In an episode of the Common Sense Podcast with Dr. Ben Carson, Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath explained his Department’s new Bluebonnet Learning textbooks and instructional materials. The materials were developed in response to the legislature’s concerns about learning losses among Texas K-12 students.
According to Morath, the textbooks are based on the “best evidence” about how to help students learn. He said that instead of making school course easier and lowering standards, the BlueBonnet textbooks increase rigor so that “kids can and will rise to the occasion.”
“It is very true that we have collectively lowered our expectations for what our kids can read and do,” Morath said. “There’s an analysis of textbooks from the 1950s versus today that compared the rigor level of the textbooks that kids would see in the 1950s and we’ve dropped a grade-level of difficulty.”
Bluebonnet Learning was developed after the Texas legislature passed House Bill 1605, which directed TEA to provide Texas schools with improved instructional materials. The new law is intended to help Texas’ teachers, and make gains against the learning loss in Texas schools over the last decade. The new instructional materials will be available for any teacher in Texas who would like to use them, says TEA.
TEA describes the materials as “high-quality,” which means the textbooks are based on “evidence of what improves the lives of kids," according to Morath.
"Materials are high-quality when they are aligned with that evidence base and when they show that they will, in fact, help kids read, learn history or science, and learn math," he said.
Morath told the Texas Senate this summer that student outcomes and learning peaked in Texas in 2013, one year after the peak nationally. Since then, the decline has continued with the most significant drop occurring during the Covid pandemic, according to TEA.
TEA has been developing Bluebonnet Learning since 2023. Overseeing the development of the materials is an expert panel that includes Dr. Ben Carson and former Texas Senator Eddie Lucio. Since May, the agency has received feedback from parents, teachers, and administrators, which the agency says it used to make adjustments to the materials.
The textbooks will only be available to schools in Texas if the State Board of Education approves them at its November meeting.
Another benefit that TEA touts is transparency, meaning all new textbooks, lesson plans, and other materials will be made available online for any parent in Texas to see so they know what their children are learning.
The full episode of the podcast can be found here.
The Texas Education Agency oversees public education in Texas, including by providing frameworks for curriculum, certification for teachers, and goals for students. TEA also administers the school finance system set by the Texas legislature. Texas has more than 1,200 school systems with 5 million students, 9,000 campuses, and 800,000 school employees.
