Revolutionizing Education: Classical Curriculum and Legislative Reforms- with Sen. Phil King

Texas State Senator Phil King joins us to challenge the status quo in public education, advocating for a transformative curriculum grounded in classical literature, phonics, and cursive writing. Learn why he believes the Golden Rule and timeless principles should be at the heart of Texas' educational framework. Discover the senator's insights into the current issues plaguing lesson plans and foundational skills, and his vision for a structured, state-provided curriculum enriched with hard copy resources for both teachers and students. 

We also delve into Texas' bold strides in education reform, highlighting legislative efforts to introduce the Ten Commandments into schools. Explore the incremental nature of these changes, inspired by biblical teachings, and the optimism surrounding the future of education in Texas. From the roles of Phil King and Steve Toth to setting new standards and reclaiming educational excellence, this episode offers an in-depth look at the ongoing battle for educational autonomy in the Lone Star State.

A Classical Approach for Public Education:
https://twomomsandsomebooks.substack.com/p/action-alert-house-bill-1605-a-classical

Chapters

• 0:07 Education Curriculum Debate in Texas
• 12:58 Conversations on Education Reform in Texas
• 23:31 Progressive Education Reform Discussion

Transcript

Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builder Show, where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton and special guest Phil King, state senator in the great state of Texas. And actually, phil, you got two constituents on the program today, since David and Tim live in your district. So you know, I don't know if they're going to lobby you or what, but welcome to the program, brother. Good to have you back.

Phil King

Glad to be here. In fact, david's actually the one that came to me years ago and asked me to run for the legislature. So, good or bad, it's all his fault.

Tim Barton

Yeah, so Terry's still uh, still blaming, I'm sure, david, thanks for the last 30 years of our life, yeah, or 25, whatever it's been. Yeah, yeah, what, hey, man, you, uh, you know, obviously now on the Senate side of things, where things move a little slower and, uh, and you know, more mundane compared to the crazy uh house, uh, but you're, you're also uh, very involved in the education side of things, whichever side of the house you're on, and for I don't know what has it been 25, 30 years. We've been trying to get a lot of good stuff into the curriculum for Texas kids, including how do you treat your neighbor, things like the golden rule, that sort of thing, and apparently a lot of that's actually going to be in this new curriculum that the State Board of Education is considering. But there's, you know, there's obviously the left is against that. They don't want any biblical references going into the curriculum. And then there's some people on the right that have some concerns about it.

Tim Barton

So we thought we'd get you on to talk about we had Steve Toth on last week from the House side of things that we get you on and see what you thought you on and see what you thought and, if I can interject too, we've actually had several emails, phone calls, concerned individuals since that Steve Toth, where we talked about this house bill and changing some of the fabric and the foundation of the way education has been done. And you know, dad, for years you've talked about how education in public school is really kind of like socialism, where people didn't want competition, they wanted the government. And this is so ironic to say there are people that are literally arguing right now, conservatives that are arguing no, the government should maintain control, we shouldn't change what this is, or maybe people agree we should change it, but this isn't the right change and this is dangerous. And letting kids have the opportunity to get online and see all kinds of crazy things and they'd be on their iPads or on these screens for too many hours a day, blah, blah, blah, blah blah.

All these thoughts, and so, phil, you're walking into a little bit of already a hot topic, a little bit of a firestorm, which we have a lot of thoughts, because we try to research all of these things and find out what's actually there. Because we try to research all of these things and find out what's actually there and we realize a lot of what is happening right now. There's an echo chamber where people are addressing concerns and fears that are not always as valid as they think they are, and yet this is kind of where we are. So, phil, just so you know, there's already some fired up people, at least in the state of Texas, about this issue.

Phil King

Well, and let me start off, tim too, with just saying that they're absolutely right for being concerned, I mean, with all the things we see going on in public education here and around the country. And I know you've got a national audience and I'm going to go a little further and a little bit later to talk about how I really think this is a good model for the whole country to move toward. But, frankly, parents and interest groups ought to be taking a really really hard look at this and making sure that it's the right thing to do. I've done that and I've come down on the side that I believe it absolutely is. It's not perfect. No curriculum, no lesson plans, no, anything you put together is going to be perfect. If it turns out that there are some things in it that need to be changed going forward, obviously those are easy things to change, but it's really what's really going on.

