Rick Green [00:00:07] You've found your way to the intersection of faith and culture is the WallBuilders Show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And the hot topic we're taking on today is picking up where we left off yesterday with Julie Pickren on the State Board of Education the topic of course our textbooks our reading list What are the kids in America actually learning in the classroom, specifically in Texas? But it impacts everyone else. Rick Green here with David Barton. Tim's not with us today. Well, he is, he's with David all over Washington DC and I couldn't pull them both away We've got pastors in from all over the country yesterday, given tours of monuments and all kinds of other cool things, got a bunch of congressmen going in and, and briefing them. And actually, before we get to Julie, David, you've been doing these pastors briefings for what, 20, 25 years now, where you take pastors to DC and they actually get to do a late night tour of the Capitol, they get to hear from all kinds amazing members of Congress that they don't ever see on TV. These are godly men and women serving. It's a fantastic experience for pastors. Give us a little bit about that before we go to Julie. 

David Barton [00:01:05] Yeah it is a great experience, Rick. And there's a lot of stuff that they get to see behind the scenes too many people if you ask them to name congressman that they know they're going to name five or six they see on TV and that's about as far as it goes. Well there's 435 here. And there are a ton of people who are really grounded constitutionally, grounded biblically, grounded in so many areas that you just never see on the news. And it is so encouraging to be able to come up here and we'll have probably a dozen Congressman speak to them one at a time. And we don't tell the Congress from what to say or ask them what to say. They just come out and share. Hey, here's what's going on now. Or here's my heart or here's something really big you need to know about. And it just always blows these pastors away to see behind the curtain of what's going on and not to have to have it filtered by mainstream media. And so, it is a, it's an inspiring time. And when you get to walk into the Capitol after night without the 10,000 visitors a day that's there, you know, we get to go through the various rooms because Congressman will allow us to go in there. And we can show the artifacts that happened in that the artifacts of things that happened that room historically two hundred years ago hundred fifty years ago whatever it's just transformational, so it really is quite an opportunity for these pastors for sure.  

Rick Green [00:02:18] Well this one obviously already happening, but we do another one in September, I think it is, but the dates are on the website at wallbuilders.com. Go to wallbuilders.com and start telling your pastor about it now so they can start planning for the fall. I promise you for your pastor and their spouse, it's, it's an incredible, incredible trip. David, so, so yesterday, we, we kind of, we talked about how the State Board of Education works. The fact that you're on one of these teams that's helping to create the standards and then the board that actually votes on approval of that. Are just those 15 members. And you talk about how many people they represent. It's crazy and how hard it is for them to raise money in down ballot races. This is one of the reasons it's so important. And then Julie told us a little bit about how this has kind of unfolded and the process that they go through. So, if anybody missed that yesterday, it's available on our website right now, wallbuilders.show. You can get both yesterday and today's program right there at wallbuilders.show. And David, we'll pick up with Julie's interview when we come back from the break. But before that, just kind of remind us, I mean, this is, this is an arduous project. I mean, this, this takes time to do these curriculum designs and whatever gets done at the end of the day here, I guess what that holds for about what 10, 15 years that'll be the textbooks for Texas and the, and the States that follow our lead. 

David Barton [00:03:30] Yeah, I did this in 1998, then I was asked to do it again in 2012, and I've been asked to do again in 2026. So basically, about every 14 years is what now they can do it more often than that if they want to. They can do at every five to seven years that they call that, but they tend to let it go because it costs tens of millions to produce these textbooks and they're not trying to do new things all the time, especially in history. That much history doesn't change. It's only the new stuff that changes and so you add a couple chapters to the end of the book and you don't need to do that every year. So, it's gonna-. 

Rick Green [00:04:05] But that's almost a generation, right? I mean, that's-  I guess a generation is really 20 or 25, but think about it school is K through 12, right? So, it's 12, you know, or even a couple years of junior college 14 years So you're really almost like every generation. 

David Barton [00:04:16] It is. 

