SBOE To Vote Soon On Sex Ed Textbooks

SBOE To Vote Soon On Sex Ed Textbooks

The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) will consider textbooks for Health classes for K-12 students in Texas. Last year, the SBOE approved Health standards for K-12 students in Texas which included the topic of sex education. The board successfully voted against any attempts to add the topics of sexual orientation, gender identity, or abortion and were able to add topics of healthy relationships that lead to family formation and promoting abstinence. Though the SBOE did a lot of great work on the Health standards, they must now purchase textbooks that align with those standards. The typical cycle at the SBOE involves revising and or adopting new Texas Essential Knowledge Skills (TEKS) and following with the selection and implementation of new materials by school districts. After the Health standards were adopted a proclamation was issued with publisher requirements. Textbook publishers then responded with a statement of intent to bid and had one year to develop materials that meet the proclamation’s requirement. Publishers send an electronic sample to a state review panel. The education commissioner reports on how well each textbook submitted meets the adopted TEKS. The textbook only has to meet 50 % of the TEKS in order to be eligible for adoption. The public has an opportunity to comment on the proposed textbooks and the State Board of Education will vote on which textbooks will be selected for classrooms at the end of the process. The SBOE will vote on the Health textbooks for K-12 students at the November 2021 meeting. You can view textbooks samples here: http://tea4avcastro.tea.state.tx.us/imet/agreement.html

Some of the textbooks that are being presented to the board are extremely problematic and we believe that they do not align with the Health standards that the board adopted last year. The textbooks Human Kinetics and Lessonbee include topics that the SBOE voted against in November 2020. The Human Kinetics materials include examples of the LGBT lifestyle, advocating for LGBT rights, transgender teens, and how to become sexually active at a young age. The Lessonbee materials include a scenario where two girls talk about arousal and ejaculation. You may recall that that Texas Education Code 28.004 requires that abstinence must be taught as the preferred choice of behavior for school aged children when teaching sex education.

One good textbook that aligns with the adopted Health standards and is free of the comprehensive sex education topics above is Goodheart Wilcox. The SBOE needs to hear from the public about which textbooks they should vote to approve. The board successfully voted excellent standards for K-12 students, now they must choose the right textbooks that teach those standards. Please see examples from the two concerning textbooks below:

For examples of inappropriate content in Human Kinetics and Lessonbee, click here.

 

Share this:
Back to blog