SBOE finalizes high school social studies TEKS revisions

The State Board of Education met Aug. 31-Sept. 4 to finalize revisions to the state's social studies curriculum.

TEKS changes

The last year has been characterized by late nights spent discussing extensive changes to the state's social studies curriculum as well as the creation of a list of required literary works for each grade level.

Due to the length of the Board's deliberations last cycle and having only finished the K-8 courses and the literary works list, they postponed consideration of the high school social studies courses to this week's meeting.

Not all high school social studies courses were revised; U.S. History, U.S. Government, World History, and World Geography were the only courses discussed. Additionally, the Board approved a new Applied Personal Financial Literacy course.

TEKS changes will be phased in beginning with grades K-5 in the 2030-31 school year, sixth grade in 2031-32, seventh and eighth grade in 2032-33, and high school courses in 2033-34. This is intended to mirror the implementation schedule of the new list of required literary works (view the final list here).

As was the case in previous meetings, dozens of people attended to testify on the high school social studies courses and almost all of the testimony was similar to that heard in June. In particular, a number of members of the Texas Muslim community spoke against the negative portrayal of Islam in the standards in contrast to other world religions, which are portrayed neutrally or positively.

Once public testimony concluded, Board members began the work of debating changes to individual standards. They began in the late afternoon Monday and completed their work early Tuesday evening in advance of a final vote Friday.

Commissioner comments on 2026 A-F ratings

Commissioner of Education Mike Morath appears once during every SBOE cycle to present new initiatives at TEA or a "State of Education" talk, after which he fields questions from Board members. During this week's meeting, he spoke exclusively about the state's 2026 accountability ratings, which were released in August.

Campus ratings were mostly consistent with the previous year, but Morath applauded the nearly 24% of campuses that improved their ratings from 2025. About 22% of campuses earned a lower rating, and 55% remained the same.

In particular, he singled out Houston ISD's results. Morath called the dismal scores prior to TEA's 2023 takeover of the state's largest school district "a catastrophe of human potential," but lauded the apparent growth since then, declaring that "there has never been a district of this size in the history of the United States that has improved this much."

When asked about progress in Fort Worth and Lake Worth ISDs, both recent subjects of a state takeover, Morath said that, because the school year just started, there isn't enough data to make an assessment on the effectiveness of the takeover yet.

A handful of members asked about potential takeovers in their SBOE districts, and Morath replied that there are certainly some campuses with consecutive F ratings on TEA's radar, including Austin ISD.

Aside from the social studies changes, the Board's agenda concluded quickly. Every Board member appeared relieved that the marathon of curriculum changes were behind them at last.

The next subject slated for a review is mathematics. TCTA will keep you updated as those deliberations proceed in the future.