Hi John,

The never-ending battle over what our children are taught in public schools is heating up once again.

As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic and the tragic toll it has taken on our nation have exposed the recklessness of elected officials who refuse to make public health a priority. But we’re currently facing even more public health challenges, including the failure of Texas public schools to teach students medically accurate information on sex education.

Now — over the next few months — we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reverse that failure.

This fall, the Texas State Board of Education is set to adopt new curriculum standards for health education, including standards on sex education. The standards guide what publishers include in textbooks and will impact millions of students for years to come.

Currently, more than 80% of Texas school districts teach abstinence-only or nothing at all when it comes to sex ed — all because far-right activists and politicians have demanded that schools keep students ignorant about their sexual and reproductive health.

Since our founding, the Texas Freedom Network has fought back against ignorance and we don’t intend to back down now. This year, we launched our Teach the Truth campaign to focus unprecedented efforts on mobilizing our grassroots activists, academics, parents and experts from around the state to demand that the SBOE provide fact-based sex education in public schools. Together, we can ensure that these new curriculum standards give future generations of students the information they need to make healthy and responsible decisions by:

• Addressing the full range of reproductive health care, including contraception, the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, and abortion.
• Focusing students on the importance of informed consent and sexual violence prevention.
• Including information that is relevant to the lives of LGBTQ students — including teaching that everyone deserves to be treated with respect, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Abstinence-only activists have responded to our efforts with a barrage of lies and other misinformation — no surprise there. But we will never back down.

The State Board of Education scheduled a final vote on the new standards in November. We need your help in these last few weeks to push this campaign to a successful result — modern, responsible sex education for students in a 21st-century Texas.

Thank you for your ongoing support and activism. I am so proud to be in this fight with you.

Onward,

Kathy Miller
TFN President