Why climate denial could still be taught at Texas schools
PragerU doesn’t need official approval to spread climate denial in public schools, a Texas State Teachers Association representative tells HEATED.
Last month, the ultraconservative media group Prager University was approved as an educational resource in Florida public schools. That approval, covered by media outlets across the country, meant that millions of children across Florida could be taught PragerU material, which includes a video that promotes fossil fuels by subtly comparing climate-concerned students to Nazis.
It recently looked like PragerU—which is not actually a university—had chalked up another win. Last week, the group announced it was approved by Texas as an official resource in schools.
That turned out to be entirely false, as we reported last week. And since that story, two more state agencies in charge of Texas’ school curriculum and funding—the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Comptroller—told HEATED that they haven’t approved PragerU for anything.
But that doesn’t mean PragerU’s climate denial content could never be taught in Texas schools. After all, PragerU is a $1.9 billion nonprofit, backed by fossil fuel billionaire brothers Farris and Dan Wilks. It spent more than $20 million last year on marketing in 41 states. It has already tried to make inroads in New Hampshire. And it has at least one member of the Texas State Board of Education in its corner.
So I reached out to Clay Robison, spokesperson for the Texas State Teachers Association, to see how likely it is that PragerU will be approved in Texas, and what potential avenues they could pursue to skirt approval.
Here’s why he doesn’t think we should avert our eyes from this story just yet:
The State Board of Education is the most conservative it’s ever been.
If PragerU actually wants its material to be approved for use in public schools, it first must get approval from the Texas State Board of Education. The board has long had a Republican-held majority—but last year’s election pushed the politics of the board even further to the right.
“Let's just say they're conservative enough that we're a little uneasy about this,” he told HEATED over the phone.
In 2022, Texans elected four ultra-conservative members, replacing three moderate Republicans and one Democrat. One of those newly-elected members, Julie Pickren, appeared in PragerU’s video inviting PragerU into Texas schools.
It’s not surprising that Pickren’s values align with PragerU’s. Her claim to fame is that she attended former President Donald Trump’s Jan 6th rally, and was criticized so heavily that she lost her local school board seat two months later.
But now, she and her three other newly-elected colleagues have a bigger stage where they can have a larger impact. If PragerU did submit material for approval, the State board wouldn’t vote on it until November 2024 at earliest, State board chair Keven Ellis said.
PragerU’s material could be funded with taxpayer dollars
If PragerU were officially approved to be a state-funded resource, Robison said Texas taxpayers would fund schools to buy their materials, including a video where Frederick Douglass tells children that slavery was a necessary compromise to build the U.S.