With the State Board of Education set to consider changes to Texas’ public school curriculum on social studies, Muslim activists are reportedly planning to push for more inclusion of Islamic history and dogma. That has conservative activists calling for Texans to speak out.
Fran Rhodes, who leads the True Texas Project, raised alarms on Wednesday morning that items on the SBOE’s April 7 agenda are set to be used by Muslims engaged in “lobbying for Islamic issues to be included in social studies.” The SBOE meeting is set to run through April 10 in Austin.
Curriculum in government schools must adhere to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. The proposed revisions to the social studies TEKS have drawn praise from many education reformers—but derision from Islamists keen on inserting their religion into the classroom.
A forum sponsored last month by the Texas Coalition on Human Rights and the River Oaks Islamic Center claimed that the standards “promote exclusionary and Islamophobic narratives.” Their solution is to “counter these narratives and take action” at next week’s SBOE meeting.
The state is geographically divided into 15 SBOE districts, with members elected to four-year terms.
“No outside organization writes curriculum for Texas,” wrote SBOE Member Pam Little (R) on social media. She added that she is “against any form of Sharia law or religious doctrine being pushed into our schools, standards, or instructional materials.”
Rhodes said her organization, with the help of Patriot Mobile, is organizing a bus trip for citizens to Austin next week interested in “countering” the attempted Islamification of Texas’ public school curriculum.
“We need people to testify at this public hearing (where decisions will be made) to keep Islam, and sharia out of the public school TEKS, and focus on traditional, America first principles,” she wrote to her members. “We would like for people to encourage the board to include founding documents, the Bible, and other patriotic documents and writings in the literary works list, and to specifically exclude Islamic texts.”
