Ed board rejects all but one health text
GOP members cite public objections to sexuality issues
The State Board of Education rejected all but one health textbook submitted for approval, with most of the conversation centering around how sexual health, consent, LGBTQ issues and abortion were presented.
The board's consideration of the textbooks follows its move last year to approve a sex education curriculum that teaches contraceptive methods other than abstinence. But of late, Texas Republican leaders and some parents groups have objected to several books in school libraries and classrooms designed to teach teenagers about sexuality, consent and sexual orientation and gender identity.
After the public comments, the state board had signaled earlier this week that it wouldn't approve any of the middle school health textbooks covering sex education, despite the fact that the textbooks met all or most of the curriculum requirements that the board crafted last year. Board members said the textbooks generated hundreds, if not thousands, of phone calls and emails, and public testimony over the materials ran for more than four hours on Tuesday. The material in the textbooks was optional: schools wouldn't be required to teach it, and parents must opt-in for their kids to receive sex education in Texas.
The lone approval on Friday, for a book from publisher Goodheartwilcox, came after the publisher omitted references to Hiv-prevention practices, added increased emphasis on the efficacy of abstinence in preventing pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections and added language encouraging kids to talk to their parents about sex. The board's vote Friday approving it was 10-3.
The approval of textbooks does not create a mandate for Texas school to buy the books, and schools can choose to buy others instead. When the board approves a book, it makes state funds easier for schools to acquire accessible copies of the books for visually impaired or hard-of-hearing kids, and it streamlines their process to prove they're teaching the proper curriculum.
Several board members said that if no books were approved, schools would be left without guidance, creating unintended consequences.
“My concern is that they'll find books that are far worse. They're from other communities that don't satisfy our (curriculum), or include a lot of objectionable ma
terial we don’t want,” said board member Will Hickman, a Houston Republican.
“I will tell you the governor’s office is very concerned about us adopting nothing and just leaving the school districts to find their own way,” said Tom Maynard, a Central Texas Republican.
Democrats have charged that the Republican outcry is an effort to silence discussion over sexual orientation and gender identity, and they say it’s bad for Texas kids.
“The idea that mentioning anything to do with sex will harm our students is simply not validated by scientific research. The more students know about their bodies, the more likely they are to make wise decisions about their bodies,” said board member Rebecca Bell-metereau, a Democrat from San Marcos.
The discussion over sexual and health education in Texas schools has long been a contentious one, but the issue has flared up this year as Republican political leaders rally against what they deem inappropriate content, even “pornography” in schools, and national conservative groups are organizing against what they consider leftist indoctrination on campus. Parents in Texas this year have led grassroots campaigns to remove certain books from at least six school districts.
Earlier this month, state Rep. Matt Krause, R-fort Worth, as chair of the
House General Investigating Committee, sent letters to large school districts around the state asking if their libraries carried any of 800 books, many of
which were written to educate teenagers and kids on LGBTQ issues or those of sexuality.
Gov. Greg Abbott followed those letters on Nov. 8 by blaming school boards for opening the door for inappropriate books on campus and directing the Texas Education Agency, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and the State Board of Education to develop statewide standards for selecting them.
He threatened that educators providing “pornography” to kids could be charged with state crimes.
After all the middle school textbooks were initially denied, each of the publishers offered a list of changes in order to try to win the board’s approval. Many of the changes included language repeatedly emphasizing the effectiveness of abstinence in preventing sexual infections or pregnancy, changing the language used about condoms or encouraging kids to talk to their parents about sex. Goodheart-wilcox removed references to two methods to prevent transmission of HIV.
In an emailed release sent after the board’s vote, the organization Texas Freedom Network noted that each of the two middle school textbooks that “acknowledged that LGBTQ people exist” were not endorsed by the State Board of Education.
“This week offered yet more evidence that politics continues to trump education and teaching the truth in Texas schools, even when it comes to the health and lives of our kids,” wrote Rocio Fierro Pérez, the group’s political coordinator. “The votes this week make clear that the Texas State Board of Education remains very much in the textbook censoring business. It’s frustrating to see the health and education of millions of Texas students continue to be held hostage to the politics of ignorance and exclusion.”
One publisher, Human Kinetics, removed a photo of two teenage boys with their eyes closed, pressing their foreheads together, from a textbook page about “Sexual Orientation,” leaving the page without a photo. Earlier in the same chapter, on the “Teen Dating Relationships” page, a photo of a boy and a girl in an identical pose remained.
The Human Kinetics textbook was not taken up Friday by the board, so Tuesday’s denial remained. The board deadlocked, 6-6, in a vote whether to approve a book for elementary kids from publisher Quaver Ed, leaving it without a recommendation as well. That book did not include any sexual education material.