State officials, activists and educators have largely shaped public dialogue about Texas’ social studies overhaul, but young people added their voices to the conversation Tuesday, calling for instruction that includes diverse perspectives and challenges them to think critically.

The majority-Republican education board began last year to redesign Texas’ social studies standards, which outline what students need to learn by the time they graduate. The board plans to finalize the standards this summer, with classroom implementation expected in 2030.

Up to this point, a majority of the board has to center Texas and U.S. history in social studies while deemphasizing world cultures, world history and geography. A has helped guide the process, almost all of whom have no K-12 classroom experience in Texas and several of whom have ties to . Critics say the panel has assumed full control of Texas’ social studies rewrite, undermining teacher expertise. of the social studies changes, critics argue, prioritize memorization over critical thinking and simplification over accuracy.

The students who testified before the State Board of Education on Tuesday, the first of four days of meetings in Austin, expressed disappointment in the overhaul — saying it focuses too heavily on Western civilization at the expense of other cultures, lacks historical perspective of people of color, and prioritizes Christianity over other major world religions.

They want to learn the good, bad and ugly aspects of history. They want to understand why things happened and how they connect to other events. They want the board to give parents and teachers more opportunities for input. They want the board to slow down and take more time to develop the standards. They want to eliminate political agendas. They want to feel seen.

“We know when something is being left out,” said Caiden Davis, a high school junior from Humble. “What we need from our schools isn’t a watered-down version of history. We need the truth even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it challenges us.”

Instead of omitting perspectives, said Houston student Zayra Espinoza, Texas should “focus on supporting teachers, investing in students and ensuring classrooms remain spaces for learning, not political control.”

And students need to see their perspectives reflected in social studies, because “everyone deserves to be represented,” said sixth-grader Jomeyra Sharif.

“Schools should do more to promote equality, respect different cultures, and making all students feel included,” Sharif said, “so they can be proud to be American.”

The board will finalize the standards in June. Meetings have only grown more contentious as the deadline moves closer.

Democrats have sought honest depictions of slavery and the historical contributions of people of color. Republicans want to prioritize American exceptionalism and Christianity, criticizing Muslim Texans who testify in favor of Islam being depicted in lessons accurately and fairly. Teachers feel excluded, calling the process rushed and early proposals inadequate. Many feel political actors have assumed control of a process that should instead focus on educating students.

Students who spoke Tuesday, during a meeting that stretched beyond 12 hours, said they want social studies instruction to include more women, Hispanic and Black perspectives. They want to learn about African kingdoms. They want to know more about the Middle East.

When students are not challenged to do more than just identify and describe historical events, “that means less analyzing, less questioning, and less discussion,” said Gannon Davis Keener, a seventh-grader in Humble.

“I want to learn history in a way that challenges me to think, not just remember,” Keener said. “I respectfully ask that you slow down and allow teachers and parents a greater role in revising these standards to keep the level of thinking high so students can truly learn, understand and enjoy history.”

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Espired, a partnership with Florida investor Brad Saft, sells right-leaning , from Fighting Indoctrination and The Truth about Climate Change to an updated guide on this year’s election, including the against President-elect Donald Trump.  Last week, Trump tapped Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who hosts a on a Christian network, to serve as .

But the company also sells , with animated Old and New Testament stories, like Noah’s ark and the Resurrection. The series features colorful illustrations drawn in the identical style as those in the Texas curriculum. A kindergarten lesson’s image of , for example, and two more on the are lifted wholesale from covers of the company’s books.

Saft, a Princeton graduate and , did not answer emails or messages on social media. Chad Gallagher, an eSpired spokesman and former Huckabee adviser, declined to provide more details on how the company contributed to the program, but called eSpired the “leading provider of curriculum to states searching for unbiased history” and “lessons that explain the literary and historical value of the Bible.”

Saft and Inspired by Education LLC, an alternate name for the company, were on a list of subcontractors for the curriculum that the Texas Education Agency shared with ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ in May. Contacted earlier this month, officials did not respond to questions about how much the state paid eSpired or the degree of influence the company had over the lessons.

