On Monday, May 9th, 2022, the Canyon ISD SHAC (School Health Advisory Council) conveyed two recommendations to the Canyon Board of Trustees. (aka school board). They recommended adoption of:
Goodheart-Wilcox for High School/Middle School
Quaver Ed for K-5
Texans Wake Up views both of these curriculums as very harmful for children. Both are being considered for adoption in school districts all over Texas. The focus of this article is to highlight why parents should be concerned.
Here are a few facts about both curriculums.
Goodheart-Wilcox & Quaver Ed
Both were voted down (or against) in November of 2021 by Texas SBOE (State Board of Education) member, Jay Johnson. Mr. Johnson is the SBOE representative for all of the Texas Panhandle and lives in Pampa, TX. There were two other Texas SBOE representatives that joined Mr. Johnson in voting against Goodheart-Wilcox.
Both fail the Comprehensive Sexuality Education Harmful Elements test using the Comprehensive Sexuality Education Harmful Elements tool on the www.StopCSE.org website. Both reviews (see rubric) can be found here, as well as an executive summary.
CURRICULUM NAME | # OF HARMFUL ELEMENTS | PASS/FAIL |
11 out of 15 | FAIL | |
4 out of 15 | FAIL |
What else can you tell me about the Goodheart-Wilcox high school curriculum?
Well, Texas Scorecard wrote an article referencing Goodheart-Wilcox entitled "Controversial High School Health Text Tramples Parental Rights and Involvement" on June 1, 2022. The first 5 or so paragraphs can catch you up to why curriculum is being reviewed and how the process works for Texas public schools.
A parent published a listing of the usage of person/people or pregnant person instead of pregnant woman/girl/female thus attempting to diminish the role of a woman and/or to reject the biological truth that there are only two sexes and you cannot choose or change sex. The list has over 49 references to the Goodheart-Wilcox high school text and its companion.
Childbirth: “...hormones prepare the pregnant person’s body for labor and birth.” - Lesson 20.3 Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth
Syphilis: “Children born to a pregnant person with syphilis are often stillborn...” - Lesson 23.1 Common STIs
The Goodheart Wilcox human sexuality education portion of the text is NOT SRA (sexual risk avoidance) or SRA certified. Texas law requires abstinence focused curriculum. If any school adopts this curriculum, they are violating education code. The specific code is 28.004e(1-5):
(e) Any course materials and instruction relating to human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immune deficiency syndrome shall be selected by the board of trustees with the advice of the local school health advisory council and must:
(1) present abstinence from sexual activity as the preferred choice of behavior in relationship to all sexual activity for unmarried persons of school age;
(2) devote more attention to abstinence from sexual activity than to any other behavior;
(3) emphasize that abstinence from sexual activity, if used consistently and correctly, is the only method that is 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, infection with human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and the emotional trauma associated with adolescent sexual activity;
(4) direct adolescents to a standard of behavior in which abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and infection with human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immune deficiency syndrome; and
(5) teach contraception and condom use in terms of human use reality rates instead of theoretical laboratory rates, if instruction on contraception and condoms is included in curriculum content.
A parent from Waller ISD spoke out against the Goodheart Wilcox curriculum for his district:
Several concerned parents try to get the word out in their Texas district.
1. Needles: page 804
2. HIV: page 801
3. Pregnant people: page 62 and 30+ other times
4. Low cost reproductive healthcare: page 694
5. Minor's rights: 694 & 223
6. Gender identity: 114 and lots more
If you would like to see the actual pages in the Goodheart-Wilcox health curriculum that the Waller ISD parent is referencing and that your child will see, you can login to the actual online book using the below credentials:
Goodheart-Wilcox Login (good until Monday, June 13th, 2022)
Username: wisdpublic
Password: gwreview22
A Texas parent from Waller ISD requested answers straight from Goodheart-Wilcox and they delivered alright . We did request and receive permission from this parent to post the response she received from Goodheart-Wilcox. Please be sure to read the entire document here:
We really wish you would read the entire GW Reply. pdf. If not, here are just a few Q&As.
Texas Parent: Do you believe that gender is a social construct?
Goodheart-Wilcox Representative: Texas Health Skills for High School. and the Companion Text to Accompany ... present research- and evidence-based information about gender in line with the CDC and other reliable health organizations, such as the WHO.
