for Round Rock Independent School District campuses, said Jenny Caputo, a spokesperson for the district. Most campuses have the signs up in a hallway near the front of each campus.

The Keller Independent School District in Tarrant County has received posters from a private citizen for all its facilities, and they are displayed mainly in front offices, said Bryce Nieman, a spokesperson for Keller ISD.

Erik Leist, a Keller resident and a father of a soon-to-be kindergartner, said the motto represents America’s founding and believes the law allows communities to do what they think is best.

“If it’s important to communities, the community will come behind it,” Leist said. “If it’s not something that the community values, it’s not gonna end up in the school.”

Leist also said he sees it as just the nation’s motto, not pushing any one religion.

The Yellow Rose of Texas Republican Women and the Northwest Austin Republican Women’s Club did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Texas Tribune reached out to Hughes as well as Aaron Rocha, Leigh Wambsganss and Scott Coburn with Patriot Mobile to discuss the poster law. None responded immediately to the Tribune’s request for comment.

“In God We Trust” origins

In 1956, Congress passed a joint resolution that made “In God We Trust” the nation’s motto, replacing “e pluribus unum (one from many).” Lawmakers did this partially to differentiate itself during the Cold War from the Soviet Union, which embraced atheism.

The “In God We Trust” national motto can be found on money and government buildings and has proven to be bulletproof when it comes to legal challenges that assert the reference to God could be seen as government-endorsed prayer, impinging on Americans’ First Amendment rights.

In a 1970 case, Aronow v. United States, a federal appeals court ruled “It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency ‘In God We Trust’ has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion.”

From motto to movement

In this century, there’s been a growing movement to place the motto in more visible government spaces.

Since 2015, efforts to place “In God We Trust” on police cars, for example, have spread. There’s even a website, ingodwetrust.com, that specifically states the movement is about protecting citizens’ “First Amendment right to religious liberty, a freedom that is being threatened through a well-organized and well-funded effort to remove all vestige of God from the public domain in America.”

For Patriot Mobile, this is the company’s latest effort in its plan to “put Christian conservative values into action” and it has been targeting Texas’ public schools through its political action committee, Patriot Mobile Action.

During the past spring and leading into the May school board elections, the Patriot Mobile Action PAC raised more than $500,000 for conservative school board candidates across North Texas, including Carroll ISD.

By Brian Lopez, The Texas Tribune

Ahead of the first day of school, the Keller Independent School District is removing all books that were challenged last year within the school district, including the Bible, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s “The Diary of Young Girl.”

“Attached is a list of all books that were challenged last year. By the end of today, I need all books pulled from the library and classrooms. Please collect these books and store them in a location. (book room, office, etc.),” Jennifer Price, executive director of Keller ISD’s curriculum and instruction, wrote in an email sent to principals, obtained by The Texas Tribune.

Attached to the email was a list of 41 book titles to be removed, including all versions of the Bible and “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe, which depicts Kobabe’s journey of gender identity and sexual orientation.

The direction to remove all 41 books surprised some local residents because a school district committee made up of members of the public met last year and recommended that some of the books now being removed — including Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and “Anne Frank’s Diary” — remain in student libraries.

But since that committee met and recommended keeping some challenged books, three new conservative school board members, all recipients of a Christian political action committee’s donations, were elected to the district’s seven-member board of trustees. And according to the school district, all 41 challenged books are now to be reviewed again by campus staff and librarians to see if they meet a new board policy approved last week, according to Bryce Nieman, the Keller ISD spokesperson.

Nieman said the school board, with its three newest members elected last spring, unanimously approved a new policy for acquiring and reviewing books. The policies are, in part, based on the Texas Education Agency’s model policy released in April after calls from Gov. Greg Abbott to come up with a state standard for these procedures. This includes the school board members or someone appointed by them, having the power to accept or reject any materials.

The first day of school for Keller ISD is Wednesday.

Last year’s district book committee was formed after parents found Kobabe's book in the district and had it removed. At the same time, state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, sent a list of some 850 books about race and sexuality — including Kobabe’s — to school districts asking for information about how many of those are available on their campuses.

Both Keller ISD and Krause kicked off a flurry of book challenges across the state over books that shared the perspectives of LGBTQ people and those that touched on the harsh reality of racism.

Both this Keller list and Krause’s share titles such as “Gender Queer” and “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez, which follows a love story between a teenage Mexican American girl and a teenage African American boy in 1930s East Texas, including the 1937 New London School explosion about 200 miles north of Houston.

This latest book removal follows May’s fiery school board elections that centered on how America’s history of racism should be taught in Texas public schools and which books kids should be able access on campuses.

