Last Tuesday, the elected Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) took testimony from a wide cross-section of Texans, subject matter experts and others concerning the character and content of the K-12 social studies curriculum that will be taught in its state and roughly a score of others’ school systems over the next decade.
Over the following four days, the Board held marathon voting sessions that had the feel of trench warfare more than a deliberative body as its members fought, often line-by-line, over required reading and related aspects of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Standards.
On one side were American patriots, led by SBOE members Julie Pickren and Brandon Hall, who – like many of those who testified before the Board – were determined to have the curriculum feature historical facts about the nation’s founding fathers, their documents, the God-given freedoms they guarantee, and the role of Judeo-Christian tenets and values that have shaped our history and indispensably contributed to American exceptionalism.
On the other side were advocates of a revisionist history which highlighted real or imagined “facts” favored by cultural Marxists and sharia-supremacists intent on destroying the United States and determined to indoctrinate young Americans to help do that. Prominent among the champions of this alternative curriculum framework, its amendments to the required reading list and TEKS was a leading element of the communist-jihadist-globalist (Red-Green-Blue) axis: the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). This role is especially outrageous since Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated it as a terrorist organization last November. For shorthand, the alternatives the group favored have been dubbed the “CAIR Curriculum.”
The “Save Texas, Save America Campaign” (BanSharia.com) is proud to have encouraged Texans and others to engage with the State Board of Education both in person, through public testimony and through letters to its members conveyed via an Align Act initiative. Among its partners who testified were: Frank Gaffney, President of the Institute for the American Future, Texas State Senator Bob Hall; Rick Green, founder of the Patriot Academy; Cindi Castilla, President of Texas Eagle Forum; and Pastor Rick Scarborough of Recover America.
In addition to testifying to the State Board of Education, these thought-leaders were joined by Dr. Pickren, Rev. Hall, Sen. Hall and other state legislators, four incipient members of the SBOE, Abraham George and D’Rrinda Randall, the Chairman and Vice Chairwoman respectively of the Texas Republican Party, and a number of other speakers in a rally for freedom in the lobby of the Capitol’s Barbara Jordan Office Building. It featured remarks, prayers and a memorable rendition of “God Bless America” as appeals to the Board to stick with the pro-America curriculum it had adopted last year and reject the one favored by CAIR.
This week’s victory in Austin comes on the heels of another last month, when 1.9 million Texans voted for Proposition 10 on the Republican primary ballot: “Texas should prohibit sharia law.” There will surely be further votes and other fights in education boards, legislatures, courts and elsewhere. But it is to be hoped that they will be informed, and made more tractable, by these successes for the cause of freedom.
In the meantime, the Save Texas, Save America Campaign is working to translate these achievements into heightened awareness about and resistance to efforts to subvert Texas and the rest of the nation in the service of sharia and/or other totalitarian ideologies.
It is tremendously gratifying that so many Texans and other Americans responded to the appeal to weigh in – whether in person or digitally – with the Texas State Board of Education in support of the pro-America curriculum, and that a majority of its members concurred. Special thanks to Board Members Julie Pickren and Brandon Hall for their steadfast leadership in this fight and to Steve Bannon, whose War Room Pandemic ‘Posse,’ played an outsized role in illuminating its stakes and defeating the “CAIR Curriculum.”
To that end, the campaign urges every candidate for elective office across America to commit to oppose the imposition of sharia here by taking the “Sharia-Free Pledge” at BanSharia.com.
Over the following four days, the Board held marathon voting sessions that had the feel of trench warfare more than a deliberative body as its members fought, often line-by-line, over required reading and related aspects of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) Standards.
On one side were American patriots, led by SBOE members Julie Pickren and Brandon Hall, who – like many of those who testified before the Board – were determined to have the curriculum feature historical facts about the nation’s founding fathers, their documents, the God-given freedoms they guarantee, and the role of Judeo-Christian tenets and values that have shaped our history and indispensably contributed to American exceptionalism.
On the other side were advocates of a revisionist history which highlighted real or imagined “facts” favored by cultural Marxists and sharia-supremacists intent on destroying the United States and determined to indoctrinate young Americans to help do that. Prominent among the champions of this alternative curriculum framework, its amendments to the required reading list and TEKS was a leading element of the communist-jihadist-globalist (Red-Green-Blue) axis: the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). This role is especially outrageous since Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated it as a terrorist organization last November. For shorthand, the alternatives the group favored have been dubbed the “CAIR Curriculum.”
The “Save Texas, Save America Campaign” (BanSharia.com) is proud to have encouraged Texans and others to engage with the State Board of Education both in person, through public testimony and through letters to its members conveyed via an Align Act initiative. Among its partners who testified were: Frank Gaffney, President of the Institute for the American Future, Texas State Senator Bob Hall; Rick Green, founder of the Patriot Academy; Cindi Castilla, President of Texas Eagle Forum; and Pastor Rick Scarborough of Recover America.
In addition to testifying to the State Board of Education, these thought-leaders were joined by Dr. Pickren, Rev. Hall, Sen. Hall and other state legislators, four incipient members of the SBOE, Abraham George and D’Rrinda Randall, the Chairman and Vice Chairwoman respectively of the Texas Republican Party, and a number of other speakers in a rally for freedom in the lobby of the Capitol’s Barbara Jordan Office Building. It featured remarks, prayers and a memorable rendition of “God Bless America” as appeals to the Board to stick with the pro-America curriculum it had adopted last year and reject the one favored by CAIR.
This week’s victory in Austin comes on the heels of another last month, when 1.9 million Texans voted for Proposition 10 on the Republican primary ballot: “Texas should prohibit sharia law.” There will surely be further votes and other fights in education boards, legislatures, courts and elsewhere. But it is to be hoped that they will be informed, and made more tractable, by these successes for the cause of freedom.
In the meantime, the Save Texas, Save America Campaign is working to translate these achievements into heightened awareness about and resistance to efforts to subvert Texas and the rest of the nation in the service of sharia and/or other totalitarian ideologies.
It is tremendously gratifying that so many Texans and other Americans responded to the appeal to weigh in – whether in person or digitally – with the Texas State Board of Education in support of the pro-America curriculum, and that a majority of its members concurred. Special thanks to Board Members Julie Pickren and Brandon Hall for their steadfast leadership in this fight and to Steve Bannon, whose War Room Pandemic ‘Posse,’ played an outsized role in illuminating its stakes and defeating the “CAIR Curriculum.”
To that end, the campaign urges every candidate for elective office across America to commit to oppose the imposition of sharia here by taking the “Sharia-Free Pledge” at BanSharia.com.
