Your November 2024 SBOE Rundown
On Nov. 22, 2024, the State Board of Education (SBOE) met to take its final vote on whether to approve Bluebonnet Learning, the state’s controversial, Bible-infused elementary school reading curriculum.
Leading up to the vote, our community responded strongly against the curriculum. More than 12,000 concerned Texans sent emails to their members in protest. Dozens of parents, teachers, and community advocates testified at a public hearing with the same strong message of opposition we’ve been stressing since the curriculum was announced over the summer: our public schools are NOT Sunday schools.
The Republican-dominated SBOE voted 8-7 to adopt the curriculum despite national media attention, warnings from religious studies experts, and overwhelming negative feedback from constituents. Once again, they chose politics over what’s best for students, promoting an evangelical Christian religious perspective and undermining the freedom of families to direct the religious education of their own children.
We’ve got all the big takeaways here for you in your SBOE Rundown. Fair warning, folks: it’s a long one.
↖️ This Way to the Press Conference ↗️ This Way to… [Checks Notes] Prayer and Worship?!
The hour before public testimony began, TFN hosted a press conference at the Texas Education Agency building where the SBOE meets, featuring our partners the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Freedom, Congregation Agudas Achim, SEAT, CAIR Texas, and Dr. Mark Chancey. Faith leaders, public education experts, and religious freedom advocates urged the board members to reject the curriculum.
“Students should learn about the influence of religion in our history and society, including in literature, but this curriculum goes beyond promoting religious literacy,” Carisa Lopez, TFN deputy director, said. “Under our Constitution, the state may not turn public schools into Sunday schools and force teachers into the position of preaching rather than teaching.”
Simultaneously, a group of Christian evangelicals who supported the curriculum overtook the building lobby with a prayer and worship rally where they sang hymns, prayed for the curriculum to pass, and wholeheartedly embraced its Christian bias. So much for not proselytizing children.
Mark Chancey Brings the House Down (and More Highlights from Public Testimony)
Public school parents, progressive people of faith, educators, and other community members gave powerful testimony against turning our public schools into Sunday schools.
TFN Political Director Rocío Fierro-Pérez said that the curriculum materials “go far beyond the important goal of promoting religious literacy. They instead still veer into straight-up Bible study, religious indoctrination, and bad history.”
Former TFN Board Member and SMU Religious Studies professor Dr. Mark Chancey also gave great testimony — but where he really shined was in his follow-up Q&A with Member Rebecca Bell-Metereau (D) on whether the materials were developmentally appropriate.
“Children are not developmentally able to make the sorts of distinctions that these lessons assume of them at age 5 or age 6,” he said. “5-year-olds aren’t going to say, ‘I’m so grateful I’m learning these stories for the sake of cultural literacy!’” 😂
Hopefully Dr. Chancey never wants to quit his day job, but if he does, he should strongly consider stand-up.
Jonathan Covey, the policy director for far-right organization Texas Values, awkwardly followed Dr. Chancey with predictable (and false) claims about how developmentally appropriate the lessons are.
Testimony ran late into the night — like, 10 p.m. late — so members called it a night once everyone’s testimony was heard and postponed the rest of the day’s agenda to Tuesday.
Tuesday’s Preliminary Vote
After more than an hour of discussion between members on how the preliminary vote on the Bible-infused curriculum materials was supposed to work, the board finally got back to business.
Member Marisa Pérez-Díaz made a motion to remove the materials from consideration on the grounds that they’re not developmentally appropriate. After hours of debate — and an awful lot of soapboxing from certain Republican members to justify imposing Bible lessons on children — the board narrowly voted 8-7 against Pérez-Díaz’s motion, giving preliminary approval to the materials.
Republican Members Pat Hardy, Evelyn Brooks, and Pam Little joined the Democrats in voting to exclude the materials from consideration, but it wasn’t quite enough to take them off the table. The materials advanced to the next vote by a single member, coming down to a Republican political appointee chosen by Gov. Abbott to temporarily fill a vacancy while the elected member — Democrat Tiffany Clark — has yet to be seated. Clark said she would’ve voted against the curriculum.
The Final Vote on Friday
In the exact same 8-7 vote as before, the SBOE officially adopted the state’s Bible-infused curriculum on Friday, ignoring warnings from religious studies experts, national media attention, and overwhelming negative feedback from the people they’re elected to serve. All eight votes to approve Bluebonnet were from Republicans. The materials will be available for use in classrooms for the 2025-26 school year, and districts will be financially incentivized to use them.
“The board’s approval of this curriculum puts Texas at the center of a national movement to use public schools for promoting religious agendas that not even all Christians share,” said TFN Political Director Rocío Fierro-Pérez. “This threatens the freedom of families of all faiths to direct the religious education of their own children.”
More Takeaways from What Felt Like the Longest SBOE Meeting of All Time
- After questioning from members on whether the Bluebonnet materials violate the Establishment Clause and the lack of transparency, among other things, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath promised to get a list of authors and contractors who worked on it to Member Brooks — but not before acting like he thought she’d already gotten the list. No one has, Commissioner. That’s our whole point.
- During the legislative recommendations section, Member Pérez-Díaz introduced an anti-voucher recommendation that would call on the Texas Legislature to “support public schools and oppose Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).” It failed. Member Tom Maynard (R), operating on an entirely different wavelength, suggested that the SBOE should have the power to rate (censor, really) library books. It passed 🙃.
- It appears the board is planning to initiate the social studies TEKS review process as early as April 2025, with the process likely stretching into 2026.
So the Curriculum Passed. What Now?
Before we get to that, though this vote did not go the way we hoped, know that your voice matters. Without your advocacy, the vote likely wouldn’t have been this close — and it definitely wouldn’t have gotten the nationwide attention that it did. THANK YOU.
This particular fight may be over for now, but it’s only a small part of the bigger battle for public education in Texas. The Texas Freedom Network remains committed to ensuring that our public schools serve all students, regardless of their faith or cultural background. We’ll continue to advocate for students at the local level now that the Bluebonnet materials have passed. Stay tuned for updates on how you can support that effort.
With Ten Commandments bills already filed, we expect even more attacks on students’ religious freedom when the 89th Legislative Session starts in January 2025. Make sure you’re ready to fight alongside us!