You got to look at what the state of lesson plans and curriculum is in Texas and really, I think, most of the country today. In Texas it's very disjointed. It's not a system of foundational skills being taught and then, year after year, they're built on consistently, grade by grade. It's very disjointed, consistently, grade by grade. It's very disjointed. Different schools have different curriculums, different schools have different lesson plans. A lot of teachers don't even have lesson plans. We hear stories from teachers that, look, my school doesn't provide them, I don't have time to research them. They literally go on the internet and will Google down a lesson plan, which often has a lot of stuff in it that we don't want.

And so the idea was here that the state of Texas, the Texas Education Commission, would put together a statewide curriculum that's optional, it's offered to every school district and that would be influenced by classical literature, with a focus on kind of returning to fundamental skills instructions, things like phonics and cursive writing, and that's something that would not only be a benefit to the teachers, because they're going to have the lesson plans, they're going to have the notebooks. By the way, everything's hard copy. Nothing for the student or the teachers is online. It literally is all hard copy. But the teachers are going to have this available. The students will have the. The teacher will even have the handouts, the things to pin up on the walls, all these things that they need. The parents are actually going to receive regular letters sent home that provide unit-specific outlines of the major lesson topic Wait a minute.

Rick Green

Wait a minute, phil. You're saying we're going to involve parents in their children's education. I mean, I thought only the experts should be allowed to. No, that's great news, that's a good part of this.

Rick Green

Yeah, it's built into the whole program where the parents are going to get these regular letters that say this is what we're going to be focusing on. Here's the topics for this next couple of weeks and here's how, some ways that it'll have recommendations for how parents can actively participate you know, talking around the dinner table talking over the projects with their kids. They're going to be involved in that. So it's a great thing for students, it's it. It complies perfectly with what we have in texas called the texas essential knowledge and skills. It's all aligned with it. For the teachers, it's a. It's a full thing. That's consistent.

I went to a school district that's been been kind of beta testing it and I went two weeks ago and met with the teachers, the superintendent. They all love it, what's going on? So it's great for parents, it's great for teachers, it's great for students. It's a local, controlled thing, so it's optional to the school district.

It's going to bring in back some of that classic literature, like books like Treasure Island and Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and some of you, that book about the Holocaust where a family took in a Jewish child, that there was numbers in the stars, or a number of the stars, and excerpts from Don Quixote.

He's got a lot of things that are those classic things we want our kids reading Interestingly. The biggest criticism I have of it and David, this will really click with you or the biggest criticism I've heard, is that it's too rigorous. Well, you, David, have always talked about and taught and shown us examples of how, up until you know, recent decades and particularly in early American history, how rigorous elementary and middle school and high school education was and how we've really slipped away from that and, you know, kind of gone to what you know President Bush used to call the soft bigotry of low expectations. This is recognizing that we're not expecting enough from our students and hopefully providing those teachers that in their hand resources they need to help really challenge these kids, get the parents involved. I just think it's a good move all around.

Rick Green

It's surprising, phil, that we would even be having to debate whether or not we would support curriculum that has the golden rule, the Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, queen Esther, positive on entrepreneurship and let alone the delivery method all the positives you just mentioned.

Phil King

Yeah, and Rick, let me jump in there because one of the big criticisms have been hey, they're talking about the Bible in here. Well, obviously, if you're a student of American history, you understand that the Bible and the Judeo-Christian principles and ethics and everything were part of what built our legal system and then, ultimately, our Constitution and our institutions and everything else. But it's really hard to really study American history and world history and just take the Bible completely out of it. And so I'll give you a good example the letter that was written from a Birmingham jail by Dr Martin Luther King. Well, famous letter. He's been jailed for civil rights activism and he writes a letter, and in that letter, which the kids read, dr King mentioned Shadrach, meshach and Abednego, which, if you know your Bible history, of course, that from the book of Daniel, and they were the three guys that were thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to the king.

Well, you know these eighth grade or whatever kids who are going to be reading that history lesson and civics lesson about Dr King. They go well. Who in the world? Shadrach, meshach and Abednego? Well, there's a little addition to it at the bottom of the page or on the next page, and it explains oh, that's from the book of Daniel. Here's a little bit about the book of Daniel. Who Daniel was. That's one of the ways it's bringing in the Bible. But how could you possibly understand Dr King's letter if you didn't know about the book of Daniel?

