In what appears to be a national first, Texas students will be required to read Bible passages as part of a new statewide reading list.
The State Board of Education gave final approval to updated Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills – known as TEKS – on Friday, capping off a week of meetings and often tense public discussion. The board is also expected to vote on rewritten K-8 social studies lessons that narrow the view of history from a global one to a focus on U.S. and Texas history.
The literacy TEKS typically includes Shakespeare and Sophocles. Now there’ll also be Psalm 23 and the Prodigal Son – the King James version.
State Board of Education District 2 representative Brandon Hall, from Aledo, northwest of Fort Worth, is one of 10 Republicans on the 15-member elected board. The pastor championed the inclusion of Bible passages and Christian stories as a valuable reflection of American culture and what he wants every Texas student to learn.
“America and Texas have been a Christian nation and a Christian state forever,” Hall said. “And this is why, you know, the proportion of the impact they’ve had is why they’re included. Of course, there are other faiths that are represented, but they’ve had a minimal impact.”
Nearly 500 people signed up to offer testimony for or against the new social studies and reading curriculum. The lists add at least one Bible passage to each grade’s required reading starting in the first grade.
Kim Middleton, from Lubbock, spoke in support of the board’s efforts, saying students need to learn those biblical references.
“Let's pick back up our Bibles and allow our Judeo-Christian foundations to shine bright in our classrooms,” she said.
Opponents of the changes say they emphasize Christianity over other religions and misrepresent history.
Rabbi Joshua Fixler said he’s worried his children won’t learn as well.
“This proposed list provides only Christian religious texts, and it does so in ways that are not age appropriate,” he told the board. “For example, my fourth grader would have to read three religious texts. All three center on Christian messages of faith and theology to which my family does not ascribe.”
Teaching about religion
Fixler said there’s a difference between teaching religion, and teaching about religion. Inserting Bible passages, he said, will put teachers in a tough spot.
Carisa Lopez, deputy director of the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network, said religion “absolutely has a place in education” if it’s taught without bias toward any particular religion.
“Religions of all types have made a very big impact on history and our culture,” she told KERA Friday. “However, if we are going to be teaching Christianity, a very particular type of Christianity, in a way that is biased, that belongs at home, and that belongs in the religious institutions.
“That does not belong in Texas public schools.”
Nancy Barker, a retired teacher, praised the state's approach.
"I believe including biblical references is appropriate because they are being used as literary and historical content rather than for religious instruction," she told the board on Monday.
Much of the week’s debate centered on how Islam is portrayed in social studies curriculum. The board earlier this year removed a TEKS standard that taught about “Muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy,” the Texas Tribune reported, and new standards would require students to learn about the 9/11 “terrorist attacks motivated by radical Islam” and the “rise of radical Islam.”
Board members on Thursday decided to delay adoption of high school social studies standards after making amendments throughout the week, but will likely take them up again in September.
Attorney Niloufar Hafizi, who identified as an Iranian-American Muslim, said she sees in the social studies lessons about Muslims a “subtext telling students whose histories, which civilizations, and ultimately which people count.
“Rather than present balanced and accurate standards, the proposed TEKS tell a selective narrative that elevates Protestant Christianity and Western civilization while downplaying other religions and civilizations and their contributions to humankind.”
She said Islam is inaccurately viewed as a warring religion.
Southern Methodist University religious studies professor Mark Chancey, who in 2024 testified against biblical references included in the state’s optional Bluebonnet curriculum, called the social studies lessons a “double standard.”
“It's a wholly negative view of Islam as a religion,” he said. “Muslim conquests of lands are treated as religiously oriented violence. Christian conquests of lands go uncommented.”
Anti-Muslim rhetoric has been on the rise in Texas. A proposed Muslim-centric housing development in unincorporated Collin and Hunt counties is the subject of a number of state investigations that critics say unfairly target North Texas Muslims, and a recent planned Eid celebration in Grand Prairie was cancelled after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to withhold state funding, saying the event violated a state law banning “Muslim no-go zones.”
At the same time, lawmakers have allowed more Christianity in schools and classrooms in recent years, allowing districts to bring chaplains in to serve as school counselors and establish designated prayer periods during schooldays. In April an appeals court ruled Texas can enforce a law requiring classrooms to display copies of the Ten Commandments.
Chancey said the curriculum changes also “privilege” Christianity.
“I do think that we have a particular ideological agenda that is at play here,” he said.
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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