Education companies selling curriculum in the nation’s second-largest K-12 market will face increased competition from Texas’ in-house learning resources following the approval of a new suite of Bluebonnet Learning programs.

The Texas State Board of Education has approved 19 new state-developed products for the adopted list of instructional materials as part of the 2025 curriculum adoption cycle, adding to the Bluebonnet curriculum lineup that is expected to continue growing in the coming years.

Legislation passed in 2023 completely overhauled the state’s curriculum adoption process and directed funding to the Texas Education Agency to create its own instructional materials. Those materials now compete directly with traditional education publishers.

Approved for the 2025 state-adopted list are TEA-developed materials for geometry, algebra II, Spanish math K-6, and Spanish language arts and reading K-5. They join other instructional materials created by the state education agency approved last year for ELA K-5, phonics K-3, math grades K-8, and algebra 1.

Each of those TEA curriculum programs qualifies for a new state incentive that provides school districts with an extra $40 per student annually when they select instructional materials from the state-adopted list.

During debate last week, the state-developed Spanish language arts and reading submissions for grades K–5 faced multiple votes from the 15-member, Republican-majority panel. One board member sought to remove the programs from the approved list, while another pushed to delay a final vote until January, citing incomplete translations from the English versions.

Other board members pushed back, saying Spanish-speaking K-12 students also deserve access to state-developed curriculum in their native language.

“What I’d like accomplished is the correction of the translation issues,” said Marisa Perez Diaz, a Democratic board member from San Antonio, who voted to approve the materials but emphasized her expectation for the TEA to make the necessary changes.

Spanish-language translations of English products do not have to match word-for-word because the state standards can be different in each language, a TEA staffer told board members. The agency will still have time to submit revisions following the board’s vote.

In the coming years, the state education agency is planning to submit more Texas-developed instructional materials for acceptance onto the state-adopted list, according to a presentation TEA staff gave at an instructional coordinators conference late last year.

For the upcoming 2026 adoption cycle, the TEA plans to submit Bluebonnet materials for advanced math in grades 6 and 7. In subsequent cycles, the agency could expand its Bluebonnet offerings to include K-5 integrated content — including reading, math, science, and social studies — ELA for grades 6-8, and prekindergarten programs in English and Spanish.

More than 200 Learning Resources Approved

Districts often rely on a state’s approved list when selecting instructional materials, in part because the approval process serves as a form of centralized vetting that many school systems lack the capacity to conduct independently.

Since 2011, Texas school districts have had wide latitude to select materials that are not included on the state’s adopted list.

However, the new financial incentive for districts to choose materials from the state’s list could create a bifurcated marketplace, disadvantaging vendors whose products don’t land on the approved roster of resources eligible for additional state funding.

For the 2025 adoption cycle, the state board considered the following materials for Texas’ adopted list: math K-12; English language arts grades 6-12 (English and Spanish); phonics K-3; and supplemental math K-12.

As part of a revamped curriculum adoption framework, Texas is using an “evergreen” submission process that allows publishers to submit materials not only for new subjects listed for the current year’s call, but also for subjects reviewed in prior cycles.

That made all subject areas from the 2024 adoption cycle — English language arts, grades K-5; Spanish language arts, grades K-5; phonics, grades K-3; and math, grades K-12 — eligible again this year.

Last year, the first under the state’s new adoption framework, almost 100 academic resources were approved by the state board, including submissions from 13 publishers and the TEA.

For the 2025 adoption cycle, the state board agreed to review 308 instructional materials from at least 34 unique publishers.

Of those, 238 learning programs from 28 publishers, including the TEA, were approved for the state-adopted list, while 35 instructional materials were placed on a proposed rejection list, potentially barring them from purchase in the Texas market. The remainder were placed on the state’s “no-action” list.

Some of the largest education publishers had their materials approved for the state-adopted list this year for the first time under the new system, qualifying their products for the new state incentive.

They include: Scholastic, McGraw Hill, Carnegie Learning, Discovery Education, Renaissance Learning, and HMH.

HMH’s submissions drew the most scrutiny. Several board members sought multiple times last week to remove the company’s products — including K-5 English and Spanish language arts and supplemental math, grades 3-8 — from the approved list.

Several conservative board members objected to learning modules in the K-5 language arts materials that addressed green energy and eco-friendly food options, including passages about eating insects.

Before a final vote on Friday, Brandon Hall, a Republican board member from a suburb west of Fort Worth, said he didn’t feel comfortable including HMH’s materials alongside other approved learning resources eligible for the state incentive. The materials, he said, promote “an agenda” around sustainability and moving away from eating beef.

“This is definitely not something my constituents … would want their kids reading, promoting them to eat bugs,” he said. “We’re Texas. We’re a cattle-producing state.”

Board members said they had been in discussion with the company to make revisions, but Hall said, “HMH has a large market share, and I want to work with them … but for this go round, they’ve lost my trust.”

His vote against the HMH materials was labeled “short-sighted” by some on the board, in part because the company’s submissions received strong overall scores from reviewers.

“It’s common for children around the world to learn about the eating practices of other cultures,” said Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a Democratic board member from a suburb of Austin.

Complications With Creating ‘Cure Period’ for the ‘Rejected’ List

Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed a measure — House Bill 100 — that makes staying off the rejected list a top priority for education companies.

Under that law, Texas districts and charter schools are prohibited from buying materials on the state-rejected list. Districts that purchased, or already implemented, rejected learning resources would have to discontinue their use.

But lawmakers passed the measure months after publishers submitted materials for the 2025 adoption cycle, leaving companies unaware that their products could be banned in Texas.

“Staff didn’t think that was fair and that folks should know the rules ahead of time,” said state board Chair Aaron Kinsey, a Republican from Midland.

Last week, state board members spent time considering a “cure period,” allowing for publishers to resubmit their materials to move onto the approved or no-action lists.

Without that, “the impact on these publishers would be very real. It would mean products would not be able to be used … and publishers would not have an opportunity to make amends,” Kinsey said.

However, the state board faced a logistical hurdle. The TEA lacks available curriculum reviewers in the near term. Contracts with existing reviewers expired last week, and TEA staff told the board there is no way to extend those agreements.

The earliest reviewers could look over submissions from the proposed rejected list is this summer. In that scenario, the state board would not finalize decisions until the fall.

That timeline complicates district decision making, said Tom Maynard, a Republican board member from an Austin suburb. Is any district going to “roll the dice,” he asked, on a product that could be banned at the start of the school year?

“That is a de facto rejection anyway because how many school districts are going to take that chance?” he said.

The board considered speeding up the process by bypassing curriculum reviewers and reviewing resubmissions internally, but opted against that approach.

Ultimately, companies on the proposed rejected list for 2025 have an additional 45 days — until Jan. 6, 2026 — to submit revisions. Those submissions will be reviewed in the summer, and the board will vote next November on whether to place the materials on the final rejected list or move them to the approved or no-action lists.

Companies that miss the January deadline will have their products placed on the final rejected list and barred from district purchase or use.

The process and timeline established last week apply only to the 2025 adoption cycle.

“In January, we’ll talk about a longer-term solution,” said Kinsey.