2024 Party Platforms Compared

Education policy is a cornerstone of any state’s political landscape, and Texas is no exception. Everything is bigger in Texas and so is the politics. Political affiliation and platforms run EVERYTHING. This is why our public education system continues to be plagued with continuous turmoil and controversies. Elected officials must toe party lines or face the distinct possibility of a challenge come the next election.

Understanding the stances of the major political parties on K-12 education is crucial for voters looking to make informed decisions. In this post, we take a look into a side-by-side comparison of the current party platforms in Texas, sourced directly from the Texas Democratic Party and Texas Republican Party websites. By examining their respective priorities and proposed policies, we aim to provide clarity on where each party stands on issues affecting schools, teachers, students, and families across the Lone Star State. Whether you’re a parent, educator, or concerned citizen, this analysis will help illuminate the differences and similarities in educational visions between these influential political entities.

Both sides of the political aisle have some valid thoughts, concerns, and potential solutions but to say ONE PARTY has all the answers and that one cannot vote their conscience without fear of reprisal is what leads to the dismal state of public education in Texas.

Platform Sections

The Texas Democratic and Republican Parties organize their educational platforms into distinct sections, which help clarify their positions on K-12 education. These sections serve as a structured way to understand their priorities and approaches to key issues affecting schools in Texas. This organization not only highlights their different focuses but also shows how they present their educational policies clearly to voters and stakeholders.

Democratic Party

Early Childhood, Primary, and Secondary Education

Every Student Deserves a Highly Qualified Teacher

Protect and Improve Texas Public Education

Establish a Quality Classroom Learning Environment

Expand Opportunity for Every Child

Republican Party

Parents’ Rights

Curriculum

Governance

Assessment

Democratic Party
  • Return comprehensive testing to the beginning of the school year and its role as a diagnostic tool, replace high-stakes tests with multiple measures designed to diagnose student needs, improve instruction, and provide prescriptive plans and solutions for each student’s needs, disability, and educational path.
  • Eliminate all pass/fail standardized tests as a measurement of student success and advancement or as a measure of teacher evaluation.
  • Allow individualized subject assessments to place students in the appropriate level of instruction for each content area.
Republican Party
  • … We strongly urge the Texas Legislature to replace the STAAR accountability test with one of the dozens of group-administered achievement tests that meet the Texas statutory and State Board of Education (SBOE) requirements related to the relevance of data used to compute state and national norms for the assessments.
  • We also oppose the modification of college entrance exams to reflect any national core philosophies as well as use of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs, and other quasi-therapeutic programs in schools.
  • Any school district that violates state law banning the use of a national core curriculum or standards shall lose all state funding until said curricula or standards are removed and no longer used in classrooms.

At-Risk

Democratic Party
  • Offer statewide equitable dual credit and early college programs that draw at-risk students into college and career paths while still in high school.
  • Provide equitable distribution of highly qualified teachers, in an effort to match the most at-risk students with the most qualified teachers to close the academic achievement gap.
  • Provide access to affordable programs for adults who have dropped out of the education process.
Republican Party
  • not referenced

