Among them are materials developed by the Texas Education Agency since 2020. The state-developed textbooks will be available for free online and include kindergarten through fifth grade reading and language arts, kindergarten through eighth grade math, and algebra 1.
If the SBOE approves the textbooks in November, public school districts could begin implementing them during the 2025-26 school year. Use of the state-sanctioned materials is entirely optional, but districts that do so would receive up to $60 per student to purchase and print them.
Districts currently receive about $171 per student, plus $16 for emergent bilingual students, to acquire textbooks.
The overview
Texas lawmakers passed House Bill 1605 last year amid concerns about student performance and whether teachers are using instructional materials that meet state educational standards. For the first time, the law directs the state to create a list of high-quality textbooks and sets aside $324 million for districts to purchase the new materials.
A state teacher vacancy task force found that many teachers spend a significant amount of time searching for and creating lessons. The new materials will help ease workloads for teachers and give parents more insight into what their children are learning, lawmakers said.
Ensuring students have all the tools they need to succeed is the top priority, Shannon Trejo, the TEA’s deputy commissioner of school programs, told Community Impact.
“The second thing we need to address, which was part of the legislative call, was the amount of time that teachers were spending preparing materials,” Trejo said. “These materials are intended to remove that burden from the teacher and give them everything that they need in this product, so that they can then focus on the delivery of a great lesson that meets kids’ needs.”
Zooming in
The state textbooks will ensure students are learning at their grade level and build on important concepts each year, Trejo said.
For example, fourth graders would read “Number the Stars,” a historical fiction book about a Jewish family that escaped Nazi Germany during World War II. Fifth graders would then use their knowledge of the novel when learning about the war in their reading and language arts classes.
“[This] deals with the pretty delicate subject of World War II in a way that helps kids walk into more in-depth social studies classes in sixth, seventh, eighth [grade] and beyond, with background that they've never had an opportunity to be exposed to before,” Trejo said.
Since 2021, the TEA has tested its textbooks in multiple school districts around the state and received feedback from stakeholders, Trejo said. Some districts have recorded “tremendous” success and student growth under the state curriculum, she said, although it takes time to adapt to the new materials.
Lubbock ISD, which is in West Texas, began piloting the TEA’s elementary-level materials at four schools during the 2021-22 school year. All 28 elementary schools were using the materials by the 2023-24 school year.
Despite support for the state-developed textbooks from lawmakers and education experts, some Texans have objected to frequent references to the Bible in the elementary school curriculum and raised concerns that the materials do not depict other religions equally.
For example, a fifth grade reading passage about the Renaissance describes Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting, “The Last Supper,” and includes excerpts of the Book of Matthew, which focuses on the crucifixion of Jesus.
Other religions are also included in the textbooks. A fourth grade poetry lesson includes a poem by Kshemendra, a 12th-century poet who “studied Buddhism and Hinduism, and ... wrote epic poems based on various stories and gods from those religions.”
“A big part of the concern for the faith community is that there is so much Christian content that is presented as fact,” said Bee Moorhead, the executive director of Texas Impact, an interfaith policy organization. “The point of faith is that it's not the same thing as knowledge—knowing and believing something are not the same and have different impacts on your life.”
TEA leaders defended the use of religious stories in the textbooks and said they are tied to American history.
“In Texas, there is a wide diversity of folks that have different ethnic and religious backgrounds. [The curriculum] is not going to proselytize or seek to have someone believe a certain way about a certain religion,” TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said. “Any sort of religious aspect is presented in an educational or historic context, not like someone would receive it in a vacation Bible school.”
At the Capitol
Lawmakers discussed the state-developed materials during an Aug. 12 Texas House hearing.
“I think if we do this right, it could be a game changer for teachers and students across the state,” Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, said.
Talarico, a seminary student and former middle school teacher, noted that “there is a difference between teaching and preaching” and said he was concerned the TEA’s textbooks would do the latter.
“Under federal law, schools can teach the Bible as an academic text, but not in a devotional way,” Talarico said. “In other words, public schools are not Sunday schools.”
Talarico said the state purchased textbooks from Amplify, a curriculum developer, and altered them. Amplify’s second-grade textbooks, for example, included individual lessons on Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam, which were removed from the materials released by the TEA, Talarico said.
Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, said public schools “should never be ashamed” of teaching students about Christianity.
“The world’s major religions did not have an equal impact on the founding belief systems of our country,” Schaefer said. “They did not have an equal impact on the American and Texas legal system or Western civilization and our culture today. That’s just a fact.”
The option to submit online comments ended Aug. 16, but Texans interested in weighing in on the 142 materials proposed by the TEA and other publishers can testify during the state board of education’s Sept. 10-13 meeting.
The state board will vote on all the proposed materials in November. The board can approve, reject or take no action on individual materials, according to SBOE documents.
