The State Board of Education (SBOE) voted Monday, Sept. 26, 2022, to advance a pared down revision of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum standards for social studies. The board’s proposed changes to the TEKS are intended to comply with new legislative requirements enacted in 2021.

The proposed revisions written by Texas Education Agency (TEA) staff are designed to make the minimum changes necessary to comply with Senate Bill (SB) 3 by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), which the Texas Legislature passed in 2021. The bill placed restrictions around classroom discussions and ordered specific changes to the social studies TEKS that were already scheduled for revision by the SBOE in 2022.

At the last regular SBOE meeting in September, the board took the unusual step of tossing out the work of educator and parent workgroups that had been tasked with a broader overhaul of the social studies TEKS. The board made the decision to throw out thousands of hours of the volunteers’ work after the workgroup’s original framework was targeted by interest groups with vague allegations that it contained elements of critical race theory. A special SBOE meeting was scheduled this week to revive the social studies TEKS revision effort before a year-end deadline to comply with SB 3.

SBOE members approved the new TEA framework on first reading without amendment. The board will vote again on second reading and final adoption at its next regularly scheduled meeting in November.