Curriculum

Democratic Party
  • Develop culturally relevant curriculum standards and textbook requirements based on peer-reviewed research and written by subject matter experts, as opposed to being based on the opinions of partisan extremists.
  • Focus on setting curriculum standards and textbook requirements that teach ethical behavior and lead the charge in fighting for racial, social, and economic justice in our public schools.
  • Emphasize inclusion of the history and contributions of all demographics, especially communities of color and other historically marginalized groups, when deciding on curriculum and textbook content, including leveled reading materials to allow students to connect to the text.
  • Develop, implement, and facilitate peer-reviewed curriculum for mandatory, fact-based ethnic studies classes, such as Indigenous, Mexican American, and African American studies;
  • Mandate instruction for all students in studies of diverse cultures and the benefits of diversity to the U.S economy and society.
Republican Party
Religious Freedom and Government Schools
  • We demand school administrators and officials protect the rights of students and staff to pray and engage in religious speech, individually or in groups, on school property, without government interference.
  • We urge the Legislature and the State Board of Education to require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership, and Christian self-governance.
  • We support the use of chaplains in schools to counsel and give guidance from a traditional biblical perspective based on Judeo-Christian principles with the informed consent of a parent.
Instructional Excellence
  • The educational system should focus on imparting essential academic knowledge, qualities of good citizenship, practical skills, and self-sufficiency.
  • We support, without exception, requiring Texas public schools to be fully transparent with parents regarding everything to which their child is or will be exposed.
  • Curriculum of Instructional Excellence shall include the following:
    • Language arts with phonics-based reading instruction, spelling, grammar, classical literature, and cursive writing.
    • Civics, which includes passing the US Citizenship and Immigration Services test prior to graduation.
    • In mathematics, we support stronger emphasis on the TEKS 2nd and 3rd grade math standards to recall addition/multiplication facts “with automaticity,” which significantly enables students to better comprehend subsequent material.
    • In science, we support objective teaching of scientific method, practices, and theories including the complexity of life origins and the changing climate throughout geologic history. These concepts shall be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students shall discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly, without fear of retribution or discrimination.
    • In computer science, we support instruction in programming and introducing discrete math (logic, counting, probability, number theory, recursion, graph theory) to supplement it.
    • Social studies, including geography, economics, and US and world history. Such instruction shall focus on American exceptionalism, the benefits of the free-enterprise system, and the consistent failures of socialism and communism.
    • We support education in the arts and music and building critical thinking skills, including logic, rhetoric, and analytical sciences. We support quality vocational educational training that imparts skills needed for meaningful post-graduation employment.
  • We encourage more participation in academic competitions to complement the curriculum, to think critically and creatively, and to motivate students as they acquire higher levels of knowledge.
Founding Documents in High School
  • We support a high school-level curriculum for the study of American history that is heavily weighted toward the study of original founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists, and other Founders’ writings.
American Identity and Heritage
  • We favor strengthening our common American identity and preserving our heritage and culture.
  • We reject Critical Race Theory as a Marxist ideology that seeks to undermine the system of law and order itself and reduce individuals to a group identity.
  • To facilitate the appreciation of our American identity, the contrast between freedom and the tyrannical history of socialism/communism throughout history must be taught.
  • Government schools must display the United States and Texas flags, and require the Pledges of Allegiance daily to instill patriotism.
  • Other flags promoting progressive agendas should be prohibited from being displayed at government schools.
  • Students shall have the right to display patriotic items on their person as well as on school property.
National Core Curriculum
  • We oppose the use of national or international standards in the State of Texas (ie., International Baccalaureate, Common Core, any remnants of CSCOPE, United Nations Inclusion, National Sexuality Education Standards, and SIECUS, etc.)
Illegal Aliens and Foreign Students
  • We believe the role of the public education system is to educate American citizens.
  • We support the instruction of lawfully present residents and foreign exchange students at cost, but we oppose allowing illegal aliens into government schools and oppose the instruction of core classes in languages other than English.
Education on Humanity and Dignity of the Preborn Child
  • We support requiring Texas students to learn about the humanity of the preborn child, including life-affirming definitions of life and the study of life, the concept that life begins at fertilization, milestones of fetal development at two-week gestational intervals, use of fetal baby models, witnessing of a live ultrasound, viewing the following videos: Meet Baby Olivia, A Glimpse Inside, and Miracle of Life, and (for high school students) the contents of the Woman’s Right to Know booklet.
  • In addition, students should receive instruction on the dignity of human life and the principles of equal protection that were instituted in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” as well as that “no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Discipline

Democratic Party
  • not-referenced
Republican Party
  • Teach non-violent conflict resolution to students.
  • Restrict out-of-school suspension to only those cases necessary for the safety of students and personnel.
  • Prioritize eradication of the school-to-prison pipeline by using transformative approaches to discipline that are research-based and balanced, and adhere to the fidelity of the original research-based interventions.
  • Identify instances of bullying, including cyber-bullying, and implement school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports to prevent violence, disruption, bullying, and harassment.
  • Eliminate disparities in discipline based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or any other improper grounds.

