Bible Stories, Revamped History for Texas Public Schools Approved

The Texas Tribune

AUSTIN, TX — Texas will require Bible stories in public schools after the State Board of Education approved a mandatory reading list Friday alongside a rewrite of K-8 social studies lessons. 

The Republican-led board passed the mandated Christian stories in public school lessons on a 9-4 vote along party lines, with two members not present for the vote. The revamped social studies lessons, which required separate votes for each grade, also passed. The board postponed changes to four high school courses, which members will vote on at a future meeting. 

This week’s meetings ran as late as 2 a.m., with the members meticulously parsing through changes to lessons in each grade.

The statewide reading list requires, among other literary works, that schools teach Bible stories to children as young as 6 years old up to young adults preparing to receive their diplomas. 

Some students, educators and progressive activists spoke out in opposition to the lack of racial, ethnic and gender inclusion in the debated books and lessons, as well as the state’s Christian focus over other religions. 

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the reading list adoption in a statement Friday.

“This policy is part of a broader movement,” Laser said, “to misuse public schools to impose one narrow set of religious beliefs and indoctrinate a new generation of Americans in the lie that America is a Christian country.” 

The reading lists will take effect during the 2030-31 school year. The board voted Friday to phase in the reading and social studies changes over multiple years rather than introduce them at once. 

“When we teach classical literature and social studies with biblical foundations, we are not simply preserving great books,” said Dawn Hatley, a Lubbock resident who testified earlier in the week. “We’re helping raise young men and women who love truth, pursue wisdom and recognize God’s hand throughout history and human experience.”

Texas parents can opt their children out of any instruction, but state education officials acknowledged earlier this year that those students could still be tested on it.

Reframing history

Along with mandatory Bible stories in reading, the social studies proposal features a dramatic transformation in how Texas schools have long administered lessons on history, geography, economics and government. It eliminates the current sixth-grade world cultures course, deemphasizes world history outside of European tradition and dedicates more focus to Texas and the United States.

The board approved changes to K-8 and some high school courses, but it postponed rewrites to U.S. history, world history, geography and government. 

Republicans blamed cherry-picking over what students should learn for the delay. 

“We wasted many hours late into the morning,” Republican board member Brandon Hall said. “We have worn out and exhausted our staff on trifling amendments coming from people who had no intention of ever working with us or ever actually approving something they wanted to pass.” 

Conservative leaders and activists champion the new lessons, which they view as “the final battle” in a push to rid Texas schools of instruction they say paints America in a negative light and trains students to hate the country. 

They also approved a lesson this week that requires students to learn about the Prophet Muhammad in the context of “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.” 

“Let me be very clear: Islam is not a religion,” state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, testified before the education board Monday. “It is a totalitarian theocracy, not unlike totalitarian systems of communism, Nazism and globalism.”

Elizabeth Jensen, who identified herself as a Texas school board trustee but did not specify the district, told the education panel that she believes “slavery was and still is fundamental to Sharia,” referring to the set of moral codes and principles that Muslims follow. 

Muslims have spent months denouncing such Islamophobia at State Board of Education meetings, calling it misinformation and harmful to the hundreds of thousands of Texans who practice the faith. 

“These proposed standards actually defy the Constitution and highlight only one group of Americans as the founders who built this country to the exclusion of others — both in the past and in the present,” Ruth Nasrullah, a Muslim speaker, told board members during public testimony.

Members could take up the remaining high school courses at its next scheduled meeting in September, or the chair could schedule a special meeting before then.