By Joe Gulick
Local school district superintendents say they havent yet seen the new social studies standards passed recently by the State Board of Education but Bob Craig - who represents Lubbock on the state board - spoke favorably about the result of the boards work.
Overall I think the document is pretty good he said. You always would like to have more over here or something worded a little differently over there but this is a good result.
The 15-member state board recently passed the new standards 9-5 with one member absent.
The board had discussed updating the social studies curriculum of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) at its January March and May meetings Craig said. Close to 300 amendments were proposed and some of them were based on feedback from Texas citizens.
Some people say it is more conservative-leaning than the previous one and some say it is not conservative enough Craig said.
The TEKS are the curriculum that must be taught to Texas public school students. They are updated about every 10 years in the major subject areas but Craig said the social studies TEKS had not been updated for about 12 years.
The new version of the social studies TEKS is longer and contains more diversity and more events that will be taught to students Craig said.
Because the TEKS are the standards that must be taught in Texas schools they will have to be reflected in textbooks used in Texas schools. But those textbooks may not show up anytime soon.
Lubbock Independent School District Superintendent Karen Garza commented
The state of Texas approves and provides funding for textbooks. Textbooks are adopted for replacement on a schedule which typically rotates in about a seven-to-10-year cycle. Social studies textbooks were expected to be on the 2013 adoption. However due to budget constraints at the state level that adoption has been postponed indefinitely.
Craig agreed the full funding of proclamations for textbooks will be pushed back.
Typically when new TEKS are adopted supplemental materials are provided to districts to augment the current textbooks and reflect the new TEKS until a new textbook is adopted Garza said.
The Associated Press reported U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan commented after the social studies TEKS were passed that such decisions should be made at the local level and school officials should keep politics out of curriculum debates.
I havent looked at these new TEKS. I know thats something very controversial with some people. Its not with me. We have too many other things we have to deal with said Pat Henderson Superintendent of the Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District.
Like Henderson Garza and other superintendents said they had not yet seen the final version of the new standards.
The Texas Education Agency hasnt published the new TEKS at this time Garza said. Many amendments were made at the last SBOE meeting. The TEA (Texas Education Agency) staff is reviewing transcripts of the meeting to get all of the changes before providing districts with a final document.
Robyn Green Lubbock-Cooper director of secondary instruction said drafts of the standards without the final amendments are on the TEA website. She said the final fully amended version should be available by June 25.
Jim Taliaferro superintendent of the Slaton ISD said teaching TEKS is a matter of teaching the expectations established for students and later assessing students on how well they learned the expectations.
We just take what we are told in the curriculum to teach and thats what we teach Taliaferro said.
Sundown ISD Superintendent Mike Motheral said he hadnt studied the social studies standards but had talked to Craig about them. He praised Craig for his hard work on behalf of his district.
Bob Craig does such a good job of representing us and is in my opinion one of the common-sense votes on the board Motheral said.
