BY DANIEL SCHWALM
Texas advances rst K12 mandatory reading list After delaying a vote in January, the State Board of Education gave preliminary approval April 10 to roughly 200 literary works that all Texas public school students K-12 would be required to read beginning in 2030. The overview
TSTC to launch online articial intelligence certicate in 2027 Students at Texas State Technical College will soon have the opportunity to expand their knowledge of articial intelligence with a new online certication. According to a March 31 news release, the college is slated to launch a new online articial intelligence implementation specialist certicate program within its web design and development program, with potential topics including AI data systems, cloud infrastructure, programming language and vision computing. The program is expected to debut as soon as fall 2027 with course updates from a third-party content provider as the eld advances, per the release.
The SBOE trimmed about 100 titles from a list proposed by the Texas Education Agency, which board members, educators and parents criticized as too long to be taught. The Republican-led board signed o on a revised list, proposed by member Keven Ellis, RLuin, in a 9-5 party-line vote April 10, with all Republican members in favor and all Democrats opposed. Ellis’ draft list ranges from nursery rhymes and short stories in early grades to classic and 20th-century literature in high school. The list also includes about a dozen excerpts from the Bible. While students learn about world religions in public schools today, Texans testied that if
The State Board of Education is working on a required reading list, which draws heavily from classic literature.
CHLOE YOUNGCOMMUNITY IMPACT
the reading list is approved, it would be the rst time in recent history that state leaders mandate religious readings in the classroom. Board members will have the opportunity to make additional amendments to the list before taking a nal vote, which is scheduled for June.
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