Texas Parent: This curriculum defines Gender and Biological Sex separately but fails to offer a scientific basis for this. Why and can you offer it now?
Goodheart-Wilcox Representative: From a scientific perspective, it helps explore health by separating factors that affect biological sex (such as disease) from those that affect gender (such as social expectations). These two sets of factors have different causes, treatments, and prevention methods. Texas Health Skills for High School and the Companion Text to Accompany .... present research- and evidence-based information in line with the CDC and other reliable health organizations, such as the WHO.
Goodheart-Wilcox high school and middle school curriculums align with the harmful NSES (National Sexuality Education Standards) which were developed by the Future of Sex Education Initiative in partnership with SIECUS, Answer, Planned Parenthood (PP), Advocates for Youth (AFY) (the unofficial youth arm of Planned Parenthood, and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network (GLSEN). Please see our "Health & Human Sexuality Curriculum Solutions" blog for more data on why NSES is harmful. Goodheart-Wilcox identifies alignment with NSES on their website and in their parent permission letters.
Above is a screenshot from the Goodheart-Wilcox parent permission form which identifies the curriculum in alignment with NSES. Below is the full letter.
Show me a few Goodheart-Wilcox examples from the text
What Else?
Per information shared in the Canyon ISD SHAC (school health advisory council) meetings, CISD is communicating they are not going to teach beyond the TEKS. The district is simply implying that they will skip the harmful sections.
How do you tell a teacher to not touch a subject that is on the same page or in the same chapter of an online text?
How do you ensure that a teacher controls one screen and what children see? And when teachers, administrators and board members turn over (quit, move positions, retire, get fired), how do you ensure that a teacher's own world view are not applied when making judgements on what is acceptable to show on a screen? Especially, when this text can and will be updated in the coming years.
This is a maintenance nightmare. There is not an effective way to enforce this. Will anyone even remember in 2, 3, 4, 8 or 10 years which sections of this curriculum are 'off limits' in the classroom? We can give you 10 hard examples right now of what the Canyon district support center directives are and how they differ from what occurs in the classroom. Teaching selective sections of a harmful curriculum is not a solution.
Also, the probability is high that the district will not change health curriculums for 8, maybe 10 years. What we select now matters.
Conclusion
Clearly, the Goodheart-Wilcox health curriculum is inadequate for the high standards of Texas ISDs and parents everywhere should be alarmed. Our Governor and SBOE have left Texas in a state of confusion with zero acceptable options. SBOE member, Dr. Audrey Young knows this and published a letter to an ISD in her district. She informed them that she chose not to vote for the approval of the Goodheart-Wilcox curriculum and that the district is not required to adopt it.
Since no other vendors stepped forward with a new text that meets the new health TEKS, suffices education code (including requirements for sexuality instruction), and exclude political indoctrination, school districts are forced into ...
purchasing an independent human sexuality curriculum that is SRA,
writing their own in-house lessons or outsourcing to meet the new health TEKS, & should simply....
vote to no longer require high school health to graduate.
All of these tasks are acceptable, achievable, and legal solutions. No Texas ISD should adopt these subpar curriculums. Please note that school boards have full authority to drop high school health as a graduation requirement.
Please email the Canyon ISD School Board and ask them to reject Goodheart-Wilcox and Quaver Ed and drop health as a high school requirement. We must protect children at all costs.
Canyon ISD Board of Trustees:
trustee.blake@canyonisd.net
Regardless of where the vote lands, human sexuality instruction is NOT REQUIRED and thus students may choose to NOT OPT IN. Texans Wake Up recommends that you NOT OPT IN to human sexuality instruction and OPT out of SEL and anything else that disregards your family values. Please see our Children's Bill of Rights for more information.
Please see our related blogs:
BONUS
What happened in the Texas 87th Legislative Session (2021) regarding sexuality education, health TEKS, and more. Credit to Protect The Gift.
Understanding the difference between SRR and SRA.
SRA - Sexual Risk Avoidance
SRR - Sexual Rick Reduction
Resources:
- GW Marekting Piece
* All information in the article is for parents to understand the curriculum being proposed for their children and falls under Fair Use laws./m
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