During those school board campaigns, there was unprecedented heavy investing in more conservative candidates by Patriot Mobile, a Texas-based cellphone company that donates a portion of its customers’ phone bills to conservative, “Christian” causes.

The company’s political action committee, Patriot Mobile Action, raised more than $500,000 for political contributions to Keller and other Tarrant County school board candidates. Part of the money raised was spent on top political consulting firms that bolstered a platform against critical race theory, with flyers saying the candidates were “saving America.”

Laney Hawes, who has four children in the district and served on the Keller ISD book committee, said she believes the removal of these books is a result of the Patriot Mobile Action PAC money that helped pay for the campaigns of the three new school board members.

“I feel bad for students who, many of them, the only opportunity they're going to have to learn about really, really difficult topics is in books,” Hawes said. “I feel bad for the most marginalized kids in our school district, the LGBTQ+ kids and also a lot of the kids of color. I'm sad. I'm disheartened and I'm frustrated and I'm angry.”

Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the free expression via literature, said in a statement that the Keller ISD directive “tramples” on the work committee members did over the last year to their list.

“The sweeping attempt to remove these titles from classrooms and libraries on the eve of a new school year is an appalling affront to students’ First Amendment rights. It is virtually impossible to run a school or a library that purges books in response to any complaint from any corner,” Friedman said.

Critical race theory, typically a university-level field of study is the idea that racism is embedded in legal systems and not limited to individuals. It is not taught in Texas’ public schools, but has been used by conservatives as a buzzword to include anything about race taught or discussed in public secondary schools.

All of the school board candidates were billed as ones who would eradicate “critical race theory” from classrooms and remove books discussing LGBTQ issues, which some parents have described as “pornographic.”

In the Keller school board races, Patriot Mobile Action backed Micah Young, Joni Shaw Smith and Sandi Walker. All of them won. Neither Young or Smith returned calls from The Texas Tribune for comment on Tuesday. Walker told the Tribune she did not have any information.

Since last year, state lawmakers including Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have criticized what they claim is the “indoctrination” of children in classrooms. The two top elected officials have also made parental rights a priority as they both seek reelection in November. Patrick has also vowed to push for a “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Texas, mirroring Florida’s conservative push to limit classroom discussions about LGBTQ people.

“Parents will be restored to their rightful place as the preeminent decision-maker for their children,” Abbott declared on Jan. 26 during a campaign event at a charter school in Lewisville.

Yet, for years parents in Texas have wide-ranging rights. Currently, Texas parents have the right to remove their child temporarily from a class or activity that conflicts with their religious beliefs. They have the right to review all instructional materials, and the law guarantees them access to their student’s records and to a school principal or administrator. Also, school boards must establish a way to consider complaints from parents.

In Texas, sex education is not required to be taught in public schools. Health education was removed as a requirement to graduate high school in 2009.

Still, some parents, opposed to and frustrated by masking requirements along with nearly three years of on-again, off-again school closures, have become more vocal at school board meetings, claiming their rights have been compromised.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/16/keller-isd-removes-books/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

By Brian Lopez, The Texas Tribune

As a Texas school superintendent, Adrain Johnson is no stranger to the struggles small, rural public schools face, from trying to recruit teachers, especially after more than two years of navigating school during a global pandemic, to a general lack of resources. And now, after the school shooting in Uvalde, there’s a renewed conversation about campus security.

With so many problems to solve, Johnson, who oversees the Hearne Independent School District northwest of College Station, doesn’t understand why state lawmakers’ to-do lists heading into next year’s legislative session seem to focus more on school choice over something like school safety.

“There always seems to be a school choice debate every legislative year, and I’m not afraid of that. I think that debating is good. That’s part of democracy,” Johnson said.

But he also wonders why public schools always take a back seat to the pursuit of policies that could diminish them.

“Why not make it imperative to support the local school district?” he said.

Instead, from where he stands, the talk in Austin is already focused on school choice, the broad term applied to a host of taxpayer-funded alternatives to sending a child to the local public school.

[With rural Texas watching, Greg Abbott and Beto O’Rourke dig in on school vouchers fight]

Although the Texas Legislature doesn’t meet for another five months, Gov. Greg Abbott has voiced support for public school alternatives. Abbott has said he supports parents’ “choice to send their children to any public school, charter school or private school with state funding following the student.” And Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who will face off against Abbott in November, has also joined the debate, running ads asking people to “reject Greg Abbott’s radical plan to defund” public schools.

The Republican Party of Texas has listed school choice as a legislative priority, and pro-school choice groups like the Texas Private Schools Association and the Texas Public Policy Foundation will also push for school choice legislation.

