This month, the Texas State Board of Education voted to change social study standards for what students learn in each grade.
TEXAS, USA — The Texas State Board of Education wants to make changes to how your kids learn history in the classroom.
This month, the board voted to change social study standards for what students learn in each grade.
The Texas American Teachers Federation is keeping a close watch because the changes have a heavier focus on Texas and U.S. History, and less on world history and events through the 3rd to 8th grade.
The Texas AFT says teachers typically teach Texas history in the 4th and 7th grade and focus on world cultures in the 6th grade. A graph of proposed changes shows a focus only on western civilization being taught in the 3rd grade for half the year and world history to slim down to only 20% by the 7th grade.
“We heard that in the testimony, from teachers, that a lack of understanding of geography and deeper, broader world events is going to be detrimental to a student’s holistic social studies education,” said Kelsey Kling, Texas AFT government relations specialist and policy analyst. “So, by the time they reach those high school courses, they’re going to be in deficit.”
Texas AFT says this is a radical change in how social studies have been taught for a long time that will require a new way of training social studies teachers to give lessons in the classroom.
New textbooks will be needed as well as a change to how state testing is done in the 8th grade.
This plan is still in development and the State Board of Education has until next summer to agree on a new plan.