Hey y’all, welcome to this week’s edition of The TexEd Report. We’ve got a lot to cover this week.

State takeovers have increased across school districts in Texas, and this week I spoke with a Fort Worth ISD parent who’s pushing back. You’ll find more from that conversation below.

You’ll also find a breakdown on recent and upcoming higher education board of regents meetings across the state, the results of two State Board of Education runoff elections, and we wrap up reading “The Testaments,” this month’s banned book. 

You’ll also hear from a University of North Texas professor who is leaving her post amid censorship threats—the result of an ongoing “brain drain” trend facing higher ed institutions in Texas.

If you missed last week’s edition, check it out here.

(Photo by Katie Serrano)

Several higher ed systems, including the University of North Texas and the University of Texas in Austin, had board of regents meetings last week. 

Board of regent members gained significant power under Senate Bill 37, which passed last year and overhauled the leadership and decision making power at public universities, shifting things like curriculum authority from faculty to board members that are politically appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. They also appoint university presidents.

Last week, University of Texas regent members voted to give campus presidents more power to cut academic programs—something critics say strips professors and departments of protections as universities face more and more political pressure over what can be taught and studied.

In North Texas, regent members cut over 70 programs at UNT, mainly impacting humanity and art departments.

The decision has faced scrutiny from students, faculty, and alumni. On Thursday, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas staged a mock funeral outside of the board meeting—complete with a horse-drawn hearse—to mourn the changes happening at their university and protest continued attacks on academic freedom. 

The changes have even sparked one journalism professor to decide to leave her post after 15 years amid ongoing censorship in classrooms, which includes AI crawling her syllabi to identify keywords that the university deems “inappropriate” and “controversial.” Hear from her below:

Tomorrow, Texas State University board members will meet to vote on a rule change that would eliminate tenure for professors at three of its system’s two-year  campuses.

If you’re just now joining us, throughout the month of May we read “The Testaments,” the sequel to Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Here’s a final batch of discussion questions to consider as you wrap up the novel:

1. What warnings does “The Testaments” offer about society and governance? How does it connect to current events or real-world debates?

2. How does Atwood use the “Historical Notes” to reframe the story?

3. What responsibility do schools have in exposing students to controversial or uncomfortable ideas?

Thanks for reading. This newsletter was written by Katie Serrano.

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