Funding

Democratic Party
  • Fund schools to reflect the actual cost of educating all students.
  • Protect public schools funded through local property taxes in Texas and in the
  • United States from funding losses resulting from charter schools.
  • Utilize federal funds, especially COVID relief funds, for their intended purpose of supplementing, not supplanting state funds.
  • Establish a 100 percent equitable school finance system with sufficient state revenue to provide every child the opportunity to learn in an exemplary program and equitably reduce reliance on “Robin Hood” recapture.
  • Fund public schools based on enrollment, not attendance.
  • Fully reflect all student and district-level cost differences and regularly adjust the basic allotment for the impact of inflation and state mandates.
  • Fully fund all federal education mandates including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA); Adequately fund Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) and Trade programs.
  • Fully fund access to high-quality, full-day public pre-K for every child, count these students for full-day attendance and for all special allotments, and establish appropriate standards for the highest quality instruction.
  • Promote and appropriately fund multi-language instruction, beginning in elementary school, to make all students fluent in English and at least one other language.
  • Ensure all children are provided free school breakfasts, lunches, and after school snacks, as well as summer breakfast and lunch programs for all public school children.
  • Provide and appropriately fund high-quality instruction for careers in trades and technical education programs.
  • Provide fully funded arts and music education in all schools.
  • Provide and fund universally accessible after-school programs for grades pre-K through 12.
Republican Party
  • not referenced

Gender Identity

Democratic Party
  • Support Title IX protections for gender equity in public education institutions.
Republican Party
Gender Identity Ideology in Schools
  • The official position of the Texas schools shall be that there are only two genders: biological male and biological female, which are immutable and cannot be changed.
  • We support the total prohibition of so-called social transitioning.
  • We oppose transgender normalizing curriculum, library materials, and pronoun use.
  • We support the passage of legislation that prohibits any course of instruction, unit of study, library materials, instructional materials, or any other curricular or extracurricular offering that adopts, supports, or promotes gender fluidity or transgender ideology in Texas government schools.
  • We support the passage of legislation prohibiting school staff from engaging in sexualized drag activities, crossdressing, or transgenderism.
  • We hold that biological men should compete only against other biological men and that biological women should compete only against other biological women in all school athletics.

Health

Democratic Party
  • Ensure that every student has access to appropriate academic counseling services, as well as psychological and social services provided by competent and licensed professionals.
  • Provide culturally relevant learning and wraparound services for students’ social, emotional, and health needs.
Republican Party
Healthcare in Public Schools
  • Legislators shall prohibit reproductive healthcare services, including mental health counseling or referrals to outside health services or clinics, and distribution or demonstration of condoms and contraception through public schools.
  • We support parents’ right to know, and consent to choose, without penalty, which healthcare medications and mental health services are administered to their minor children.
  • We support requiring informed consent of parents before any school-based mental health assessments or interventions are performed; the district must obtain written parental consent.
  • Written parental consent must include the district’s full disclosure of the business or clinic students will be referred to for healthcare or mental health services (opt-in status).

Instructional Materials

Democratic Party
  • Ensure the adoption of instructional materials that preserve and teach the methods and content of professional arts, trades, science, and social studies experts without censorship or illegitimate editing.
  • Provide free, accurate, and updated instructional materials aligned with educationally appropriate, non-ideological state curriculum standards and tests, including ethnic studies and environmental education programs.
  • Equip classrooms with free computers, high-speed internet access, and digital instructional materials.
Republican Party
Oversight of Instructional Materials
  • All instructional materials and services paid for with state funds shall be vetted by the elected State Board of Education.
  • We oppose appropriation of state funds for instructional content that has not been approved by the SBOE.
  • This approval process must include public review, hearings, and the right to have factual errors corrected.
  • We call on local districts to hold public hearings before deciding which instructional materials they will use including supplemental materials and programs.
  • We support policies limiting students’ screen time and focusing on direct instruction.

