Over 1,000 people sign Fort Worth students' petition against scripted lessons

Students at Fort Worth ISD wrote an open letter to Superintendent Peter Licata and district leadership this week, sharing their concerns about what they have experienced during the Texas Education Agency’s takeover of the district — specifically critiquing scripted lesson plans.

The official letter was sent to the Star-Telegram Tuesday, and a rough draft of the letter was published on change.org and has garnered more than 1,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

“Education should be about exploration,” the letter reads. “We want to go to school to connect with people, discover things, and learn. We want to feel inspired when we walk into a classroom. We can’t now, because of the rigidity of the new lesson plans and rules makes it almost impossible to explore new ideas, and the dullness of slides and pointless tasks pushes students farther away from learning.”

A Fort Worth ISD spokesperson did not immediately respond to the Star-Telegram’s request for comment on the students’ letter.

Licata and the state-appointed Board of Managers overhauled how instruction is delivered to students over the summer. The district developed the Cowtown 12 instructional model, which is a scripted model through which all teachers are instructed to teach identically to each other.

Higher-rated schools gained more autonomy to teach in different ways, while lower-rated schools are required to strictly follow the model, with little tolerance for going off script, school officials have said. But several parents and teachers at schools who have gained “autonomy status” who have spoken to the Star-Telegram in recent weeks and months still say they have been subject to strict scripted curriculum.

Parents and district leaders have clashed over the implementation of scripted curriculum for months. It was the top concern from attendees during the district’s series of community listening sessions, the district announced.

Licata has pushed back on complaints over scripted lessons. He said most of the concerns have come from just a few campuses, but other board members did not agree with him during a special board workshop on Sept. 26.

“Right now, we are getting pretty damn good results,” Licata said during the board workshop when defending scripted lessons.

In their letter to Licata and district leaders, students pointed out errors with scripted slides and learning guides, feeling like their teachers weren’t actually teaching them, feeling pressured to memorize instead of learn, and classrooms having too many rules.

“The slides are often wrong,” the letter reads. “Sometimes the learning guides and the slides don’t even match. In social studies, we see spelling errors and mistakes all the time. In Spanish, there are translation errors. In French, one student saw what appeared to be an AI-generated image in the slideshow.”

Scripted lessons and slides reviewed by the Star-Telegram included several uses of AI-generated material. Some of those had major errors, like a hand with six fingers and clocks with numbers in the wrong places, both of which were approved lesson plans for elementary classrooms.

The letter has been signed by students as young as second grade and as old as 12th grade, according to its signature list.

Students met in person several times over the last few weeks to draft the letter. They met after school hours and on weekends to write it, a parent told the Star-Telegram. Students got the idea to write an open letter after asking Fort Worth City Councilmember Elizabeth Beck what they could do to make a difference. She recommended writing an open letter.

The letter lists “decision makers” who students hope see the letter and spark change as: Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, Texas Sen. Taylor Rehmet, Board of Managers Chair Pete Geren, Licata and all members of Fort Worth ISD’s state-appointed Board of Managers.

“As a Fort Worth ISD high school senior, I have in real time seen all the points this petition brings up,” wrote a student who commented on the letter. “In all my years of being in school I have never seen a group of teachers more beat down than this year.”

Students also mention in the letter their frustration over the lack of novels used in English and reading curriculum, something dozens of parents have told district leaders at board meetings in recent weeks.

“One of the best parts about school has always been engaging with material that sparks curiosity,” the letter reads. “Dumbing down the lessons we are taught doesn’t bring us to grade level. Education must be an exploration, but right now it feels like memorization.”

The letter also says students in English classes in the district are currently reading “Don Quixote,” a common novel used in high-school English courses across the country. Instead of reading the book front to back, students are instructed to read portions of the book and complete worksheets on those portions, the letter states.

“We’ll read three chapters, skip the next chapters, then continue,” the letter reads. “You read the summary instead of the book, then analyze the summary instead of the actual content. You could finish a book cover to cover and only read half the chapters in it.”

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