Rick Green [00:04:16] So we could be impacting an entire generation here with what happens 

David Barton [00:04:20] That's exactly what's going to happen because in the reading list, we've gone back to reading lists that you would have seen in the early 1800s, late 1800s. It's going be more traditional, more classics. It's not going to be the feel-good, kind of warm fuzzy DEI, progressive stuff. It's going back to classics that were in literature, classics that where in the Bible. You mentioned yesterday how people say, well, I don't want somebody teaching the Bible to my kids. Listen, teaching the Bible in school is not about doctrine. It's about principles. That's why we teach the story of the Good Samaritan among other things. All 50 states have a Good Samaritan Law. It would be really nice if kids knew who the Good Samaritan was and why all 50 States have a Good Samaritan Law.  The Ten Commandments; we're not teaching doctrine; the Ten Commandments have been incorporated in... Every one of the Ten Commandments been Incorporated into American federal law and state law. And that's not me saying that that's the court saying that. That's in the law books Why would you not want your kids to learn things like don't steal and don't murder and don't perjure yourself? These are the things that make good citizens and for people to be so uninformed to say well I don't want somebody saying religion my kids, hey, you're gonna have religion your kid in your schools whether socialistic religion or Marxist religion or atheistic religion or something. Why not have some traditional religion that made America great that's what we're celebrating after 250 years? And so that's with the fight is really over and it's oftentimes it's uninformed voters that don't know who they're voting for and they just stick somebody on the State Board of Education. There's big decisions that are made by that State Board of Education you may never think about and you may be shocked when your kids come home from school someday saying crazy stuff that you never taught them and you never raised them to know and that's because we just don't look at down ballot races. So that's kind of what we talked about yesterday. Looked at the early fights that are going on there's more fights yet to come. And Rick as many people as you organized and turned out this this last meeting that we had just a few weeks ago. Looks like we're going to have to do it one more time because there's a big battle coming up in in last part of June and some of those guys who voted right this time have already announced that they're going to vote to reverse everything they just did. So that's the pressure that's put on these guys and if we're not diligent and stay informed and even if you're out of state this matters to you because these textbooks are coming to your state. Texas and California drive what happens in these history textbooks. And you can either have California's view of stuff or Texas's view of stuff and that's pretty much the choices you're going to have in your public school and so this is a battle that matters for everybody in the nation. 

Rick Green [00:06:54] Yeah, it's huge, man. There's a lot at stake here. And like you said, despite the victory, you know, a week or two ago, and the number of people that went down to test five, man, we just need to bring that on and maybe double in, in June. So we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we'll pick up with our interview with Julie Pickren from the State Board of Education in Texas. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:08:18] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. We're going to dive right back into the interview with Julie Pickren from the State Board of Education. If you missed the first part of the interview, we aired that yesterday. It's available at our website right now, wallbuilders.show. Let's jump back in with Julie Pickren. 

Dr. Julie Pickren [00:08:33] We have a lot of great homeschool moms that really, I mean, if you want to talk to somebody who really knows education and who really understands what's needed in standards, talk to a homeschool mom. Let me, these, these moms, they are really well educated and they have done the deep dive on education on what's best for their children. And then also they have a lot to contribute to the state of Texas. So, I was very happy to put some homeschool, moms in those work groups as well as senior teachers. So.... 

Rick Green [00:09:02] That's good, because they should have some influence on that. Yeah, absolutely. 