Libraries

Democratic Party
  • Ensure that every school has a fully funded and staffed library, fully equipped with both print and electronic media, that is regularly open and accessible to students and faculty and that is free from political censorship.
Republican Party

Prohibiting Grooming of Minors

  • We request that the Texas Legislature pass legislation that requires Texas schools, libraries, and contracted vendors to filter and vet inappropriate and harmful content, such as pornography.
  • We support the passage of a law even more comprehensive than the Florida law that prohibits instruction in sexual orientation and gender identity ideology in government schools and libraries.
  • We believe any school employees or contractors responsible for exposing a student to inappropriate material or engaging in inappropriate conduct with students should have their teaching license revoked, forfeit their pension, and be criminally prosecuted with enhanced penalties.
  • We call on the Legislature to prohibit school districts from abusing their District of Innovation status to avoid parental rights laws or restrictions on human sexuality education.

Lobbying

Democratic Party
  • not-referenced
Republican Party
Withdraw from Taxpayer-Funded Lobby Groups Like TASB
  • We believe locally elected school boards have a duty to ensure that the education provided reflects traditional Texas values, and have purview over policy, curriculum, and budget.
  • Local independent school districts should sever all ties with taxpayer-funded lobby groups, including the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), and the Texas Association of Community Schools (TACS).
  • We support prohibiting taxpayer dollars from being used to pay dues or any fees for these groups.
  • Required training now provided by groups like the above-named organizations would instead be under the auspices of the State Board of Education, with funds appropriated for that purpose.

Local School Boards

Democratic Party
  • not-referenced
Republican Party
Enforcement of Open Meetings
  • We demand requiring audio or video recordings and publication of minutes for closed sessions with employee and student identifiers redacted and allowing taxpayers to seek civil penalties for government school officials who violate the Texas Open Meetings Act.
  • We believe an open meetings violation should be an affirmative defense to a charge of disrupting a public meeting.

Other

Democratic Party
  • not-referenced
Republican Party
Abolish Department of Education
  • The Department of Education should be abolished because education is not an enumerated power of the federal government.
  • We believe, therefore, the transfer of any of its functions to any other federal agency should be prohibited.

Parental Involvement

Democratic Party
  • Support parental and community involvement in our neighborhood schools and encourage their expansion in partnership with community stakeholders, including parents and teachers, using the community school model in an effort to coordinate and integrate educational, developmental, family, health, and other comprehensive services through community-based organizations and public and private partnerships that provide access to such services to students, especially students at risk, in schools and in the community.
  • Fund family education programs and family literacy programs that equip parents to educate their children in the critical years prior to pre-K and to assist in their children’s education at all grade levels.
Republican Party
Parents Rights in Education
  • Parents are the primary educators and disciplinarians of their children, to which all other entities are inferior.
  • The fundamental parental rights of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children in all aspects, but especially in all aspects of the Texas education system, shall be recognized, affirmed, and protected by changes to the Texas Constitution and Texas law, including codifying the protections currently existing in the Texas Family and Education Codes.
  • No public service entity nor its agents, district personnel, community partners, guest speakers, or District Board of Trustees shall infringe upon these rights.
  • We call for the development and dissemination of the Parent’s Right to Know and Consent booklet that contains pertinent state and federal law.
Enforcement of Parental Rights and Students’ Rights
  • We implore the Legislature to create enforcement measures for violations of Texas laws, while prioritizing parental rights, especially the right to protect one’s own children from harm.
  • Enforcement mechanisms must include investigation and referral authority for criminal, civil, and other disciplinary actions.
  • We urge the Legislature to create an independent Office of Inspector General of Education, appointed by a majority vote of the elected State Board of Education, to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse, particularly sexual abuse of students, violations of parental rights, and student due process rights when they occur in a school setting.
  • Such position shall have authority to refer any matter to the Texas Attorney General for further investigation and prosecution, if warranted.

