The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) is poised to vote at their June meeting on new social studies standards that will shape how more than 5.5 million students learn history and social studies in Texas public schools. Public comment is now open on the draft 2026 Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards, and historians, educators, and concerned citizens have an opportunity to make their voices heard.
The American Historical Association urges its members and all Texans who value high-quality history education to submit public comments to the Texas Education Agency by 5:00 p.m. Central Time on Monday, June 15, 2026. We also encourage concerned constituents to contact their elected SBOE members and state legislators to share concerns about the draft standards.
Take Action by June 15
- Submit public comments to the Texas Education Agency. (See the AHA Texas Social Studies TEKS Revision Field Guide for tips on crafting public comments.)
- Contact your elected member of the State Board of Education
- Share you concerns with your state legislators
Deadline: Monday, June 15, 2026, at 5 p.m. Central Time
SBOE will consider amendments based on public feedback before voting on whether to adopt these standards. Public comments can help identify omissions, inaccuracies, and areas where the standards can be strengthened.
Key Concerns with the Draft Standards
- An unbalanced and narrowly conceived approach to world history
Texas Education Code specifies a required curriculum in “world history,” but the draft repeatedly invokes “Western Civilization” to justify disproportionate attention to a single strand of European intellectual history at the expense of the broader human experience. Even the high school world history course is framed as being “rooted in the Western tradition,” while marginalizing or excluding major historical developments in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, China, and the history of decolonization. The result is a partial and distorted account of the past that leaves students ill-equipped to understand–and succeed–in an interconnected modern world. - Ideological commitments that supersede evidence-based history
In numerous instances, particularly in discussions of religion, the draft privileges predetermined conclusions over the careful evaluation of historical evidence and scholarly interpretation. For example, standards in both grade 1 (1.c.5G) and high school US history (USH.d.3E) distort the American Revolution by emphasizing the “Black Robe Regiment” as a major factor in the movement for independence. This phrase is an anachronism, coined in the 21st century as a Christian nationalist call to arms and with little grounding in historical sources. - An overload of content that undermines historical thinking
The proposed standards are so densely packed with required content that they leave little time for students to work with primary sources, analyze evidence, construct arguments, or develop other essential historical thinking skills.
The draft also contains numerous omissions and distortions that diminish students’ understanding of the past. Among them:
- Women’s history is consistently marginalized. The draft standards for grades 3 and 4 include no women at all, and engagement with women’s historical experiences and contributions remains limited throughout other courses.
- The relentless exclusion of many historical perspectives. For example, the treatment of abolitionism in the early republic (grade 6, standards 2C and 2D) highlights only John Woolman (deceased 1772), Thomas Jefferson, and the 1807 slave trade act without mentioning the critical role of Black men and women, including Prince Hall, Elizabeth Freeman, Richard Allen, Quock Walker, David Walker, and many others, in challenging slavery.
- Insufficient attention to global contexts. The draft TEKS ignore the movement of people, ideas, and goods across the world, failing to address basic concepts (latitude and longitude), major developments (labor organizing and global migration), and broad swaths of history (precolonial Africa, the Mughal empire) necessary to understand change over time. It also fails to expose students to the complexity, contingency, and frequently provisional knowledge that characterize historical inquiry.
- The history of racism is absent. The draft fails to address the development and economic significance of racialized, heritable chattel slavery in the 17th- and 18th-century Atlantic world. Indeed, the term “racism” appears only twice in the entire draft, both instances occurring in the high school elective African American Studies course.
Texas students deserve social studies standards that are historically accurate, educationally sound, and developed through a transparent process informed by teachers, curriculum specialists, historians, and the public. Even a brief comment explaining why evidence-based history education matters can make a difference.
The deadline for public comments is 5:00 p.m. Central Time on Monday, June 15, 2026, but SBOE members will continue to consider suggestions through the end of their June 22-26, 2026, meeting. Let them know how much this matters to you and your community.
As part of its mission to promote historical thinking in public life, the AHA monitors and offers guidance on state academic standards. As outlined in the AHA’s Criteria for Standards in History/Social Studies/Social Sciences, our approach starts from the premise that every student has the right to a history-rich education.