Texas education officials approve Bible-based lessons for K-5 schools

The Texas state school board on Friday approved an optional elementary school curriculum that includes Bible-based lessons that critics have said inappropriately promote Christian beliefs in public classrooms.

In its final vote Friday, the board decided in an 8-7 vote to approve the curriculum. The materials were created this year by the Texas Education Agency after a new law required the department to make a statewide curriculum for school districts to use after approval from the education board.

Supporters of the curriculum welcomed the State Board of Education’s vote Friday, saying the curriculum will help students learn and accusing opponents of trying ban the Bible from classrooms.

“It respects students’ First Amendment rights and it gives them a well-rounded education that makes them culturally competent and functionally literate,” Mary Elizabeth Castle, the director of government relations for the Christian-focused public policy group Texas Values, told the Washington Post on Friday.

She believed the majority of the concerns opposing the curriculum were not pedagogical but were about its religious references, and she defended the curriculum from Bluebonnet Learning as “meeting 100% of state standards.”

“We’re just happy about the vote today, and our expectation is that schools will make good use of the materials,” Castle said.

In approving the curriculum, Texas joined at least two other GOP-led states that have passed laws incorporating Christianity into public schools. In June, Louisiana’s Republican governor signed a law requiring public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Oklahoma’s state superintendent the same month mandated that public schools should teach the Bible.

Those efforts align with President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for a more conservative agenda in public school classrooms, including shutting down the Education Department.

Friday’s narrow decision was identical to a preliminary vote Tuesday to move ahead with approving the curriculum.

Board members who voted against the curriculum throughout the week voiced an array of objections, including some who support Bible-based lessons but nonetheless opposed the curriculum on pedagogical grounds, such as not being age-appropriate.

Before Friday’s vote, several board members acknowledged the Bluebonnet curriculum contained valuable moral lessons but said they were inappropriately intertwined with specific religious teachings.

Among them was board member Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a Democrat who said that while she appreciated the attempt to include some faith traditions besides Christianity, those efforts don’t go far enough.

“It seems to me like they’re trying to place a Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” said Bell-Metereau, who voted against the curriculum. “It still impressed me as not an adequate attempt to change that bias and avoid violating Establishment Clause rules.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has been a supporter of the new curriculum. He said in May that the lessons would let students “better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement, and the American Revolution.”

Curriculum opponents, including the Texas American Federation of Teachers, decried that the narrow passing vote was made possible by Abbott making a last-minute political appointment to the board; Leslie Recine, the board member, was among those who voted Friday to approve the curriculum.

In Texas, school districts will be able to start using the new curriculum in August. Those that do will receive an incentive of $60 per student.

In June 2023, Abbott signed a bill requiring the Texas Education Agency to create a curriculum for districts to use pending state education board approval. When the agency first released the materials in May, Abbott commended them.

Months of intense scrutiny of the curriculum followed, particularly around its inclusion of Christianity-based lessons.

One lesson for kindergartners about the Golden Rule, for example, centers on how Jesus taught the rule during his Sermon on the Mount, along with a story from the Jewish Torah. The materials also include a list of variations of the rule from other religions but do not offer detailed descriptions.

A section for teachers states that the lesson “helps students understand the origin of the language of the Golden Rule common to English, while also conveying an important lesson about respect and caring for other people common to many religious and ethical traditions.”

After a public review period, community members gave hours of testimony about the curriculum at a September state board meeting and again Tuesday, when public comment delayed the preliminary vote by a day.

Supporters of the curriculum said the materials would help develop students’ reading and writing skills. Other supporters said learning biblical concepts at a young age would benefit students when they encountered them later in their education.

But the curriculum’s opponents said it emphasized Christianity over other faiths. The Texas American Federation of Teachers – a union representing more than 60,000 school employees – said the curriculum violates the separation of church and state and is not inclusive of all students.

“Among the standards we (educators) are expected to uphold by the state of Texas is that we shall not exclude a student from participation in a program, deny benefits to a student, or grant an advantage to a student on the basis of race, color, gender, disability, national origin, religion, family status, or sexual orientation,” Texas AFT President Zeph Capo said in a statement Friday.