Rick Green

I love it, man. I love it, david. You were going to say something about how difficult it is. I bet because you're like Phil saying I mean, we want to challenge the students.

David Barton

Well, it's interesting to me. These are battles we've all been through, and sometimes some of our loudest enemies are our best friends, and it's the kind of thing Phil mentioned earlier. There's a lot of misunderstanding about what this is. A lot of people think it is an online curriculum, but it's not. But one of the things I really love about what's happened here and I'll see if I can say this with some context Okay, I've been appointed in Texas several times to be an expert reviewer to help get the standards out, and the reason that I say that is Texas has blessed the nation in a lot of ways that it doesn't understand educationally.

As bad as education is Texas and California. We have about 24% of the nation's public school kids, and so publishers come to Texas and California, they get our standards and that's what you're going to get in Indiana or Kentucky and Louisiana. Everybody's going to get that because they don't have enough kids to be able to justify a publisher doing a curriculum just for that state. So, for example, last cycle in Texas, we said we will not have a textbook in Texas that does not talk about America being a republic and not a democracy. We are not a democracy. The Constitution prohibits that you will call us a constitutional republic, you will not call us a democracy. You know what? All 50 states got blessed by that decision in Texas. But the problem we have in Texas is being the second largest state, over 6 million kids. We're big enough to have our own stuff, and so what happens is we get washed down by the national curriculum. They have to include some of our standards, but we also get a little bit of their wokeism coming in. Even though we say we won't take it, it works its way in, even if Phil said, by the fact that we don't tell who Shadrach, meshach and Abednego are, we don't use the quotes of the founding fathers, we don't use their Bible quotes, and so why not Texas, get your. We're big enough to have our own stuff and what we've got here is an opportunity for the first time in my lifetime for sure, probably a lot longer than that, going back to progressives, maybe the 1920s that we can actually get stuff that reflects Texas values.

And we've been saying, hey, we're not going to do DEI, we won't do CRT. State's already banned that Phil legislature. They've done a good job of banning it, but we still get it worked in on that national curriculum. This will change it. But the problem is, when you have a bill like HB 1605, it's 50 pages long there's going to be stuff that people object to throughout, but Texas is conservative enough, we're going to get that worked out. If that people object to throughout, but Texas is conservative enough, we're going to get that worked out.

If there's a problem between now and the next session, guys like Phil are going to step in and fix this. So, as much objection as there is, I think we're so far light years ahead of where we have been and we're now taking control of our own destiny and our own kids. I think this is such a positive thing and, as Phil just went through some of this stuff, why would you object to that? And yes, there are fears and there are things out there, but not everything people fear comes to pass. We should still be cognizant of it, aware of it. But I think this is one of the best opportunities Texas has had to set a new direction for our own kids and for our own state, without having to be drugged down by the rest of the nation and what they believe.

Tim Barton

Well and Phil, forgive me if you mentioned this. I was trying to look up and find some comments from some of the emails we've gotten from people that were concerned about this and I'm seeing a lot of repeated concerns. But one of my thoughts I had heard that a lot of TEA resigned, quit over what Texas was implementing because the curriculum was so good, it had a very different value system and there were a lot of people opposed to it. Did I understand that correctly or are you familiar with that at all?

Phil King

You know, I've heard that. I haven't confirmed it, but trust me, TEA's a huge organization. If we had some people quit, that's okay.

You know, I say that I'm kind of joking when I say that I heard that I really hadn't followed up on it. But there's obviously Texas Education Agency is a big agency, and we all know that these large governmental agencies historically, at least in recent decades, have gotten a very left bias, and so I wasn't surprised at all when I heard that, because if it's going in a different direction that they disagree with for education, they're welcome to quit their job and leave.

David Barton

I love that that's such a simple Texas solution. If you don't like conservative things, you can quit your job and leave, and that's kind of I don't know. Texas and DeSantis, I think those are the two states that are really trying to challenge this stuff, confront it directly, and I think people are getting behind this. I think people are loving this. What we saw in the Texas primaries in this last session indicates that there's a real groundswell of conservatives starting to say we've had enough. So I think that Phil's exactly right and I think a lot of educrats, even in Texas, are still educrats, that they certainly have that progressive philosophy.

