Texas has joined several other states that have changed what schools teach about Israel since 2023. Earlier this month, Texas’ State Board of Education approved new high school social studies standards that revise the wording on Israel’s establishment in 1948 and identify moral and ethical teachings in the Torah as an influence on the United States. It comes after the board approved similar curriculum requirements for third grade in June, covering ancient Israel and its connections to America and Texas.
The revised standards are set to be implemented in third-grade classrooms in 2030-31 and in high school in 2033-34. Other states also have changed statewide standards in the past three years, including Oklahoma, Iowa, Maryland and Alabama, although the subjects covered and the wording differs in each one. In each state, the changes concerning Israel were part of broader revisions to social studies standards, rather than separate measures focused solely on Israel.
Newsweek has reached out to the Texas State Board of Education and the Texas Education Agency via email on Thursday. These changes have not been explicitly linked to the current Israel-Hamas conflict but they have all taken place after October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 people hostage, some of whom have been returned. Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza, killing around 73,919 Palestinians as of Wednesday, according to Gaza health authorities, and destroying much of the city.
The conflict sparked multiple protests on U.S. campuses and forms the backdrop to a wider debate over what American students are taught about Israel. Some online critics have slammed Texas' changes, saying it could steer students toward a particular view of Israel, while others have spoken out against how the changes are being framed, arguing that Israel has long been taught in similar ways in Texas schools. Newsweek has broken down the details of some of the major standards changes below.
Under the new standards, high school students taking U.S. History or World History will be expected to “identify the year 1948 as the date of the establishment of the modern State of Israel, in the ancestral homeland of the Jews, and U.S. President Truman as the first world leader to formally recognize Israel.” The 2022 U.S.
History standards mentioned American “support for Israel,” while the 2022 World History standards covered factors contributing to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Neither explicitly required students to identify 1948 or used the ancestral homeland wording. That does not mean teachers had not covered Israel’s founding: the Texas Education Agency shared resources on the conflict with schools in 2023, including a timeline beginning in 1947 and the Texas Education Agency’s comparison of the 2018 and 2022 World History standards shows that both versions required students to study Israel’s influence among classical civilizations and discuss factors contributing to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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