The State Board of Education is considering removing all references to the ‘heroic’ defenders of the Alamo in the Texas History curriculum. Also on the chopping block is the in-depth study of Col. Travis’s letter from the Alamo.
According to an article from Texas Monthly:
Last month, the advisory group, called the State Board of Education Social Studies TEKS Streamlining Work Groups and made up of educators and historians, voted to approve a final recommendation making a number of changes to the state’s history curriculum standards. The paragraph in the seventh-grade curriculum, in which Texas history is taught, currently reads as follows:
“explain the issues surrounding significant events of the Texas Revolution, including the Battle of Gonzales, William B. Travis’s letter “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World,” the siege of the Alamo and all the heroic defenders who gave their lives there, the Constitutional Convention of 1836, Fannin’s surrender at Goliad, and the Battle of San Jacinto.”
But the committee is recommending to the state board that it delete several of these passages and add one so now the standards, if adopted, would read like this:
“explain the issues surrounding significant events of the Texas Revolution, including the Battle of Gonzales, the siege of the Alamo, the Constitutional Convention of 1836, Fannin’s surrender at Goliad, and the Battle of San Jacinto and Treaties of Velasco.”
“‘Heroic’ is a value-charged word,” the group explains in recommending the elimination of the word. The group went on to explain that “all ‘defenders’ is too vague.” Similarly, the ten-person group recommends deleting the current standard that requires students be able to explain Travis letter from the Alamo. The streamline committee said the letter can be mentioned as context for lessons about the siege of the Alamo so that “teachers will spend less time on the analysis of the letter.”
For years the TNM has sounded the alarm about the Alamo reminding Texans that any re-engineering of the remembrance of the Alamo is nothing less than a full-assault on who Texans are as a people.
A public hearing on the recommendation is scheduled before the State Board of Education on Tuesday, September 6th at 9am at the William B. Travis Building, 1701 N. Congress Avenue, in Austin. The SBOE’s Committee of the Whole will vote on the proposal the following day and, if successful, the board may take its first vote on adopting the change as early as next Friday. A final vote would not occur until the board meets again in November.
A spokesperson for the SBOE states that they have only received one email critical of the proposal. If you would like to express your displeasure at this attempt to sanitize the Alamo then find your SBOE representative at this link and be heard. Otherwise, the Alamo that future generations learn about could be vastly different than the Alamo as you know it.
In addition, download our free Alamo Action Guide and learn how you can be most effective in advocating for the Alamo.
