Zachary Nunn’s first grader came home from Parker Elementary School with a social studies assignment that immediately raised his concerns as a Black father: a worksheet asking students to compare the “good citizenship” of Sam Houston, a slave owner, to Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights activist.
The assignment is the result of Bluebonnet Learning, a new Bible-infused curriculum that was designed by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and approved by the State Board of Education (SBOE) to be used across the state of Texas. Bluebonnet Learning was most recently implemented by HISD under the state takeover, which replaced elected school board members with the TEA or state appointed officials.
In June, the HISD board unanimously approved Bluebonnet Learning despite growing opposition to the program by Texas parents. Parents are upset that the curriculum erases the history of slavery and racism, removing the history of complicated figures like Sam Houston or Robert E. Lee. Other concerns about the curriculum include age-inappropriate material, heavy reliance on packet-based learning and student-filled-out paperwork, and factual inaccuracy.
“We’re getting assignments back home that are saying both men were equal, good citizens that fought for freedom,” said Nunn. “We know that Sam Houston was a slave owner. We know that he fought a war to colonize parts of Mexico. We know that his war was against Indigenous Mexicans. This assignment not only simplifies, but then also glosses over and re-imagines history in a way that flattens it and makes certain figures who were outright wrong seem right.”
Nunn stumbled upon the assignment entirely by accident as he was going through his daughter’s backpack.
“ The reality is, I was not aware of what my child was learning,” said Nunn.
The father says that despite promises by Parker Elementary School that parents would be provided with weekly newsletters detailing the lesson plans for their children, as of mid-October, parents have yet to receive any information about what is going on in their children’s classrooms.
Nunn says it’s not the teachers he blames, but the current administration and the TEA for authoring and approving the curriculum and leading the state takeover.
“I’m looking at a curriculum driven by a political ideology and administration that is completely subverting facts,” said Nunn. “It seems to be trying to indoctrinate our children. The HISD curriculum and structure of this takeover doesn’t empower teachers with space and time to do the things they should be doing.”
Nunn isn’t the only parent who is concerned with the state of his child’s classroom. Catherine Allen, a former Parker Elementary School parent whose family is mixed Black, Vietnamese, white and Indigenous, says the assignment teaches students inaccurate information.
“My first issue with the assignment was accuracy,” said Allen. “Sam Houston was not a good citizen. You cannot own people and treat them like property and be a good citizen, no matter what the laws were and the socially accepted norms were at the time. It’s wrong to own people.”
Allen also said the social studies assignment is a symptom of broader issues with HISD’s handling of race and racism. The mother said when her daughter was a first grader at Parker, the class was assigned a book with racial caricatures that stereotyped Asian people.
“Texas has a tendency to whitewash history and give really unnuanced white supremacist educational curricula to our children,” said Allen. “These kinds of assignments aren’t surprising to me because I’ve seen equally terrible curriculum in my child’s classroom.”
Both Nunn and Allen said that HISD’s curriculum has necessitated additional damage control at home.
“ It’s inevitable that we need to be involved. If my child’s going to bring home really atrocious material, then we’re responsible for filling the gaps,” said Allen.
Marcie Jones, a current Parker parent, plans to pull her son out of the district next week after the takeover’s curriculum changes and negative classroom environments started sending her fifth grader home crying.
She says that the social studies assignment is part of the more looming issue of HISD’s transformation into a place parents don’t want their children attending.
“It’s pretty appalling,” said Jones. “We have no say in what happens to our kids or our school. I worry about the curriculum sanitizing a lot of things in history that were really ugly and that we can’t take back, but we know we can do better, and I worry a lot about the Bluebonnet curriculum.”
Jones says that teachers who have the knowledge and experience to question their curriculum are quitting their jobs or being fired as a result of the superintendent’s leadership.
“We’ve lost 35% of our teachers, so we’re talking about a ton of knowledge being lost,” said Jones. “Some teachers might see that assignment and say, “Ugh, this doesn’t feel right,” or question it. But we don’t have a lot of teachers that are doing that anymore because a lot of them with that experience level have left. We have younger, less experienced teachers that also feel like they have to follow this to the T or they’ll lose their job.”
Nunn says he emailed the principal and school board as soon as he found the assignment in his daughter’s backpack, but was dismissed and ignored by school leaders at every level.
“The next step is that I will be demanding a weekly newsletter and alternative assignments for my child,” said Nunn. “I’m deeply concerned about what it means for children who are older than my child, beyond the first grade, and what other types of insidious content they’re trying to slip into the curriculum in the guise of education.”
All three parents say they’re taking their frustrations with them to the ballot where nine SBOE seats are up for grabs, including four in the Houston area. The gubernatorial race will also appear on the midterm ballot, determining who has the power to approve or reject laws pertaining to public schools.
”The fish rots at the head. I blame Greg Abbott,” said Nunn. “I blame an institution that is dedicated to whitewashing history, to demonizing Black, brown, trans, Muslim, and marginalized people. An institution that’s hell-bent on demonizing anyone that isn’t white, straight, and Christian. And I blame this leadership.”
