It's Time to Stand Up for American Indian/Native Studies in Texas

The Texas State Board of Education

AINS poster for petition
Art by Deante’ Moore.

What happens in Texas public education impacts the rest of the United States because of the role the state plays in developing K-12 textbooks and instructional materials that get adopted in other parts of the US. Texas has also helped lead the nation in book-banning and censorship, all while severely under-funding public education. The state's hard turn toward academic censorship has now also impacted Ethnic Studies. Prior to 2024, Texas educators were well on their way to developing a complete roster of high school level Ethnic Studies courses, with record enrollment for the already adopted Mexican American and African American Studies courses. Since Governor Abbot appointed a new SBOE Chair in December of 2023, the process of Ethnic Studies course adoption has ground to a halt, with a ground-breaking course in American/Indian Studies being the first course to get side-lined in the process.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The AI/NS course adoption process has now been delayed for almost a year. We are still calling on SBOE Chair Kinsey to begin the process at the next available board meeting. Please sign this petition and learn more below.

If you live in District 15, we encourage you to write and call Chair Kinsey. Check here to see if you live in Chair Kinsey's District, which includes cities such as Lubbock, Abilene, Odessa, Midland, and others. If you know someone in District 15, please send them this petition and email tool.

How did we get here?

In 2018, the Texas State Board of Education called for the creation of four specific Ethnic Studies courses. "Native American Studies" was among them. In the summer of 2019, course developers began discussing the creation of a Native Studies course at an Ethnic Studies regional gathering held at TCU. In the Spring of 2020, a committee of native community members and allies hosted a conversation hosted by Grand Prairie ISD to gather community feedback for a 10-12th grade course in American Indian/Native Studies. Grand Prairie ISD began piloting the course in 2021 and the Texas Education Agency approved the Innovative Course in the summer of 2023. The AI/NS course is not in its fourth pilot year and has been adopted in Robstown ISD, Crowley ISD, and is being considered by several other districts. SBOE board members and the public have had since June of 2023 to review the TEA-approved course.

The AI/NS course was slated to be heard for “First Reading” in January of 2024, but the item was  absent when the agenda was released that January. We learned later that new SBOE Board Chair, Aaron Kinsey, who was appointed by Governor Abbott in December of 2023, decided to pull the item to have more time to review the course. Since then, more than 300 community members throughout Texas have emailed Chair Kinsey asking him to place the course on the agenda. Nearly 80 organizations have also endorsed the course and asked the SBOE Chair to move forward with the course.

As the April SBOE meeting approached, we learned that Chair Kinsey had decided to review the course's recommended course materials even though they are not part of the official TEKS adoption process. By the end of March, we learned that the course had not been put on the April agenda. Chair Kinsey stated that the course was already available to students as an innovative course and did not seem in a hurry to move forward with the course. The AI/NS Innovative course, however, expires after 2025 (confirmed on the TEA website), and there is no guarantee that the course will be renewed. Course creators have since applied for a course renewal, but the course still needs to placed on the SBOE agenda to be considered for full TEKS adoption so that it can have the same permanence and status as previously approved Ethnic Studies courses. The course is running out of time and should be reviewed and adopted this year.

Native communities have waited for a course like this for generations. The AI/NS course deserves to be more than a temporary pilot course in the state of Texas. It is time to move forward.

We call on all Texas parents, future parents, educators, students, and community members to help get the American Indian/Native Studies course back on track for review and approval this year.

Districts do not have to wait for the Texas SBOE to approve the TEKS-based course to offer the innovative course. While we advocate for the TEKS-based course review process to move forward, districts can and should offer the innovative course in current and future academic years.

Why should you support this course?

The Texas SBOE was one of the first state boards to adopt high-school level courses in Mexican American Studies in 2018 and an African American Studies course in 2020. Since the 2020-2021 school year, course enrollment has grown from 6,500 students for both classes combined to nearly 21,000 students in 2023 and 2024. MAS and AAS make up 25% of all Social Studies course electives. Both courses have been among the top 3 most popular Social Studies electives for the past 3 years with MAS being the most popular in recent years. Simply put, Texas students want Ethnic Studies in their schools.

