The Texas Education Agency received final approval Wednesday evening for roughly 4,200 corrections and changes to its elementary and secondary school curriculum.

Voting 9-6, the State Board of Education approved the changes to Bluebonnet Learning after in January. Members had said they needed more time to review copyright concerns, formatting errors and typos.

On Wednesday, some board members questioned whether the errors indicated a need to change Texas’ for learning materials, while others asked the education agency to provide an estimate of the corrections’ cost to taxpayers. Texans will bear the financial burden of the corrections because the education agency developed the materials using state funding.

“I think that when we have mistakes, that kind of undercuts the trust that we’re building with our local trustees and our local administrators,” said Republican board member Brandon Hall, who supported the corrections.

Colin Dempsey, a Texas Education Agency official who helps organize the instructional material review process, said the agency planned to calculate the costs after the State Board of Education voted on the changes.

Dempsey also said the agency has increased the number of people who review publishing materials since Bluebonnet in November 2024, expressing optimism that the increase would help the state catch errors earlier in the process. State Board of Education rules, Dempsey added, do not specify accountability measures when the board finds errors in state publishing materials.

“Clearly it’s something that we need to address,” he said.

Several board members who voted against the changes Wednesday have long opposed Bluebonnet. The reading and language arts curriculum attracted national attention in 2024 for its references to the Bible and Christianity.

The education agency has said the make up only a fraction of the overall product, which includes reading and math. have found that the reading curriculum skews heavily in favor of Christianity compared to other religions. Parents and historians have also about the materials downplaying America’s history of racism and slavery.

Roughly have indicated that they’re using at least some portions of the reading curriculum, covering about 400,000 students. The materials come with a $60 per-student incentive for districts.

Some board members requested Wednesday to hear from education agency officials who worked on Bluebonnet. Other board members said the Bluebonnet developers reached out to them directly and offered to address concerns or questions about the 4,200 errors prior to the meeting. Republican Aaron Kinsey, the board chair, said he could not force the publishers to testify if they were unwilling.

Dempsey advised against having the individuals testify, saying the agency preferred to keep dialogue between its staff overseeing the review process and board members.

Texas Education Agency spokesperson Jake Kobersky said in a statement that 4,200 represents the number of changes to Bluebonnet, not all of them errors.

“Some updates are simply improvements based on teacher feedback,” Kobersky said. “Every change and/or edit made to the product must be submitted individually for SBOE approval, regardless of the nature of the change, hence the large number. “

Dempsey said earlier this year that the 4,200 edits span more than 2,100 components of Bluebonnet. The curriculum, he noted, also has more components than other publishers.

For comparison, four other publishers that submitted correction requests reported a combined 16 edits.

Before the initial vote, board members acknowledged the trivial nature of some errors identified in Bluebonnet, while standing firm on concerns about what Republican Pam Little described as “sloppy publishing.”

“We are basically putting content out there that has not met the legislative request of us to remove, to review materials for quality and suitability,” Little said.

Democratic board member Tiffany Clark said the board and the education agency harmed students by allowing schools to teach flawed materials.

“If this is a product they’ve been using because they believe it was a high-quality instructional material, again, we have failed our students this school year,” Clark said.

The education agency will update the online version of the materials within 30 days and begin replacing physical books and teacher guides.

This first appeared on .

The 74 has learned the Keller Independent School District in the suburbs of Fort Worth is currently under investigation by the Texas Education Agency following Abbott’s order last month that school districts be investigated for providing students with “obscene” content.

The probe into Keller is focused on whether state policies were followed in the purchase of school library books.  

One of the books Abbott is “Gender Queer,” a graphic novel that and was available at one Keller ISD high school library in the 42-school district. Abbott charged that the book contained “pornographic drawings.” 

A Keller district spokesperson said a librarian immediately retrieved the book and after parents’ complaints surfaced in October. Five more books have also been pulled from library shelves this school year. 

The to prosecute anyone who provides “pornography” to minors comes as parents across the state and country have railed against local school boards for having books with sexually explicit passages in their school or classroom libraries, often related to the LGBTQ experience. 

One San Antonio school district pulled “out of an abundance of caution” to “ensure they did not have any obscene or vulgar material.” The district pulled the books after Fort Worth Republican Rep. Matt Krause, who chairs the Texas House General Investigating Committee, released a list in October of nearly 850 titles he suspected would pertain to race, sexuality or “make students feel discomfort” and asked schools to account for how many copies were in their libraries and classrooms.  

The TEA can only investigate issues that fall within education law, but such an investigation could provide the agency with enough information to refer the case to law enforcement, an agency spokesperson said.

“The decision to undertake a criminal investigation or pursue criminal charges in any particular instance would rest with law enforcement,” the TEA said in a statement to The 74.

The TEA would not comment on what its own investigation would entail, although it will likely include tracing how book-buying decisions were made. 

Keller ISD officials told The 74 the district would cooperate with the investigation.

Other than “Gender Queer,” a spokesman said five the books have been taken off the shelves this school year amid parent complaints: “Flamer,” by Mike Curato, “Infinity Reaper” by Adam Silvera, “Jack of Hearts” by L.C. Rosen, “L8r g8r,” by Lauren Myracle; and “Panic” by Sharon Draper.

When a book is challenged as “inappropriate,” the complaint is referred to a Book Challenge Committee, made up of parents, teachers and members of the community, a Keller spokesperson said. 

Under Texas law, it is illegal to provide to a minor. State law specifies the material must be “utterly without redeeming social value for minors.”  

The Texas penal code , however, that it is a defense that the material was provided by a person having “scientific, educational, governmental, or other similar justification.” 

Legal and library experts have on whether prosecutions are likely to be successful, noting the legal complexity of cases that often rely on whether sexual content is obscene or protected by the First Amendment. 

The governor has also publicly pointed to Leander Independent School District, located just north of Austin, as another school system that had books with inappropriate sexual content. Namely, he singled out “In the Dream House” by Carmen Maria Machado, a memoir about domestic abuse within a same-sex relationship that the district removed from its book club. The book is still available in campus and digital libraries, a district spokesman said.

The district has received no notice it is under investigation, said Matt Mitchell, a spokesman for LISD. 

“We haven’t heard from anyone yet,” said Mitchell. “Our district has worked and will continue to work hard with our community and with our parents, and if there are materials that they don’t approve of, we welcome those conversations.”