Dr. Julie Pickren [00:09:05] Absolutely, they're taxpayers, they are paying taxes and they may not choose to send their children to public school, but they're still paying taxes for their local public schools and for the state of Texas and still have a vested interest in great citizens being produced in the state Texas. So yes, I just, I was so happy that I had really great applicants. I could put people anywhere from people who serve in our regional and our education service centers and our regional education service centers. Who maybe are retired out of the classroom, but have 25, 30 years experience with social studies. The teachers who were actually in the classroom and who are teaching social studies to homeschool moms who do a lot of research to make sure that their children receive the best education and want to contribute to Texas public education and to curriculum experts that applied. So really a great across the board representation of people that truly care about social studies. But then everything moved over to the work groups and the workgroups, they took in the advice of the content experts. So, the content expert participated at those workgroup sessions. They made themselves available, mostly in person at the work group sessions. And the work-group, as the workgroups had questions for the content advisors, they were there to help them out in the system on what they were thinking on, topics and themes or framework that we had adopted. Mind you, by the time the content advisors get to the work groups, to advising the work groups, the topics and themes have already been approved by the Texas State Board of Education and the framework has been approved by the Texas State board of Education. So, the content advisers are not advising the work groups on anything that has not already been approved by the board. Okay? So then they're all kind of working together, developing standards. The work groups who are predominantly teachers, they have their input on what they're recommending. And also, during this time, the Texas Education Agency has sent out a survey to all the teachers across Texas, social studies teachers and government and civics, kindergarten through 12th grade, social studies, teachers across Texas, where we receive back, or Texas Education agency receive back more than 5,000 responses. So this is a lot of teachers taking time out of their day to respond on what do they want in social studies. So more than 5,000 responses. The overwhelming consensus was our current social studies standards are too generalized. Teachers don't understand what is a mastery of that TEAK look like. Whenever you test me in STAR testing or whatever is gonna replace STAR testing, the standardized assessment, what does mastery look like? Because we don't what mastery is because the TEAK is too general. So overwhelmingly, they said we need standards, we need TEAKs that are more specific. So, then we come back to the work groups where they started revising standards and putting standards together to bring to the Texas State Board of Education. And so that is the standards that were presented to us at our April meeting. That was that originated with a framework that was Texas State Board of Education adopted. Then the content advisors advised us on what they thought would be good themes and topics. We amended that we passed the Texas State Board of Education passed a themes and topics a subset to the framework. Then that went to the then that went to the work groups the workgroups drilled down with content advisors help to create standards for every subject, kindergarten through 12th grade social studies. So, think about kindergarten through fifth grade social studies, then you get into junior high, you get US history, Texas history, you get world history, world geography, personal financial literacy, economics, government. There are so many courses inside of this kindergarten through 12 grade space. And so, they brought in standards for all of those courses, at which time in the April meeting we went through all of those standards, made amendments, made changes and really passed on first reading in April, a fantastic kindergarten through 12th grade social studies product. Now, is it perfect? No, and in the world of education, there's no such thing as, as perfect in the world of business. I'm going to take my business background. We always say that perfect is the enemy of done, right? You could forever go on making it perfect, but This is just truly an exceptional product that has never been done in Texas or has been done as far as I know in America in the last 60 years, because for the first time we put amendments in there where we are teaching the Black Robe Regiment, you know, fourth grade, I put an amendment in there to introduce the Black Robe Regiment in the elementary. And then I came back with an amendment and a junior high to teach what is the Black Robe Regiment, because you know you cannot understand the Declaration of Independence unless you understand the sermons from the Black Robe Regiment because each of those grievances, each of that list and the Declaration of Independence came directly from a sermon from a Black Robe Regiment pastor that have been preaching that up to 20 years before the Declaration of Independence. And even England recognized the importance of our Black Robe Regiment pastors on the founding of America because even England said it is the thunder from the pulpits of the churches in America that is lighting the fire of freedom. And so when you even have England recognizing the importance of it and that we can directly tie the grievances in the Declaration of Independence to Black Robe Regiments, our students should know that. They should understand; well, where do these ideas come from? Where did these grievances come from? You really need to understand the why, because if you don't understand the why, if you don't understand a hundred and twenty church members being persecuted because they wouldn't bow to a king in England, who risked everything that risked their lives that risked everything to get on a boat to come to America to help her, to establish a new world based on the Word of God. You don't understand the faith and you don't the why on why the Pilgrims that Plymouth did what they did. You don't understand, you know you can't get to understanding what makes America so exceptional and that we are founded on Judeo-Christian values. So that's that was my main intent. I think I offered up over 20 amendments that passed in our meeting in April to the social studies to really insert patriotism and founding documents and the why, what makes America the noblest experiment ever? And what makes us the greatest nation in the history of the world? And what make Texas the greatest state in the greatest nation? 

Rick Green [00:15:55] So Julie, what happens next? You guys are gonna meet again in July. Will this get taken up again? 