But in the northeastern corner of the state, Rep. Gary VanDeaver, a Republican whose district includes 30 rural school districts, is still unconvinced. He was one of several lawmakers who helped kill school choice legislation in 2017. He said one of the concerns he’s hearing from parents is that they’re paying property taxes, which fund public schools, but have opted for either home schooling or sending their kids to private school.

“I prefer to reduce their property taxes, so they have the option of spending that money any way they choose, whether it be alternative education choices, saving for college or purchasing a new car,” VanDeaver said.

Texas has passed some school choice measures. VanDeaver points to the approval of the state’s charter school system in the 1990s and giving students in low-performing schools the ability to transfer out of a district.

“Proponents of expanding school choice options often say the money should follow the student,” VanDeaver said. “Current Texas law already does that if a student transfers to another public school, including a charter school.”

From his vantage point, VanDeaver has good reason to be concerned. In smaller Texas cities and towns, there’s far less “choice” for rural students. Outside of large metro areas, private schools are few and far between. Many rural private schools have religious affiliations. And VanDeaver has been informed that the religious private schools in his area are uninterested in public money. He also worries about the damage to the local public school district a voucher program could cause.

“This sense of community is what makes Texas great, and I would hate to see anything like a voucher program destroy this community spirit,” he said.

Conservative efforts to pass school choice measures have failed largely because there are few private schools or charter schools as alternatives outside the state’s larger urban areas. Also, the public school systems are a large economic and employment driver for most small towns.

In Texas, schools are funded based on the number of students enrolled and the daily attendance on campus. Schools receive a base allotment of $6,160 per student each year. Texas is also home to more rural students than any other state, and its schools are funded through property taxes.

Proponents say more school choice options help lower-income families afford better education. Opponents believe school choice policies weaken the public education system because they can result in public school dollars going to private schools, which are largely unregulated and therefore unaccountable.

In addition to vouchers, lawmakers could consider education savings accounts, or ESAs, where the state places taxpayer dollars into accounts for families to be used for educational expenses such as private school tuition. But the funds can be also used for tutoring, online classes and even higher education expenses.

Then there are tax credit scholarships, which allow individuals or businesses to receive full or partial tax credits when they donate to scholarship funds that are then awarded to families to enroll in private schools.

Laura Colangelo, executive director of the Texas Private Schools Association, said either a tax credit or an ESA option would work well for Texas. Her organization is against a voucher policy.

“We’re about 20 years behind, and so I do think there are a lot of things that we could do to improve options — education options — for parents and kids in Texas,” Colangelo said.

But the struggle, again, will be convincing rural lawmakers that school choice is the way to go.

State Rep. Drew Darby of San Angelo told The Texas Tribune last week that he would oppose anything that would take away resources from Texas’ public schools.

Bill Tarleton, executive director of the Texas Rural Education Association, worries that private schools won’t allow for the same transparency and accountability because they don’t have elected school boards. He also questions whether any school choice legislation would really benefit all students because private schools can pick and choose whom they accept.

“Public schools are the only ones that have to educate all students,” Tarleton said.

VanDeaver said he’s not one to shut the door on any policy and looks forward to the debate next session. He wants to see a better accountability system created for private schools receiving the money.

“As conservatives, we expect it from our public schools,” he said. “We need to know that we’re getting bang for our buck for every educational dollar, wherever it’s spent.”

Disclosure: The Texas Private Schools Association and the Texas Public Policy Foundation have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/08/texas-school-choice-legislation/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Uvalde school officials have postponed a scheduled Saturday meeting to decide whether to fire police Chief Pete Arredondo at the superintendent’s recommendation.

Arredondo’s lawyer asked the district to postpone the meeting amid due-process concerns, the district announced Friday afternoon. The district did not announce a new meeting date.

Arredondo remains on administrative leave.

Arredondo was among the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene of Texas’ worst school shooting, which occurred May 24 when an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Blame for the fiercely criticized response to the massacre — during which law enforcement waited more than an hour to confront the shooter — has largely fallen on Arredondo, who leads the six-member school district police department. The district placed him on administrative leave roughly one month after the shooting.

In a school board meeting Monday, residents chastised school officials for not already firing Arredondo. They also criticized officials for what residents saw as a lack of urgency to improve campus safety.

Arredondo’s actions at the scene were also criticized in a Texas House committee report released Sunday, though the report also points to failures by other law enforcement agencies to respond appropriately. Arredondo was among 376 law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies at the scene.

The committee report said the responding officers lacked clear leadership, basic communications and sufficient urgency to more quickly confront the gunman, who was shot and killed after a U.S. Border Patrol tactical team entered the classroom where most of the victims were shot.

Arredondo was listed in the district’s active-shooter plan as the commanding officer, but the consensus of those interviewed by the House committee was that Arredondo did not assume that role and no one else took over for him, which resulted in a chaotic response.

