Fort Worth students will learn about reading through new materials that include Bible stories starting next year after trustees adopted Texas-developed lessons.
FWISD Superintendent Karen Molinar said she pored through Bluebonnet Learning lesson by lesson and determined it was the best choice to ignite further academic improvement.
“This is not because of a threat of a takeover,” Molinar said, referring to the potential removal by the state of both superintendent and locally elected trustees over a persistently failing school that’s now closed.
The school trustees’ 6-3 decision late Tuesday night came after Molinar laid out why Bluebonnet was the best choice for students and a debate among the board over religion.
Trustees Wallace Bridges, Quinton Phillips and Camille Rodriguez voted against.
Phillips said he understood why the superintendent recommended Bluebonnet. However, he said he cannot force students to learn about a religion their families may or may not follow, even if it is approved by the state.
“All that is saying is state-sanctioned indoctrination,” Phillips said.
Trustee Michael Ryan said he attended Fort Worth schools that had students play Christian music. His friends who were Jewish talked to their parents about the music. That will happen again with the new lessons, he said.
“Be sure you talk to them. Be sure you set them on the way that you want your family’s path to go,” he said.
At 67,705 students, Fort Worth ISD is one of the largest districts to adopt the reading lessons. Conroe ISD, which has nearly 73,000 students, is the largest.
District estimates show Bluebonnet will cost nearly $2.4 million; however, FWISD is expected to get about $4 million in funding for using the lessons. Districts that use it receive $60 per student enrolled.
Effectively, the district is getting the lessons for free, Molinar said.
Molinar characterized Bluebonnet as a one-stop shop for teachers. Lessons, which will start rolling out in classrooms in the last six weeks of the spring semester, touch on other subjects like history, science and literature. Lesson plans, calendars and support are baked in. Current reading lessons from Amplify require staff to create the content taking time away from focusing on students, she said.
“If there are resources that not only help my teachers, my parents and my students, then I need to take advantage of that,” Molinar said.
Roughly 2% of lessons include biblical references
Natalie Norton, a campus monitor at North Hi Mount Elementary and a FWISD mother, told trustees that adopting Bluebonnet would step on students’ constitutional rights and be a direct violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition of the government from favoring one religion.
“Our schools are a safe space for all students, not just one religion,” Norton said.
However, Texas already requires public schools to teach some religious literature, including the Old Testament and New Testament, and their impact on history and other compositions.
Bluebonnet’s reading lessons are a continuation of that, Keisha Russell, a senior counsel focusing on religious liberty and First Amendment rights at the First Liberty Institute, told the Fort Worth Report before the meeting.
The First Amendment allows instructional materials such as Bluebonnet Learning because students are learning about the nation’s religious history, Russell said.
For example, Bluebonnet features a fifth-grade reading lesson centered on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and how the Bible influenced the civil rights leader.
“You just can’t provide comprehensive answers without giving them a background in Christianity and showing them how Christianity has shaped American culture, for better or worse, in some people’s opinion,” she said.
Roughly 2% of lessons include biblical references, according to a FWISD document. Teachers are directed to treat them similarly to any other literature, such as historical speeches and fictional or nonfictional texts, according to the district document.
During Tuesday’s debate, trustee Tobi Jackson said she trusted Molinar’s judgment on Bluebonnet because the superintendent has met the school board’s charges of focusing on literacy, math and beginning to turn around Fort Worth ISD. The focus should be on the reading proficiency of students, not on a sliver of lessons, she said.
“Because I’m a numbers person, I want our kids reading at 100%. I want to see them go from being proficient in the third grade to being exceptional in the fourth and fifth grade,” Jackson said.
Local vs. state control
The Rev. Mary Spradlin of Pastors for Texas Children and other speakers told trustees that adopting Bluebonnet appeared to be district leaders’ way of placating Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath as he considers removing the superintendent and trustees.
“If you feel like you must adopt it to avoid a takeover, we’ve already lost control,” Spradlin said.
Reed Bilz, governance chair of the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County, said her organization opposed the adoption because doing so amounts to taking a bribe from the Texas Education Agency.
“The league opposes threats to basic constitutional rights,” Bilz said.
In January, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and other groups issued a letter to public school leaders calling on them to refuse Bluebonnet because the lessons “amount to proselytizing.”
“But when state officials use public schools to usurp parents’ rights to teach about religion, it sows distrust in our schools and divides our communities,” the letter reads.
Transparency for families
Trenace Dorsey-Hollins, executive director of parental advocacy nonprofit Parent Shield, said she understands some parents’ concerns about religion, but Bluebonnet offers transparency for families.
Bluebonnet details for parents what content is in the lessons and how they can help their children engage with reading. Fort Worth ISD plans to translate the parent materials in the next five most-spoken languages after English and Spanish.
Parents who Dorsey-Hollins talks to demand one thing, she said: “We just want our kids to read.”
Fort Worth ISD teachers already use Bluebonnet Learning for math and phonics as part of an instruction shift that Molinar said would give educators more time to focus on teaching than planning.
The State Board of Education approved Bluebonnet Learning in November after the Legislature called for it as a solution to boost lagging reading proficiency rates. However, the lessons quickly drew criticism over the inclusion of biblical stories.
Republican Pat Hardy was on the State Board of Education and voted against Bluebonnet over what she saw as deficiencies in how it teaches reading. The former teacher supported the inclusion of biblical principles.
Her opinions on the lessons haven’t changed, she told the Report before the FWISD board meeting. She expected Fort Worth school trustees to adopt Bluebonnet because of two factors: extra money and the potential takeover.
“Fort Worth ISD is in between a rock and a hard place,” Hardy said. “I empathize with them a great deal because they’re in an impossible situation.”
Jacob Sanchez is education editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez.
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