SBOE Recap: a full lid on social studies

The State Board of Education met in Austin last week. While they had a full agenda, all eyes were once again on social studies standards and how this slow-motion trainwreck of a process would end. 

Final Social Studies adoption 

If past is truly prologue, then Hotline readers may not be well served by a detailed recounting of oral testimony that sounded much as it did in April and in June. Advocates that find their communities and cultures misrepresented in, if not completely erased from, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) came once again to voice their concerns to a mostly unreceptive audience while others came to rubber stamp the preordained amendments that had been happening behind the scenes between the content advisors and board leadership. 

Democrats once again acquitted themselves well in the face of coordinated stonewalling of efforts to neutralize both the explicit and implicit biases in the student expectations for United States History Studies, United States Government, World History Studies, World Geography Studies, and Applied Personal Financial Literacy. There was much back and forth around significant historical issues such as slavery in the U.S. and the characterization of Islam in world events, but ultimately the conservative pact (one larger due to Abbott’s appointment) adopted the standards along party lines. 

The standards may be adopted but that means the work is just getting started. Outside advocates will begin analyzing the standards to do a true comparison of what has changed (since this was never provided to the board during the actual revision process.) The SBOE will need to conduct instructional materials reviews to replace all existing materials. Because the changes are so radical, publishers will need significant time to recreate curriculum materials that meet these standards. Social studies teachers, assuming they stick around for these changes, will need also need significant time to retrain and develop lesson plans.  

Texas parents will begin to see these changes hit their students’ classrooms in 2030-2031. We would like to remind you that elections have consequences, and there are two cycles before these standards make an appearance. 

Commissioner Comments 

The Commissioner used his time before the board this month discussing, or more accurately, defending the newly released A-F accountability scores. He spoke of the need for accountability generally and how that public perception and pressure helped students and thus campuses perform. Critics of the current system, including Texas AFT, will tell you it has never been about whether accountability needs to exist, but what metrics are used to determine ratings and more importantly how those ratings are weaponized against school communities via district takeover.  

During questions from the SBOE members, he also noted the uptick in the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) and how he expects that program to exceed $2 billion within about three years. 

Instructional Materials   

The public hearing on the 2026 instructional materials review and adoption (IMRA) cycle seemed to go smoothly without much ire being thrown at specific publishers as we have seen in the past. The board considered subject areas other than reading and math, such as career and technical education (CTE) and fine arts, and the quality rubric for the adoption of languages other than English (LOTE) for the 2027 cycle. November will be the big meeting for IMRA when the board votes to adopt, take no action, or reject this proposed catalogue of materials. 

Fiscal Considerations 

It is budget planning season over in the Legislature, The TEA, like every state agency, must submit a Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR) to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) for consideration. The SBOE voted to recommend an approximately $4.4 billion distribution from the Permanent School Fund (PSF) to the Available School Fund (ASF) to assist in reaching the agency’s budget for the next biennium. This allocation is capped at 6% of the fund, but for several cycles has hovered nearer the 4% mark, indicating good long-term health of the PSF endowment. 

Despite all agencies being required to come up with a 3% reduction in operating costs, much of TEA’s budget is sheltered from this requirement. Rather than an overall reduction, the TEA’s request grew $7.1 billion from its previous $90.8 billion mostly due to a projected need for another ~$1.8 billion in the TIA.  

National Board Certification 

Hotline readers have been following the saga to keep National Board Certification (NBC) as part of the TIA designation system. This falls squarely in the purview of the State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC), but this received lengthy deliberation in the Committee on School Initiatives. Proponents see the value in this additional professional development; opponents only see that there might be conflict with state laws relating to DEI. Though NBC does not have an item on the upcoming SBEC agenda, it will appear in December and could receive a final determination at that meeting.  

The SBOE will meet next on Nov. 16-20 in Austin.