AHA senior program analyst Julia Brookins testified before the Texas State Board of Education about the review of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards for social studies on April 10. She testified that the state was creating standards out of alignment with established best practices for which no educational and professional development resources currently exist, only to then “commission a custom educational product with a huge contract, awarded to a political ally, for an educational resource that is designed to fit the unvetted, destructive standards.”
“This devalues the public’s standing investment in education across the board,” Brookins said. “Districts have to pay for extensive retraining for teachers, or sign them up for free re-education camps with a single vendor. The taxpayers get an enormous bill, and the Board gets stuck approving thousands of corrections to a product for which there are few alternatives in the market.”
Brookins’ full testimony can be found on Youtube and below. More information about the TEKS revision can be found in our field guide. Learn more about state standards for history education on our website.