School Choice

Democratic Party
  • Prohibit misnamed “school choice” schemes, such as the use of vouchers, including special education vouchers, virtual schools used as virtual vouchers, or voucher equivalent tax credit schemes that seek to support private and sectarian schools.
  • Strengthen state oversight of homeschooling.
  • Support a moratorium on new charter schools and on the expansion of existing charter school networks through charter expansion amendments, and conduct a comprehensive study of charter school impact on public education, including the fiscal impact on traditional school districts, the state budget, students, school employees, and taxpayers.
  • Insist on due diligence in the screening of charter applicants and veto applicants and expansion amendments from existing charter operators which fail to meet the needs of students.
  • Prohibit publicly funded charter schools from contracting with for-profit management companies.
  • Prohibit contracts between charter schools and related parties or affiliated organizations that result in conflicts of interest or the misuse of public funds.
  • Require property purchased or leased by charter schools with public funds be declared to be public property.
  • Require charter schools that receive public funds to have elected boards subject to all the same public notice, open meetings, and open records requirements that apply to traditional school districts.
Republican Party
School Choice
  • We support further empowering all Texas families to choose from public, private, charter, or homeschool options for their children’s education and funding which shall follow the student with no strings attached.
  • We oppose regulations on homeschooling or the curriculum of private or religious schools and believe a constitutional amendment should be adopted accordingly.
  • In lieu of funding, citizens may use property tax exemptions.

School Improvement

Democratic Party
  • Oppose the creation of a statewide “achievement” or “recovery” school district controlled by the Texas Education Agency that could contract with private operators to run neighborhood schools without local accountability.
  • Use Community Schools as a primary option under the state “turnaround” statute for at least two years before additional sanctions are implemented by law.
Republican Party
  • not referenced

School Safety

Democratic Party
  • Guarantee a safe and high-quality classroom learning environment.
  • Repeal existing legislation and reject further efforts to arm teachers.
  • Make school campuses and events drug and weapon free, unless weapons are carried by trained peace officers.
  • Prohibit active shooter drills that utilize traumatic, realistic simulation.
Republican Party
School Security and Safety
  • We support passage of legislation encouraging local law enforcement to provide handgun safety and proficiency training for all educators and allowing LTC (License to Carry) holders to carry concealed firearms on all school campuses for security and protection purposes.

Sexual Education

Democratic Party
  • Provide comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education programs that are LGBTQIA+ inclusive and consent-oriented, with a contraception component to reduce dropout rates due to unintended pregnancy, and end failed abstinence-only education policies.
Republican Party
Sexual Education, Health-Related Education, and the Classroom to Clinic Pipeline
  • We demand that the Legislature pass a law prohibiting the teaching of sex education, sexual health, or sexual choice or identity in any government school in any grade whatsoever, or disseminating or permitting the dissemination by any party of any material regarding the same.
  • All government schools are prohibited from contracting with or making any payment to any third party for material concerning any of the above topics.
  • Until this prohibition goes into effect, sexual education shall only utilize sexual risk avoidance programs and promote abstinence outside of marriage.
  • Before a student may be provided with any health-related instruction, human sexuality, or family planning instruction, the district must obtain the written consent of the student’s parent or guardian.
  • Written consent of the student’s parent or guardian must include the district’s full disclosure of all guest speakers and referral resources that students will be exposed to (opt-in status).
Parents’ Right to Local Control of Health Education
  • The Texas Department of State Health Services School Health program, the Centers for Disease Control “Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child” Coordinated School Health program, and the Texas Education Agency undermine parental influence in education as authorized in Texas Education Code 28.004.
  • The Legislature should defund and abolish Texas Department of State Health Services’ School Health Program, the Texas School Health Advisory Council (SHAC), and repeal Texas Education Code 38.013, Texas Education Code 38.014, and Texas Administrative Code 102.1031.
  • Texas law should remove and prohibit websites, marketing, training, and policy recommendations from Texas Department of State Health Services and Texas Education Agency Coordinated School Health programs to local schools, teachers, and local School Health Advisory Councils.
  • Until the legislature removes sex education from the curriculum of public schools, the State of Texas should adopt changes to Texas Education Code 28.004 requiring:
    • At least 50% of the SHAC appointees to be parents of students within the district and who are not themselves or related to district employees.
    • At least 50% of the parent officials to be present for any and all business to be conducted and be open to the public.