A total of 80 tribal councils, organizations, churches, and elected officials have called on bringing the AI/NS Innovative course into the Social Studies TEKS by the end of 2024.

The following 22 tribal councils, departments, cultural organizations, and officials have reviewed the AI/NS Innovative course standards and submitted individual letters of support. See the letters here.

  • The Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas
  • The Citizen Potawatomi Nation
  • The Comanche Nation
  • The Society for Native Nations
  • American Indians at the Spanish Colonial Missions
  • The Indigenous Cultures Institute
  • The Institute of Texan Cultures
  • Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party
  • TCU's Native and Indigenous Student Association
  • UNT’s Native American Student Association
  • UTA’s Native American Student Association
  • Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry (TXUUJM)
  • Lubbock Compact Foundation
  • NAACP Lubbock Branch
  • Mexican American Studies at Texas Tech University
  • Southwestern University’s Education Department
  • TCU’s Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies
  • Vikki Goodwin, Texas State Representative, District 47
  • Salman Bhojani, Texas State Representative, District 92
  • Perla Bojorquez, Democratic Nominee, Texas House of Representatives, District 93
  • James Talarico, Texas State Representative, District 50
  • Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT)

An additional 58 organizations have called on the Texas SBOE to review and adopt the AI/NS course in 2024. The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board has also called for the course to move forward.

For more than 40 years, Texas educators, parents, community members, and students have been calling on the Texas SBOE to create Ethnic Studies courses. In fact, the Texas SBOE has approved courses in Ethnic Studies since the late 1960s, only to fail to give them the needed support. Today, Texas students have voted with their feet and shown that they want Ethnic Studies in their high schools.

By approving the first American Indian/Native Studies course in Texas history, the Texas SBOE has the chance to not only make Texas proud. It has the chance to make history by being one of the first states in the US to adopt a Native studies high school elective course at the state level.

Who should sign this petition?

Texas communities need your help! Anyone in the US can sign this petition. Anyone who care about making native knowledge accessible to students in schools should sign the petition, including native people and allies from outside the US. If you are a member of a tribal community in the US or anywhere in the world, please note that when you sign the petition.

After your sign, please share this petition with your family, friends, co-workers, on social media and via any relevant listservs or social media groups.

What if I live in Texas or if Chair Kinsey is my SBOE Rep?

If you live in District 15 (Midland, Lubbock, etc.), WE NEED YOUR HELP to call and email Chair Kinsey! Visit this website to check if Chair Kinsey is your SBOE member.

If you live in Texas, you can also write and call Chair Kinsey. As a Texas tax-payer, the matter of what is included in the SBOE agenda impacts all Texans, including you.

Use this call and email tool to call and email Chair Kinsey.

Can organizations or associations do anything to help?

If you are a member of or a leader in a community organization or association, and want to lend your support relatively quickly, please sign onto this organizational letter.

Can tribal councils, community groups, student groups, academic departments, scholarly associations, or elected officials do anything more to help?

Absolutely! If your tribal council, group, academic department, or if you as an elected official have additional capacity, one of the most powerful things you can do is review the course and draft an endorsement letter on your letter head. This letter can be sent directly to the SBOE. Please email ethnicstudiesnetworkoftexas@gmail.com so that we can provide you with support.

Additional links and information:

Public Testimony at the Texas SBOE and Press Conferences:

Media Coverage and Community Posts:

Local Implementation can and should continue:

Local school districts and community members should continue to implement the innovative course at the district level. This will help the larger cause of both renewing the innovative course and bringing the course to full adoption. While the AI/NS course can and should be taught regardless of what happens at the state board, the AI/NS course deserves a stable place in the Social Studies TEKS-approved elective course roster. We encourage you to begin the process of local adoption now.