The connection to Huckabee’s business venture, also known as EverBright Media, comes as the State Board of Education is set to vote Monday on whether to add the program, called Bluebonnet Learning, to a list of approved reading programs. The state is heavily the program at a time when some districts are . The board’s blessing means districts would be eligible for extra funding — up to $60 per student —  if they adopt the program.

“Districts’ hands are tied because they are in desperate need of additional funding, yet the state of Texas is trying to force them to use this curriculum as the only way to get additional funding,” said Clinton Gill, a specialist with the Texas State Teachers Association and a former teacher in Lubbock, one of the districts that piloted an early version of the program. The state, he said, should involve teachers in developing the curriculum, “not some company with a political agenda.”

The curriculum has won praise from GOP leaders, classical education proponents and who want the Bible to be more prominent in public schools. But the first draft, unveiled in late May, drew sharp criticism from those who said the authors disregarded other religions and introduced topics of faith more appropriate for church and home.

The state has since corrected many factual errors, but the bias toward Christianity remains, according to several experts. Education Commissioner Mike Morath will need eight board members in favor of Bluebonnet for it to be added to the list, but the vote is expected to be tight. 

“This is one of the hardest votes I’ve ever had to make in 22 years on the State Board of Education. I have lost sleep over it,” said Republican Pat Hardy, who was defeated in this year’s election. This week’s series of meetings are her last on the board. “I’ve literally heard from hundreds of people on both sides.”

Last week, Texas Values, a nonprofit that promotes “biblical, Judeo-Christian values” in public policy, held a ” event to promote the curriculum in Allen, Texas, part of Board Member Evelyn Brooks’ Fort Worth-area district. She’s among the conservative Republicans opposed to the program, and has called for more transparency over who wrote the lessons. 

Officials won’t identify who wrote the biblical material. Because a contract for the work fell under a pandemic disaster declaration, the state waived typical requirements that would have shed light on what those companies did and how much they were paid. 

Mary Elizabeth Castle, government relations director at Texas Values, said the curriculum has been unfairly accused of teaching about faith “in a devotional way” and only educates students to “understand the hundreds of idioms that we use in everyday language that actually come from the Bible.” 

Texas Values also of the curriculum to speak at Monday’s public hearing before the vote.

But opponents see Bluebonnet as part of a GOP-led movement to steer public schools to the right — one that is expected to accelerate under the incoming Trump administration. More than 15,000 opponents of the Bible-themed lessons have signed , organized by Faithful America, an online network of Christians, with about 200,000 members nationwide. 

“We’re pushing back on the folks who are ignoring the teachings of Jesus because they are seeking political power for themselves,” said Karli Wallace Thompson, the group’s digital campaigns director. “There’s nothing in the Gospel that tells us we need to go out and force our neighbors to worship the way that we do.”

‘Sacred story’

The state made noticeable efforts to respond to many of the public’s concerns, according to biblical scholars who have reviewed the changes. Revisions in include a brief introduction to the prophet Muhammad, who was completely neglected originally, a chart displaying variations on the Golden Rule from six religions and a slightly shorter description of Jesus’s ministry.

But officials seemed to prioritize accuracy over making the curriculum more religiously balanced, said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University who has reviewed the newest version.

“Some of the many embarrassing gaffes and factual errors are now gone,” he said. 

The original first grade American Independence unit, for example, incorrectly described the Liberty Bell as a “symbol designed to celebrate our freedom from being controlled by the British and our freedom to pray,” even though it was cast before the revolution. Now the lesson reads: “Many people believe the Liberty Bell was designed to celebrate the traditions of religious freedom and self-government in the colony of Pennsylvania.”

The on Jesus’s life and early Christianity no longer says that Christians hid in the catacombs to worship, that scholars have debunked. The unit also excludes the miracle of the disciples’ overflowing fishing nets, reducing the lesson on Jesus from eight pages to seven. 

But it still cites Josephus, a first century historian, who reported that Jesus’ disciples said that he “appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive.” Biblical scholars largely , which they say was probably added by priests during the Middle Ages in an effort to prove that Jesus was the son of God. 

The state eliminated what Texas Jews said was an offensive activity in which students would play dice to mimic how Haman, a Persian functionary in the biblical story of Queen Esther, cast lots to decide when to kill the Jews.  