Dr. Julie Pickren [00:15:59] Yes, Rick. So, in, and we'll take it up the last week of June and we will take up the second reading and final adoption of the social studies standards, all the standards kindergarten through 12th grade. But that is going to be a contentious meeting because we already have the Democrat members of this Texas State Board of Education and a few Republican members of the Texas State board of education saying that they do not like what we adopted for first reading in April two weeks ago. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Are they going to come back with a full substitute document? In other words, the standards written prompt maybe the maybe the woke standards that were written in 2021/2022 are they gonna come back? With those and try to substitute those in? Which when you substitute it in, that's a full substitution. That's not amendments. That's saying we're going to set aside the current document that has been approved and substitute in a brand new document to start making amendments on. And the reason why we do not want to substitute amendment is because the standards that we adopted last week or two weeks ago, they are very good standards. They have patriotism, Western civilization, the importance of ....teaches the Judeo-Christian influence on the founding of America and the founding of Texas, it keeps out the radical Islam, keeps out the Marxist indoctrination, keeps our Critical Race Theory. So, we have a very good set of standards right now, but if they come back in June and they want to substitute back in the '21/'22 standards, it's going to be the opposite of that. It's going be standards that the foundation is in you know, it Marxist worldview, Critical Race Theory, very woke standards, very generalized standards so that anything can be taught to a child. 

Rick Green [00:17:47] So you're saying this is, I mean, what we've got right now is a big win. We need a basically an up or down vote in June to keep what you've already got. No amendments, no replacement. We want to go with what you guys decided last week or week before. 

Dr. Julie Pickren [00:18:00] Yes, exactly. And let me, I'll give you a couple of examples of why it's so important that we keep these standards written the way that we read with the way, that we approve them in April and not the generalized standards that we currently have. So right now we have a school district in Texas that is teaching that is using grooming books, okay, books that should help children change their gender. LGBTQ plus grooming books in tier one instruction. And when the state questioned the school district about it, they said, no, it's compliant because it 100% aligns to your TEAKs, to your standards. Well, those TEAKs and standards are so generalized you can make anything align. And kind of, we have the same thing. We had a very large school district in Texas that was used in Ebram Kennedy's, the anti-racist, which, you know, is Marxist propaganda. Okay. It's a, it's a Marxist worldview book that they were using it in all of their high schools as a textbook in ninth grade. That teach writing and literature and what have you, the used this Marxist book. And so whenever the state questioned it, again, they came back and said, no, it aligns with 100% of your TEAKs. So that's why one other reason why we need to come back and we need to adopt the standards that were finalized on second reading. The standards that we're approved for first reading in April. Let's get these done. Let's these over the finish line without any major amendments, without any substitutions. So that we can honor what teachers are asking for, to have TEAKs that are concise, so that they understand when they're teaching mastery or not, that follow the law, that have patriotism, Old Testament, New Testament, Judeo-Christian values, Western civilization, that has all the things that parents and grandparents have been saying that they want in education. Parents and grandparents-. 

Rick Green [00:19:45] So many good things. 

Dr. Julie Pickren [00:19:45] Yes, they're over this woke Marxist indoctrination, and we have heard them. We have listened to our constituents. We have read the emails. We have heard them. And that is the fantastic standards that we adopted in April. Now in June, we need to hold the line and pass them on second reading and final adoption with minimal amendments and no substitutions. 

Rick Green [00:20:06] Love it. Love it, Julie. Last question for you. And I know there's a lot of wrangling that goes on behind the scenes and all the politics and that sort of thing. So, there's some things you can't tell us, but tell us how to pray. How can our listeners pray for this meeting? And then how should those that are going to be able to come and testify? Will there be testimony at this meeting? I should have asked that question. 

Dr. Julie Pickren [00:20:24] Yes, sir, there will be public testimony again. You know, state law requires that any agenda item that that we have, we have to allow public testimony. And so, I can tell you, we're going to need a lot of public testimony again, we need people to find out the week before and show up and testify on that that June board meeting. I'll probably be around June 22nd, 23rd, 24th. Some one of those three days is going to be the public testimony on this. But yes, because I can tell you that the terrorists literally the CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations, they are already, they're already training people. They're already holding meetings and mosque around Texas, and they're already training people to come and testify on in June. So, we're going to need patriots to show up. 

