Controversy Over A Lesson Plan About Slavery Sparks Concern In Houston’s Independent School District

After presenting three bullet points giving very brief and oversimplified context points, seventh grade students were asked to decide if Texas should allow slavery to placate slaveholding Texans, if Texas should follow Mexico in outlawing slavery despite the feelings of enslavers, or if Texas should delay making a choice in the matter for 20 years, thus leaving the system of slavery unchallenged

The already deeply unpopular state takeover of the Houston Independent School District added another reason for parents to hate it after a lesson distributed as part of the HISD central curriculum department asked students to place themselves in the shoes of Texans considering how to implement its government in 1836 as part of the Texas Constitutional Convention. The problem was that the lesson asked students to choose if slavery was wrong via three multiple-choice answers. After presenting three bullet points giving very brief and oversimplified context points, seventh-grade students were asked to decide if Texas should allow slavery to placate slaveholding Texans, if Texas should follow Mexico in outlawing slavery despite the feelings of enslavers, or if Texas should delay making a choice in the matter for 20 years, thus leaving the system of slavery unchallenged.

As Houston Public Media reported, the lesson drew the ire of former HISD school board trustee Kathy Blueford-Daniels, who immediately questioned what signal this would send to HISD’s predominantly Black student body, saying, “For those Black kids, it says that you’re not worth anything,” she said. “For those children to have to see their peers make a decision with one of those answers is ludicrous.” An HISD spokesperson provided Houston Public Media with a statement after they reached out for comment, writing, “This seventh-grade social studies lesson does not meet our curriculum quality standards. We will immediately stop using it and will replace it with a more appropriate lesson to teach students about the Convention of 1836.”

Houston Federation of Teachers President Jackie Anderson also called into question the policies of the district takeover, such as barring full-length books from being worked into teacher lesson plans. Anderson told Houston Public Media, “Again, look at the schools it’s happening in — Black and brown schools,” Anderson said. “They have books on the west side. They have books in River Oaks. They have books in Pen Oak. Why is this happening only to Black and brown students?” Anderson also called for a pause on the takeover’s plans, saying the state management board needs to “trash all of the garbage that Miles is putting out.” Superintendent Miles, who is overseeing the reform changes instituted by the State of Texas, plans for at least half the school district to be using the New Education System by the 2026-2027 school year.

What a disgusting question to ask middle school students!
The state-installed administration is unqualified to manage our schools.

‘Should slavery be legal in Texas?’ Houston ISD seventh graders asked in lesson about 1836 Constitutional Convention https://t.co/8qkcNJk7Oi
— Daniel Santos (@mr_dsantos) January 26, 2024

His NES program has been marked by parent protests, massive teacher turnover, and student protests, often led by Houston’s teachers union, the Houston Federation of Teachers. The crux of the union’s unhappiness with the NES system is a radical change to how teachers are paid as well as eliminating libraries and turning them into disciplinary centers. The payment system Miles is looking to implement is similar to the one he installed at Dallas ISD, which led to a 22% increase in teacher turnover, as well as middling gains in state education benchmarks and more scandals than positive benefits for teachers, even though other districts eventually adopted the Dallas ISD plan.

In addition to problems of Miles’ making, the Texas State Legislature, which is run by the state’s Republicans, passed a bill in 2021 that was sponsored by a group Texas Governor Greg Abbott openly supports, the 1836 Project. According to Chloe Latham Sikes, deputy director of policy at the Intercultural Research Association, the aims of the legislation were to curb any discussion of race, gender identity, or sexism in Texas classrooms, telling The Texas Tribune, “It’s not just about what a teacher may or may not say,” Sikes said. “It’s also how they go about their class, how they design the class — how they might address really sensitive issues of race and gender and identity and sexism in their classrooms. All of this is really about routing out any acknowledgment of the salience of sex, race, gender and silencing those conversations, which, in the end, ultimately hurt students of color and students in the LGBTQ community.”