But while there is somewhat more attention to Judaism in the edited version, the bias toward Christianity is still “clear and indisputable,” Chancey said. 

If the board signs off on this version and districts adopt it, elementary school children “will learn the main contours of the Christian sacred story“ — from Creation to the work of the Apostle Paul, he said. “No other tradition gets similar treatment.”

Other modifications acknowledge that Christians have used their faith to justify discrimination and violence throughout history.  A fourth grade lesson originally titled “If You Were a Crusader” has been renamed “The Journey of a Crusader” and the fact that in addition to capturing Jerusalem from the Muslims, crusaders “were given permission to persecute and kill non-Christians.”

A fifth grade lesson now explains that Martin Luther King Jr. directed his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to clergymen who supported segregation. “It was unfortunately also true that many people of the time supported those laws, including Christians like these clergymen,” the text reads. Critics of the original version said glossing over that point gave students an inaccurate portrayal of the Civil Rights movement.

Critical examinations of some of Christianity’s darker chapters are a welcome addition to the curriculum, said David Brockman, a religious studies scholar at Rice University who has both versions. But a third grade lesson still says Spanish conquistadors’ merely “shared” their Christian faith with indigenous tribes and doesn’t delve into slavery, forced labor and other harsh methods used to convert them.

The updates don’t “correct the overall problem of soft pedaling Christian involvement with violence and oppression in the past,” he said.

Presenting students with America’s virtues as well as its faults was important to Steve Meeker, a retired middle school world geography teacher from the Montgomery Independent School District, north of Houston, who was hired to review earlier drafts of the curriculum. 

He provided feedback on a second grade unit that discusses how an evangelical religious movement called the Great Awakening  influenced the Founding Fathers’ views on slavery. The text quotes a letter in which Thomas Jefferson expressed that he “ardently” wanted to see slavery abolished. But while children would learn that George Washington made plans in his will to free his slaves, Meeker feels there’s still too little attention to the founders’ role as slave owners.

Jefferson might have wished for the end of slavery, but “he certainly didn’t act on it,” Meeker said. “He owned more than 600 slaves and is only recorded as having freed ten of them.”

Meeker, who also teaches a class at his church on the , appreciates the overall attention to familiarizing students with the Bible. Over his 42 years of teaching, he noticed that students were increasingly puzzled by everyday sayings like “my brother’s keeper” and the “handwriting is on the wall.” But he also noted that lessons about Jesus might make non-Christians uncomfortable. 

‘Exciting and engaging’

Some supporters of the state’s program are concerned that the intense debate over the biblical material has overshadowed other aspects of the curriculum, which, Morath says, is meant to improve students’ vocabulary and background knowledge. 

The state’s lessons will give students “great exposure” to Texas history with material that reinforces content from science and social studies, said Courtnie Bagley, education director at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. The state also hired her to work on lessons about geology and the state’s oil and gas industry.

“I could see how engaging and enjoyable it would be for a kid to read in second grade about the and Dolly Madison rescuing all the artifacts in the White House,” she said. “Those are exciting and engaging stories.”

The state, meanwhile, continues to expend vast resources to get the materials in teachers’ hands. According to grant documents, the agency is spending $50 million on printing and another $10 million to train districts how to implement the curriculum. That’s on top of the $103 million the state has already spent on the program. 

Work on the project began in 2020, when it paid Amplify, a leading curriculum provider, $19 million in federal relief funds for its program. Based on the work of educator E.D. Hirsch, the lessons teach basic reading skills as well as content from art, history and science.

But Morath viewed that purchase as just a starting point and began commissioning lessons, like the one on Queen Esther, based on the Bible.  

In 2022, the agency signed an $84 million contract with Boston-based Public Consulting Group, which includes a . That company then subcontracted with a mix of curriculum developers and experts to modify the program with more Texas-related content and Bible-based lessons.

Espired and Saft, Huckabee’s business partner, were among them. The company markets primarily to a homeschooling audience, with ads on and . But in the first months of the pandemic, the , under former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, paid $245,000 for its and distributed it to schools.

Gallagher declined to comment on whether the company has completed work for other state education agencies, but said, “ESpired has many clients for their curriculum development services because parents are generally not satisfied with much of the existing materials and curriculum that has traditionally been available.”