I know some of the Republicans who are opposing this think it's too rigorous. And going back to what we talked about earlier, no, it's not too rigorous. Go back to the 1940s and look at what we're teaching. Kids will rise to the challenge and they can do a whole lot more than what you think they can. And if you doubt that, see who knows more about technology, whether it's the parents or the kids. I mean they learn fast and they know things far above the level of adults in some cases not always, but the rigorous comment we're hearing even from elected Republican officials who are opposing this and we should not have that bigotry of soft expectations anywhere. And, man, you know, as Phil points out, it would be. It's not a bad thing to lose government employees in any state at any point in time.

Tim Barton

Well, and dad, I think, first of all, I think people like Oklahoma Governor sit Ryan Walters would be offended that you're saying Texas and Florida, not including some of the other states that are doing great things in education. But I mean, since we have Senator Phil King on, I got to be in Louisiana earlier this year when Governor Landry signed the bill that put the Ten Commandments back in schools, which was one of the things that actually that came from Phil King. That was first done in Texas. That passed bipartisan out of the Senate committee, passed in the Senate, kind of got tabled in the House. We had a speaker that I'm saying this didn't seem favorable to having that. We were told we had the votes. But I'm saying it to point out that we are seeing a major shift in education in a lot of ways and what we're talking about now is another opportunity to continue to shift education in the right direction.

Speaker 3: 16:57

And there are people opposing it because it's not perfect, which we know it's not going to be when you have a bill that's over 50 pages. It's not going to be perfect. There are definitely going to be things that have to be solved. And, dad, we were talking to somebody very involved on the educational side of this, and they said from those 50 pages, it's more than 100,000 pages of curriculum, teachers, guides, etc. That have been produced, and so this is a massive thing. No, it is not going to be perfect, but it's a little bit like if you look at the upcoming election between President Trump and Kamala Harris. Is President Trump perfect? No, he is not, but is he potentially far better than Kamala Harris when it comes to the Constitution, national security, immigration I mean the economy, Go down the list, and this is where I would point out, as we talk about this bill, that there's a lot of concerns and some of them are valid, but it's still a far better step in the right direction.

And even this idea that people are concerned about what's going to happen online and people have access and kids can click on all these different things. We were told that the online portion it's PDFs, and actually Texas has funded for any public school that so chooses to fill. If you maybe could, could we speak to this again? My understanding is the funding is there for any school who wants to take the curriculum. They actually at no expense to themselves. The state is paying for this, which means Texans, taxpayers and so everybody in Texas, you're welcome. We're paying for this, but every school can print off these PDFs, and so students don't have to stay online to use this curriculum.

Phil King

Oh no no, no, it's better than that. None of it will be online. If they adopt the curriculum which we're actually going to pay them extra money if they'll do it per child but if a school district will adopt it, they are actually going to be mailed. All the materials, all the things they post on the wall, the workbooks, the things for the kids, everything is going to be mailed to them, delivered to them, and so there's nothing to print out. The kids aren't going to be able to go online and click on this or that or other things. No, it is an offline curriculum.

And you know another piece of this, too we don't always talk about options in education school choice and all these other things, and this is a option that many of us believe is really a great opportunity for the local school districts. But each school district is going to get to make their choice, and if parents want their kids to use this, that's going to attract them to that school district. If they don't, they'll go to another school district. If they want their kids hopefully we'll pass school choice in Texas, which is way overdue They'll have that option to go to a private school If they want to go to a charter school.

The parents in many areas most areas have the opportunity to put their child, or at least try to get them, into a charter school, and so to me, this is just another option. It's not a mandate. I actually think once they start using it, I think it's going to sweep the state. I think teachers are going to love it. It reduces their workload a lot. They're not having to go home at night and Google or try to sit down themselves and draft out lesson plans. They're going to be able to have him literally delivered to them, and so I think it's another option. But I think it's going to sweep the state, and hopefully it's such a success that other states start looking at the same type of model.