State Board of Education

Democratic Party
  • Require the State Board of Education to exercise absolute fiduciary responsibility for the Permanent School Fund and expose and prohibit conflicts of interest.
Republican Party

Elected State Board of Education

  • We believe that the SBOE should continue to be an elected body consisting of fifteen members. The SBOE shall be staffed out of general revenue. Their responsibilities must include:
    • Overseeing the Commissioner of Education.
    • Maintaining constitutional authority over the Permanent School Fund.
    • Maintaining authority over curriculum.
    • The state adoption of all educational materials. This process must include public hearings.
    • Granting, revoking, or amending open enrollment school charters. The SBOE should require charter school operators and board members to be American citizens.
    • Teacher and administrator certification. We call for the abolition of the State Board for Educator Certification.

Students

Democratic Party
  • Protect and enhance Texas public education, so that our students are prepared for a diverse and changing labor market and to participate as engaged citizens.
  • Expand learning opportunities for every child at every level of education.
  • Extend appropriate class size limits to all grades, enforce those limits, and strive for smaller class sizes.
  • Ensure that schools, classrooms, programs, and appropriate transportation are physically and programmatically accessible to all students.
  • Devalue grouping by age as the normative class assignments and instead value the levels of which each individual child is capable.
Republican Party
  • not-referenced

Teacher Retirement

Democratic Party
  • Protect the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) defined benefit pension system and fund TRS at least at the level enacted by the 86th Texas Legislature plus a regular cost of living adjustment (COLA) for every retiree.
  • Encourage the Federal government to repeal the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision.
  • Recognize the critical role teachers play in students’ lives by setting a starting salary for teachers sufficient to attract appropriately certified teachers and eliminate vacancies, with median salaries commensurate with the national averages, expanding collective bargaining rights and expanding one year contracts to three years, and funding out-of-pocket expenses for classroom materials.
Republican Party
  • not-referenced

Teacher/School Staff

Democratic Party
  • Ensure that public school employees have attractive compensation packages that incentivize career-long public service of education professionals.
  • Provide TRS-Care funding that is based on an increasing, permanent funding mechanism.
  • Prohibit awarding taxpayer dollars to corporations to develop high-stakes tests and “Value Added Modeling” linked to teacher evaluations, and oppose test-based performance pay.
  • Support basing teacher evaluations on multiple measures designed by practicing educators.
  • Guarantee early acceptance to college and a teaching job to high school students in the top 20 percent of their graduating class who commit to a teaching career upon certification.
  • Create an endorsement pathway for teaching readiness.
  • Enhance the Teach for Texas Loan Repayment Program by tying loan forgiveness to years of teaching service, opening the program to all fields of study, and allowing current teachers to go back to school to get additional certification in critical needs fields.
  • Restore funding for the Educational Aide Exemption to help teachers’ aides go back to school to become certified as full-time teachers to teach in a critical shortage area such as STEM, Bilingual Education, Special Education, or Career and Technical Education.
  • Restore, respect, and safeguard the rights and benefits of education employees; Guarantee that every class has a teacher certified to teach that subject.
  • Recruit and train teachers who reflect the state’s diversity.
  • Provide a mentor or master teacher for every novice teacher.
  • Respect support personnel by providing them due process employment rights and a salary schedule.
  • Support teachers when they exercise their statutory right to remove a disruptive student from class, subject to state guidelines and in line with their campus Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports system.
  • Equip schools and teachers with resources, including teachers’ aides, and effective techniques to ensure that every child performs at grade level in reading, social studies, math, science, and a second language by third grade.
Republican Party
  • not-referenced

Resources

Platform and Resolutions (Texas Republican Party)
Platform and Resolutions (Texas Democratic Party)
cropped-txM.png