Learn Our History, another series of eSpired guides, “helps kids learn all about American history from a positive, patriotic and faith-based standpoint,” Huckabee said in a . Like the Texas program, it emphasizes the role of in the nation’s founding.

The company, however, also has some , with several complaints to the about recurring charges for products that parents said they never purchased or guides they never received.

“I’m a pretty savvy consumer who doesn’t usually get bamboozled by the fine print,” parent Shannon Ashley after ordering the company’s COVID guide. “I knew I never actually gave them permission to regularly charge my card, and they never actually threw that fine print in there.”

An advisory board member for the , which seeks to pass legislation based on “biblical principles,” Huckabee has who argue the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. His 2020 book, , warns of the “dangers of corruption advocated by liberal politicians.”

Before serving as governor from 1996 to 2007, Huckabee was a pastor in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He ran for president in 2008, but has also led tour groups to Israel, where “I have been visiting since 1973 when I was a teenager,” he . Huckabee, who there is “no such thing as a West Bank” and has expressed for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would lead efforts to bring an end to the war in Gaza, Trump said in a .

‘Rules of the game’ 

Texas’ move to write its own curriculum has also left traditional publishers, like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Savvas, wondering how competing against a state agency will affect their business — and whether districts will drop their materials in favor of a program that comes with strong financial incentives.

“Publishers have always sought after the Texas market because obviously it’s very large, with over 5 million students,” said Eve Myers, a consultant for HillCo Partners, a lobbying and government relations firm whose clients include publishers. “The biggest question is, ‘What are the rules of the game now?’ ”

Curriculum companies also frequently make their authors available to districts to train teachers and explain the research behind their product, Meyers said. 

But so far, the state has refused to identify the authors who transformed Amplify’s program into Bluebonnet. And even with the recent edits, some board members, like Brooks, say it’s too soon to know if it will improve students’ reading performance. In a , she blamed “grassroots leaders who say ‘You have a Bible story in the curriculum, so it must be good.’ ” 

“There’s no time to say how effective it is,” she said. “It’s being rewritten and revised in real time.”

As political races go, candidates for the Texas State Board of Education are often overlooked, making their races a perennial wallflower in Texas politics.

But this year, after a erupted in local school board races in suburbs across the state, more eyes are on who will be elected to the board that dictates what should be in teachers’ lesson plans in Texas’ 1,200 public school districts. Parents in some of these districts have become a vocal force coming out of the pandemic, questioning everything from why and when schools should close to what books are appropriate to be in school libraries to how thorough history lessons should be.

“One thing that strikes me is that it mirrors what we’re seeing in local school board elections,” said Rebecca Deen, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.

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And thanks to — the post-U.S. census exercise in which boundaries for State Board of Education districts, along with legislative and congressional districts, are redrawn every decade — all 15 seats on the education board are up for grabs.

While nine incumbents — six Republicans and three Democrats — are seeking reelection, many close observers of these often-ignored races are watching to see if the board moves further to the right or whether incumbents will be able to win back their seats. A total of 33 candidates — 14 Republicans, 11 Democrats, two independents and three Libertarians — are vying for those 15 seats.

Deen said that like local school board elections, state education board races are low turnout, so candidates try to focus on hot-button issues.

“The State Board of Education is not new to social movements,” Deen said. “What has come back again is the intensity of the debate in this education space.”

And if there’s anything to help challengers stand out, it’s a new Texas that went into effect last year and bars teachers from subjecting students to anything that makes them “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” based on their race or sex. The measure was designed to counter what conservatives term “critical race theory” — a broad term used to describe what they see as indoctrination: attempts by a school to offer a more comprehensive look at American history.

In truth, critical race theory is a college-level discipline that examines why racism continues in American law and culture decades after the civil rights movement in the United States. It is not taught in elementary or secondary schools in Texas.

But that hasn’t stopped conservative candidates from keeping an “anti-CRT” plank from their state education board campaign literature.

Two Republican incumbents on the state board lost their primaries to candidates promising to get critical race theory out of classrooms. lost his primary in District 15, in the Panhandle, and lost hers in District 14, covering parts of North Texas..

