Texas Education Board Backs Curriculum With Lessons Drawn From Bible [View all]

Source: New York Times

Texas Education Board Backs Curriculum With Lessons Drawn From Bible
School districts serving more than two million elementary-school children would be able to adopt a curriculum that draws on the Bible.


A new curriculum for kindergarten to fifth grade would be optional, but school districts would receive a financial incentive to adopt it. Sara Diggins/American-Statesman, via USA Today Network

By Troy Closson
Nov. 19, 2024
Updated 2:11 p.m. ET

Texas education officials backed on Tuesday a new elementary school curriculum that infuses material drawn from the Bible into reading and language arts lessons, a contentious move that would test the limits of religion's presence in public education. ... The curriculum, which will be optional, has already drawn protests in Texas, which has emerged as a leader in the ascendant but highly contested push to expand the role of religion in public schools. The new curriculum could become a model for other states.

The vote was preliminary. The board typically takes an initial vote on issues in smaller committees. But all of its 15 members were present on Tuesday and the final vote is expected to take place later in the week, with the same outcome. ... With the administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump promising to champion the conservative Christian movement in his second presidential term, the lessons may also offer a playbook for the White House.

Advocates of religious freedom say the new curriculum is the latest major effort by conservatives to explicitly tie the nation's history and politics to Christian values. Texas was the first state to allow public schools to hire religious chaplains as school counselors, and the Republican-controlled legislature is expected to try once again to require public-school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.

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The Texas State Board of Education, which is led by Republicans, sets standards for what students must be taught and approves a selection of curriculums, and individual schools and districts choose which ones they will teach. ... On Tuesday, an effort to reject the curriculum failed in a narrow 7-to-8 vote, with three Republicans joining the board’s four Democrats to oppose it. The other members approved the lessons, as part of a review of a raft of curriculum options for several subjects.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/us/texas-bible-curriculum-public-schools.html