Rick Green [00:21:07] So we need to be ready, and we need to be there in even bigger numbers, maybe, than what we had in April. Well, we will certainly get the word out. And as soon as you have the date nailed down for when the testimony will be, let us know. We'll announce that on the show and let people know. Thank you for leading the way. Thank you, for letting us participate with you. And look forward to getting you back, hopefully, with a good news show right after that June meeting. Julie Pickren, thank you very much. 

Dr. Julie Pickren [00:21:30] Yes, sir. Thank you, Rick. God bless you. Pray for us. Pray for courage and pray for strength in Jesus’ name. 

Rick Green [00:21:36] Amen. Amen. Alright folks, that was Julie Pickren from the State Board of Education, catching us up on what's been happening there and the votes and, and now what needs to happen in June. Of course, we'll keep you posted as soon as those days for testimony are nailed down. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:23:01] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Back with David Barton now. And David, man, I mean, like we said, at the top of the program, a generational impact. I was thinking it's actually more than a generational impact because what we get in now, it'll be harder to take that out, right? So, like it, even though there'll be a review in 10, 12, 14, 15 years, what's already there is hard to remove. So, it could be a multi-generational impact from this. 

David Barton [00:23:25] Yeah, you know, it's interesting because what will happen is the kids who go through this for a generation as you pointed out This is gonna last 12 14 years, but that's a generation of school students They will get this good content for their entire generational life in that school. The kids that start in kindergarten are gonna get this through graduation, they're gonna go into college and they'll come back and a bunch of them be teachers themselves, but they will have a foundation from which to teach. So, this is gonna affect two three four generations because you start getting this good stuff back in this is the kind of stuff that we were teaching for you know 150 years until progressives got it in the 1960s and just set it on its head. So, this is this is a multi-generational impact that we're talking about here and it's gonna be really really significant that we can do this. But I'm gonna go back to something we talked about before and but by the way the Bible says that every student what he's fully trained will be like his teacher and that's getting the right content to the teachers is so important. Because you may have raised your kids right, but we've talked in other programs that over the last 20 years between 81 and 84 percent of Christian kids who leave and go to secular universities deny their faith while they're at the university and that's just not a good stat. You don't want to lose your kids because you send them into a system that's so opposite to what you believe. But this is the opportunity to send them in to a system That has the beliefs that have made Americans great for more than 200 years. And that is a real turnaround and that's something that would be refreshing. And to have your kids come out of that and not lose their brains and not hate their country and not the founding fathers, not hate the Constitution, that's going to be something refreshing that we haven't had in a few generations in America. 

Rick Green [00:25:07] Well, and, and it, uh, it's the snowball effect too, right? It's like, hey, we got in this mess because they started with little gains and then they got that generation education and then they got those voters and then they helped them get, and so it's just a snowball effect over decades and decades of them being involved in this. And so now we begin that pushback and in a very serious way. And like you said, you've been doing this since the '98 rewrite. And so, we're getting, we're beginning to feel a little bit of that snowball effect and you've got members on the board and, and other people in this fight. They got involved because they, they heard you talking about it. And they, and they had the positive influence from what you did, you know, quite literally 30 years ago, 20 years ago 10 years ago. So, it's, it's building brother. It's building. 

David Barton [00:25:47] Yeah, and it's it's just getting started too because this is the snowball is now starting to roll over the edge and go down the hill. It's taking us a while to make the snowball but now we've got it kind of pushed over the edge and if we can keep the momentum going, it's gonna be, it's gonna have a lot of impact when it hits the bottom of the hill 

Rick Green [00:26:03] Yeah. And I love this one because it's one that people can feel immediately. They'll see these changes in the textbooks that they're getting to hear the testimony and, and see the specific, you know, curriculum items and the, and the TEKS requirements. When you see Good Samaritan or any of the other Bible stories, you just know, wow, that's, that a huge victory that we've got that in the classroom now. So very, very good stuff. Of course, we'll get somebody back as we get closer to the June date and talk about it, or maybe even have more good news to share on a Good News Friday. About this particular battle, but we encourage you to take this same fight to your local school board or to your state board of education because this needs to be done in every community and in every state across this great nation. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.