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Arredondo said he did not think he was the incident commander on the scene.

Arredondo testified that he believed the shooter was a “barricaded subject” instead of an “active shooter” after seeing an empty classroom next to the one where the shooter was hiding.

“With the benefit of hindsight, we now know this was a terrible, tragic mistake,” the House report stated.

Training for active-shooter scenarios directs law enforcement responders to prioritize the lives of innocent victims over those of officers.

The report criticized Arredondo’s focus on trying to find a key to open the door to the room the shooter was in, which “consumed his attention and wasted precious time, delaying the breach of the classrooms.” The report said the classroom door didn’t lock properly and likely wasn’t locked as police waited to confront the shooter.

In addition to serving as the school district’s police chief, Arredondo was elected to the Uvalde City Council a few weeks before the shooting, but wasn’t sworn in until after the massacre. After missing several meetings, Arredondo stepped down from his District 3 seat to “minimize further distractions.”

A group of Texas educators have proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should be taught as “involuntary relocation” during second grade social studies instruction, but board members have asked them to reconsider the phrasing, according to the state board’s chair.

“The board -- with unanimous consent -- directed the work group to revisit that specific language,” Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education said in a statement issued late Thursday.

The working group of nine educators, including a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is one of many such groups advising the state education board to make curriculum changes. This summer, the board will consider updates to social studies instruction a year after lawmakers passed a law to keep topics that make students “feel discomfort” out of Texas classrooms. The board will have a final vote on the curriculum in November.

The suggested change surfaced late during its June 15 meeting that lasted more than 12 hours. Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, brought up concerns to the board saying that wording is not a “fair representation” of the slave trade. The board, upon reading the language in the suggested curriculum, sent the working draft back for revision.

“For K-2, carefully examine the language used to describe events, specifically the term ‘involuntary relocation,’” the state board wrote in its guidance to the work group.

“I can’t say what their intention was, but that’s not going to be acceptable,” Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.

The group proposing these second grade curriculum revisions was given a copy of Senate Bill 3, Texas’ law that dictates how slavery and issues of race are taught in Texas. The law states that slavery can’t be taught as part of the true founding of the United States and that slavery was nothing more than a deviation from American values.

“They were given Senate Bill 3, so that had to have influenced their mind with that being a document given to them right before they had to perform this review,” Davis said.

Ellis’ statement pointed out that slavery is currently not included in social studies instruction to second graders.

“The topic of slavery is not currently addressed in the 2nd Grade curriculum; this work is meant to address that deficiency,” he said.

Stephanie Alvarez, a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and a member of the group, said she was did not attend the meetings when the language was crafted because of personal issues, but that the language was “extremely disturbing.” She would not comment any further because of her role in the work group, she said.

Part of the proposed social studies curriculum standards outlines that students should “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.”

Annette Gordon-Reed, a history professor at Harvard University, said using “involuntary relocation” to describe slavery threatens to blur out what actually occurred during that time in history. There is no reason to use the proposed language, she said.

“Young kids can grasp the concept of slavery and being kidnapped into it,” Gordon-Reed said. “The African slave trade is unlike anything that had or has happened, the numbers and distance.”

If language like what the group of Texas educators propose is accepted and taught to children, it means the country is moving in the wrong direction, she said.

“Tell children the truth. They can handle it,” she said.

Texas is in the process of developing a new curriculum for social studies, a process that happens about every decade to update what children should be learning in Texas’ 8,866 public schools.

This process comes as the state’s public education system has become heavily politicized, from lawmakers passing legislation on how race and slavery should be taught in schools to conservative political action committees pouring large amounts of money to put more conservatives on school boards who promise to get rid of curriculum and programs they consider divisive and make white children feel bad.

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have made parental rights a priority as they both seek reelection in November. Patrick has also vowed to push for a “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Texas, mirroring Florida’s conservative push to limit classroom discussions about LGBTQ people.

Last year’s SB 3 doesn’t mention critical race theory by name, but the bill was designed to keep the teaching out of secondary schools — even though it is not taught in K-12 Texas public schools. Critical race theory is a university-level field of study based on the idea that racism is embedded in legal systems and not limited to individuals. It has become a common phrase used by conservatives to include anything about race taught or discussed in public secondary schools.

The work group that proposed the language change in referring to slavery is one of several groups presenting their drafts to the state education board, which has the final say on whether to accept or reject them.

Some drafts of new curriculum standards are published on the agency’s website, but this was not, Davis said.

“I don’t like it because it’s a personal belief. I don’t like it because it’s not rooted in truth,” she said. “We can have all the discussions we want, but we have to adopt the truth for our students.”