Although they didn’t have to, the state-appointed members of Houston ISD’s Board of Managers voted unanimously Thursday to adopt the state-developed Bluebonnet Learning curriculum despite the thousands of errors that have been discovered in it necessitating an $8 million do-over by the state.
The district’s reward? $3.3 million the district expects to receive from the state for doing so.
It didn’t seem to bother the board that Bluebonnet comes with what critics contend is a hefty dose of Christian religion for kindergarten through fifth graders. Those critics have said this goes beyond a study of religion to incorporating religious beliefs and presents some characters in the Bible on the same plane as real life historical figures.
“They wanted the money,” parent and Rabbi Joshua Fixler parent and said after the vote. “The state has made this bribe that encourages people to choose this curriculum, and it was too big a number for the district to imagine saying no to so instead they betrayed our students.”
Deputy Superintendent Kristen Hole made a brief presentation, her main point being that the Bluebonnet curriculum aligns well with the state’s TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) criteria.
“By law, we are not allowed to promote any religion. So the guidance to teachers is that you are not to promote religion. You are to stay focused on the academic learning objective. We are neutral on any one religion and that’s the guidance we provide. She was echoed in this by Board member Marcos Rosales who reassured his fellow board members when he said he had studied the texts and did not feel they cross the line to be an indoctrination tool.
Fixler, who attended the State Board of Education meetings this week in Austin, disagreed with Hole.
The rabbi said he has studied the Bluebonnet text and said that there are “subtle and insidious ways in which this text is trying to give these ideological impressions to our students.”
Superintendent Mike Miles warned against teachers amending the Bluebonnet text when teaching classes. It is something state elected leaders have endorsed.
“Right now we’ve left the politics in Austin. I don’t get to choose – nor do I want to – what the State Board of Education approves or doesn’t approve. They’re elected by the people. I don’t get to choose what the Legislature says about the degree of religious material that is involved in schools.”
HISD initially declined to adopt the Bluebonnet curriculum which the TEA created in response to House Bill 1605 and made available for the 2025-26 school year. However conservative political support for Bluebonnet Learning has only increased since then. HISD will join the 300 school districts that are already using the curriculum.
However the Texas Education Agency is going to have to spend as much as $8.4 million to correct factual mistakes, grammatical errors and the apparently illegal use of over 1,000 licensing issues – meaning they used photos they hadn’t secured the rights to use. Shipping out the materials has a hefty price tag as well.
Board members Michelle Cruz Arnold and Janette Garz Lindner did not attend the meeting and Board President Ric Campo attended on Zoom. Angela Lemond Flowers presided.
Fox 4 in the Dallas Fort Worth area, who broke the story about the Bluebonnet errors and resulting costs to taxpayers to fix everything reported that while they were unable to directly question TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, they did receive this statement from the TEA:
“The errors are unacceptable, and the vendor responsible for the errors has been fired. TEA’s contracting processes have also been changed so that if errors occur on future projects, any associated costs must be paid by the vendor. The total cost of these errors was roughly $4.91 per student in impacted schools, one time.”
A few board members questioned how the Bluebonnet curriculum was going to work with the district’s own curriculum that it has spent so much time and money developing. Hole pointed out that the district has made many changes to its own New Education System curriculum in the past three years — “We’ve added novels” – and this is just one more.
In response to a question, Hole confirmed that non-NES schools that had already adopted their own curriculum for the coming year, will not have to use Bluebonnet Learning.
The district is on a tight schedule to introduce this to teachers, however, since the fall semester starts on August 10. Several parents complained that this was done during the summer when many parents are away for summer vacations. Attendance was sparse at Thursday’s meeting.
As expected, the Board of Managers approved a $2 billion budget for 2026-27 which anticipates a 3.9 percent decrease in the General Fund over the 2025-26 budgeted revenues.
HISD cut 300 central office positions but will still need to use about $791,000 of its fund balance to fund the district’s budget. The district also says it is saving about $15 million by closing and consolidating some of its schools.
The funding decrease is due to a drop in student population which has been attributed to the federal government-ordered more rigorous immigration enforcement as well as parents leaving the district who are critical of Superintendent Miles and his New Education System policies.
At the same time, HISD is proposing a tax rate of $0.84210 per $100 of each homestead’s value which is lower than this fiscal year’s $0.87830.
After the meeting, Renee Wizig-Barrios, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston said she was upset about the timing as well as the Bluebonnet content.
“This was a huge betrayal of the community. We found out about it this afternoon. Over 700 community members contacted the Board of Managers right away to say this is not a curriculum that we want in our schools. This is not just an issue for the Jewish community. This is an issue for people of all faiths and no faiths that we respect the separation of church and state.
“It was completely optional for HISD to choose to approve this curriculum. We are incredibly disappointed that they made the choce to do it. At a time of rising anti-semitism this sends a message that we’re really not welcome in the schools.”