Rick Green

Hey Phil, one quick question before we go. I know we got to lose you here at the break, but to Tim's point, because that was exactly what I was thinking was this whole perfect being the enemy of good thing? You know, you've been dealing with legislation for nearly three decades now. I mean, if you were dictator for a day, you could make it perfect, right? Or you know, to everyone's chagrin, if I was dictator for a day I could make it perfect, but of course it wouldn't be because it would still have mistakes. I mean, just speak to that for a second that these folks that just love being against everything, no matter what, because they nitpick the things that can be improved down the road. We need to learn how to take a win here. I mean, this is huge. This is stuff we've been trying to get into the curriculum for a long time.

Yeah, I mean you know you don't want to let perfect kill. Good, and I have no doubt that in all of this, that you can't nitpick and find some things, and if they're there, you know we can work on getting them corrected. The local school district can correct them. The parents can go to their teacher and say, hey, we don't think this is really what it should be. The teacher they're not tied to it. They can adjust and amend those lesson plans and what they're giving the kids all they want.

It's just a really. It's just a great resource. But the thing that is so important about it, it's going to make sure that every year those kids are in school it's building on the previous year on those fundamental skills instructions, the phonics cursive writing, on those fundamental skills instructions, the phonics cursive writing, and what you got in first grade is going to be built on a second grade and second grade and third grade. It's going to provide a consistency that's really missing in most public education today, and so it's a real comprehensive approach. But, yeah, there'll be things wrong with it and you know what. Some people put things in it that shouldn't be in it.

But don't let perfect kill good yeah,

Rick Green

 I mean good stuff. Phil King, state Senator from Texas. Thank you for joining us today, brother. Oh my pleasure. Thank you. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back on the WallBuilder.

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on the Wall Builder Show. Thanks to Phil King for joining us today as well. You know David and Tim actually David, you said this at the beginning of the program today We've all kind of been working on these topics and on these efforts for a long time to get some of these things back into the classroom and to teach kids these things. So this is a very positive development teach kids these things so this is a very positive development. But again, we understand why people would be concerned because, first of all, my knee-jerk reaction to anything that the public schools are doing is there's got to be an underlying boogeyman here somewhere.

David Barton

But you know, we've worked hard enough in elections that we've gotten really good people elected, like Phil King and others, and that's why this stuff is going forward. Steve Toth we had last week. He's a pastor. Steve got elected to the legislature as a pastor and so we've got these good guys in there and they understand they are who we are. They are the grassroots. They didn't come out of the top, they came out of the bottom and worked their way up, and so they have the same concerns and they're working hard to make sure those concerns get addressed for sure.

Tim Barton

And one of these guys too that I've heard. Actually, I mentioned during the Phil interview. I was looking to see some of the comments and emails and I had some from people saying okay, I've done more research and I've seen the explanations for what the bill says and the intent seems really good. I'm just not sure it's going to work out the way it's intended. Well, this is where, again, phil says hey, if we see areas and, dad, you pointed this out that we have a lot of really good people that if they see some major areas that need to be fixed and there will be some that need to be fixed they can come back and fix it. But also the the intent is very clear of the way this is supposed to operate.

We heard from Phil King saying this is not supposed to be an online curriculum. Well, the bill tends to allude to something about online, but the idea that it can be printed off and it can show up at schools, and this is fully being funded from a budget that is already in existence. There's a lot of good about this, and especially when you think about finally having textbooks that go back to biblical references, even just explaining where some of these quotes came from, whether it be an MLK Jr. But we could even go back to founding fathers and giving explanation for why they're quoting the Bible, the significance of the word of God, these references and having more of a classical approach in many areas, challenging kids not just with what they need to memorize. But why are we thinking this way and asking the questions and going back to phonics?

There's so many good things in this bill and, as we pointed out several times, we have to. We have to be careful that we can't stop progress. We can't. We can't stop or preventing a step in the right direction because it's not perfect and doesn't accomplish everything we want, or it's not written exactly how we think it should be worded. If this takes us a step in the right direction, we should always be willing to go the right direction. Even if it doesn't get us to the finish line, let's at least take a step in the right direction.

David Barton

And emphasizing that, just to remind you real quickly Ephesians 23, verses 29 and 30, and Deuteronomy 7, 22,. God says I will not give it to you all at once, I'll give it to you a little by little.

Rick Green

It is an incremental process, but this is a huge first step in the right direction. Yeah, good stuff today, guys. Thanks to Phil King again for joining us. Thank you for listening. There's more programming available for you at wallbuilders.show. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilder Show