The case of a third Republican board member, , also highlights this more conservative push. Robinson did not seek reelection in District 7, which covers part of the Gulf Coast, because he didn’t think he could beat challenger Julie Pickren, who has made so-called critical race theory a central part of her campaign. Robinson has endorsed the Democrat in the race, Dan Hochman. Pickren did not respond to a request for comment.

“I could tell that I wasn’t gonna win reelection in the Republican primary,” Robinson said in September. “The State Board of Education moved quite a bit to the right in the last two or three years, and it’s just responded to how the Republican Party in Texas is.”

running for places on the board won their primaries in March by touting as a top priority how they will prevent the teaching of “critical race theory.” Conservatives at local school boards spent an unprecedented amount of money and won this spring based on their opposition to districts offering a more to students.

The issue over what conservatives call critical race theory has been in play up and down the ballot — and outside of Texas, including a GOP victory for the , who campaigned on a pledge to ban the teaching of critical race theory.

Hochman, the Democratic candidate in the District 7 race, said he fears that the board will shift more to the right if someone like Pickren gets elected. As someone with 25 years of education experience, he believes it’s his duty to do something about it.

“I need to block those attempts at ruining public education in this state,” he said.

The new board will have a large influence over potential changes to the social studies curriculum in the state’s more than 8,000 public schools. Before the elections, the State Board of Education decided to updating the statewide social studies curriculum standards until at least 2025.

The board’s decision came after conservative lawmakers and parents testified that the proposed updates were influenced by critical race theory and didn’t include enough “American exceptionalism” or Christianity.

Board members like Republicans and deny that they were pressured to delay the overhaul of the social studies curriculum. Instead, they said they felt some of the content proposed was not age-appropriate and they wanted to keep the current course schedule of requiring Texas history in the fourth and seventh grades. The proposals before the board this summer would have eliminated the current schedule. Hickman is seeking reelection in District 6, covering parts of the Houston area, and Little is running in District 12, covering parts of North Texas.

The board updates the statewide standards for the state’s 5.5 million students of all grades about once every decade.

For decades, conservative Christians have monitored and lobbied against more diverse or comprehensive classroom instruction both as advocates before the board and as elected members. Most recently, between 2006 and 2010, a Christian conservative bloc on the state board, led by then-board member Don McLeroy, inserted its ideals into history standards, such as questioning evolution and including the biblical figure Moses in history classes.

“We are likely to see an even more conservative State Board of Education next year,” said Carisa Lopez, senior political director at the Texas Freedom Network, which has fought for more inclusive classroom materials since the group’s inception in 1995.

But conservative organizations like Texas Values the delay of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, describing it as a vote to “reject Critical Race Theory.”

“Now, the State Board of Education has time to get it right and consider better TEKS that will continue to teach about patriotic historical values and Judeo-Christian heritage in American and Texas History,” said Mary Elizabeth Castle, senior policy adviser for Texas Values, in a statement following the vote to delay.

Because the 15 races are tied to specific districts, Deen said for Republicans, it’s not about getting people motivated to vote, but making sure the candidates appeal to the voters.

In this case, being firmly against critical race theory, however they define it, is something conservatives value, she said.

In District 15, Republican challenger Aaron Kinsey ousted GOP incumbent Johnson in the March primary. Kinsey was endorsed by Lt. Gov. and former Gov. Rick Perry. Kinsey also received a donation from conservative megadonor Tim Dunn and large donations from the Charter Schools Now political action committee, the political arm of the Texas Public Charter Schools Association.

Kinsey has said that critical race theory is taught under different guises and that Texas needs teachers who can identify how it is being rebranded. He is running unopposed.

In District 2, which covers part of the Gulf Coast, Republican LJ Francis won the Republican primary for the open seat and based his campaign on banning critical race theory from schools, claiming that “woke liberals” are pushing a critical race theory agenda. He faces Democrat Victor Perez.

In District 11, which covers parts of Tarrant and Parker counties, Republican incumbent won the nomination. She was first elected in 2002. Going into the primaries, Hardy made it a priority to get critical race theory and the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “1619 Project” out of classrooms. Texas law already prohibits teaching about “The 1619 Project.”

Disclosure: Texas Freedom Network, Texas Public Charter Schools Association, New York Times and University of Texas – Arlington 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 .

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