Contact information:

For questions about this petition or if you would like to write a letter of endorsement or support in other ways, please email the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas at ethnicstudiesnetworkoftexas@gmail.com.

To: The Texas State Board of Education
From: [Your Name]

I stand in strong support of the American Indian/Native Studies innovative course as approved by the Texas Education Agency in the summer of 2023. I call on the Texas State Board of Education to place the AI/NS innovative course on the next available agenda so that it can be reviewed by SBOE members and adopted into the Social Studies TEKS during the 2024-2025 academic year. We also call on the board to renew the innovative course this year so that there will be no interruption for districts who are currently offering or want to offer the course. Both processes can and should move forward and be completed this year.

In 2018, the SBOE made a commitment to consider for the TEKS Ethnic Studies courses that were brought before it, including a course in Native American Studies. The AI/NS course that was developed and presented before the board is fair, rigorous, and balanced. The course standards are supported by thousands of Texans and they are more than ready for review. Additionally, the course is “age-appropriate” and would be available specifically for students from 10th to 12th grade.

Native and Ethnic Studies communities in Texas strongly support the AI/NS innovative course as approved by the TEA in the summer of 2023. The course has gone through rigorous review and revision: including, two years under development at GPISD, a summer with the TEA’s Social Studies TEKS Review Work Group E, and six months with the TEA innovative course approval process. The course is now entering its fourth pilot year. In addition, Robstown ISD and Crowley ISD have adopted the innovative course, and several other districts are in the process of adopting the course as well. In August of 2023, the Curriculum of Instruction reviewed the course and voted to bring it to the full board for review. In November 2023, then SBOE Board Chair Ellis expressed his intent to bring the course for review the following year without any objection.

In January of 2024, new SBOE Chair Aaron Kinsey did not bring the AI/NS course for review as expected and stated that he needed more time to review the course.

A year has almost passed by, dozens of testimonies have been shared at multiple SBOE meetings, hundreds of emails have been sent, and at least 80 organizations have endorsed the course, including several tribal councils. We believe it is time to move forward with the course. For this reason, we call for the following:

1) We call on SBOE Chair Kinsey to bring the AI/NS innovative course for “First Reading” at the next available SBOE board meeting so that the TEKS-based review and adoption process can be completed by the end of the 2024-2025 school year.

2) We call on the Texas SBOE to renew the AI/NS innovative course while the course review and adoption process is moving forward. We expect that both processes can move forward simultaneously.

3) Once the course moves forward to review, we call on the SBOE Chair and board members to engage in a good faith review of the course that honors the field and tradition of American Indian/Native Studies and engages with the Native community-members and content experts who created the course.

The Texas State Board of Education has a history of leadership when it comes to Ethnic Studies. The Texas SBOE made Texas the first state in the nation to adopt a secondary level Mexican American Studies (MAS) course in 2018 and, in 2020, unanimously approved an African American Studies (AAS) course. Since then, course enrollment for MAS and AAS grew to nearly 6,500 students during the 2020-2021 school year. Just two years later, and despite going through a major pandemic, Ethnic Studies course enrollment is up nearly 300%, with close to 18,000 students enrolled in a TEKS-based MAS or AAS course during the 2022-2023 school year (Source: TEA).

Simply put, Texas students want Ethnic Studies in their schools.

Students take and complete these courses for good reason. Academic and empirical studies have shown that Ethnic Studies courses can improve school attendance, raise academic interest, and elevate academic achievement across multiple subject areas (Cabrera et tal 2012; Penner and Dee 2017).

Thousands of hours of volunteer and TEA staff time have gone into developing the AI/NS innovative course. Thousands of Texans have signed onto this petition.

Let’s make Texas proud. Let’s honor our history. Let’s make American Indian/Native Studies available to all Texas high school students who would like the opportunity to take the course.

Sincerely,

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