How Limits on Teaching Race, History Have Reached Texas Private Universities

The Texas Legislature last year agreed to pay college students to go into teaching and reward educator preparation programs for graduates who stay in the classroom.

The Preparing and Retaining Educators through Partnerships, or PREP, program unlocks tens of thousands of dollars for aspiring educators, the programs that prepare them and school districts where they work as teaching residents. It was part of a school funding law that injected $8.5 billion into public education and a statewide push to get more teachers certified.

{snip}

But in a lesser-known section of the 231-page law, the state limited what faculty in both public and private educator preparation programs could teach about race, sex and history, treating courses for future teachers “as if the program were a school district,” according to House Bill 2. The Texas Education Agency sent a document outlining the new restrictions to educator preparation programs over the summer, ordering compliance by Sept. 1.

The rules follow a series of state laws aimed at limiting lessons on race and history in K-12 classrooms and prohibiting school employees from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation. While the rules echo restrictions on public school instruction, the state’s way of enforcing the changes within higher education is new.

The TEA demanded that all educator preparation programs promise to comply, but the agency may be homing in on private universities, which are otherwise largely shielded from state control, said Kelsey Kling, director of government affairs for the Texas American Federation of Teachers, a union that represents Texas educators.

Texas has 119 educator preparation programs, including eight in San Antonio — with three at public higher education institutions and four at privates. All had to sign a TEA document agreeing not to teach that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex”; that meritocracy and a hard work ethic are racist or sexist; and that slavery and racism are “anything other than deviations from” the country’s founding principles.

The rules direct faculty to speak “objectively” about “controversial” issues and prohibit them from requiring “an understanding of the 1619 Project,” a New York Times Magazine report published in 2019 that examines how slavery has shaped American history and its institutions.

{snip}

Kalinec-Craig used to focus her lessons on how historical power dynamics shape education for queer, Black, Indigenous and Latino children. She taught future elementary school teachers how to center these children’s learning needs in group work that allows them to share ideas with one another, rather than by speaking directly to the teacher.

Kalinec-Craig’s lessons now focus more broadly on educating San Antonio children. {snip}

{snip}