Elected TX State Board of Education Needs Your Help! Accountability Needed!

HB 6 , (Rep. Eissler/Sen. Shapiro) is a bill impacting the authority of the elected State Board of Education.  HB 6 is expected to go to conference committee  and good language needs support for the SBOE to have approval/removal power on all textbooks and materials and to have oversight of “open source” electronic materials that are pushed into public school classrooms with no oversight by TEA, by the Education Commissioner, or the elected SBOE.  There is currently no oversight of open-source instructional materials.  These materials are fast-tracked into our public school classroom if certain university faculty members “self-certify” these instructional materials, with no oversight by TEA, the Education Commissioner, or the elected SBOE.

The House version of HB 6 has a good SBOE amendment, restoring the SBOE’s authority to remove instructional materials on the “commissioner’s list”.  The Senate version doesn’t have this amendment as the Senate version only allows the elected SBOE to “review and comment” on commissioner’s list and the “open source list.” (Senate Democrats blocked stronger version of these amendments, so they were removed for HB 6 to move forward).  An amendment preventing national standards from infiltrating Texas also had to be removed.

In conference committee, we need the conference committee members to restore the elected SBOE having the power to approve/remove instructional materials and/or textbooks from the commissioner’s list and the “open source” list.

We support HB 6 going to conference committee and support including in HB 6 the following:

(1)  Elected SBOE authority to remove instructional materials from the commissioner’s list.

(2)  Elected SBOE authority to remove instructional “open source” materials and/or electronic textbooks.

(3)  Rejection of national curriculum standard being used in Texas schools.

There are only a few days left this Texas Legislative session!!

Remember, the elected SBOE saved the teaching of Christmas, the Liberty Bell, rejected propping up socialist as models for students, and defending the teaching of our Founding Fathers, the Constitution and American Exceptionalism for K-12.

Please spread the word!