Texas Board of Education Pushes to Include Bible-Based Lessons in Public Schools
- Milton Quintanilla Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Nov 20, 2024
The Republican-led Texas State Board of Education plans to vote on approving optional biblical teachings for elementary schools across the Lone Star State. According to The Texas Tribune, the majority of the board’s 15 members expressed support for Bluebonnet Learning, an elementary school curriculum that includes Christian teachings and biblical references and will officially vote on the curriculum on Friday.
If approved, the Texas school districts would be given a financial incentive to adopt the curriculum, making it optional for 2.3 million public school students in kindergarten through fifth grade, beginning in August 2025. Lessons in the curriculum include biblical accounts of Jesus’ parables of “The Good Samaritan” and the “Golden Rule.”
Per the New York Times, The curriculum also received support from Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who said in a statement that it will “allow our students to 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.”
Board members in favor of the curriculum also said it would help students improve their reading and “cultural literacy,” The Daily Wire reported.
“In my view, these stories are on the education side and are establishing cultural literacy,” Republican State Board of Education member Will Hickman said. “And there’s religious concepts like the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule and Moses that all students should be exposed to.”
Opponents of the curriculum, however, contended that it could be perceived as political or as setting up a “state religion.”
“I am a Christian, and I do believe that religion is a part of our culture, but our nation does not have a religion. We’re unique in that,” said Mary Lowe, co-founder of Families Engaged for an Effective Education, according to the Texas Tribune. “So I do not think that our school districts should imply or try to overtly impress to young impressionable children that the state does have a state religion.”
The State Board of Education held a meeting Monday with many parents, including some parents who were professing Christians. Although some parents said it is not the state’s responsibility to decide how their children learn about religion, others argued that Christianity and the Bible are inseparable from American history.
Renate Sims, a mother and substitute teacher, told the board that Jesus’ incarnation “is and always will be the hinge of all of history.”
“How would the canceling of such fundamental facts serve the education of our children or contribute to shape them morally?” she asked.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/plherrera
