The Texas State Board of Education gave preliminary approval Friday to a mandatory list of books that all public schools will teach starting in 2030, paring down an earlier version students and educators had criticized for being too long, lacking diversity and emphasizing Christianity.

The majority-Republican board voted 9-5 to approve the reading list, which the group will have a chance to revise ahead of final approval set for June. All five Democrats on the board voted against the list.

The board had on the list in January to allow for more time to review the proposal.

A required the Texas Education Agency to design the list of reading materials for public K-12 students. The agency initially recommended roughly 300 books for consideration, far exceeding the requirement of at least one literary work in each grade.

The original list included childhood favorites across a range of genres — from Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat to S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders — while also incorporating biblical material such as The Parable of the Prodigal Son and The Road to Damascus. In addition to the lack of religious diversity, critics raised concerns about the underrepresentation of women as well as Hispanic and Black authors.

The revised list, proposed by Republican member Keven Ellis of Lufkin, cut about 100 readings — including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Frederick Douglass’ What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? — though it still includes Bible texts.

“There are other states, many other states, who have recommended reading lists,” Ellis said. “To my knowledge, there is not one that will have a required reading list as robust as this, that will be common for every student across the state.”

The Texas Education Agency created the original proposal after reviewing books used by other states and organizations. The agency has also said it factored in survey responses from roughly 5,700 teachers, noting that the list contained fewer books than what educators said they currently use.

But during hours of public testimony this week, educators said they considered the survey insufficient because teachers did not review or revise the reading list before the education agency submitted it to the State Board of Education.

They pointed to a different survey of more than 2,600 educators conducted by the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. The survey concluded that in all but one grade, it would be “mathematically impossible” to read and teach the full list during the typical 36 instructional weeks in a school year.

“I believe that an acceptable list would be one that’s created with teacher expertise, leaning on the strengths of everyone involved in this work,” said Markesha Tisby, president of Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. “There’s still time. There’s no prize for making this decision quickly. We have time to build something great for our Texas students, and they deserve it.”

The public has not yet weighed in on the revised list the board preliminarily approved Friday.

Member Julie Pickren, R-Pearland, said she was shocked to see writings from Douglass and Booker T. Washington removed. Republican Brandon Hall of Aledo said he views the list as a “starting place.” Members will have opportunities to suggest changes and offer feedback before the final vote in June.

Supporters of the list have said they believe the biblical material will help students better grasp the influence of Christianity in U.S. history. Meanwhile, at least one critic called the original list and its biblical material “a lawsuit waiting to happen,” while many stressed the importance of students needing to see themselves reflected in the books they read.

“As a recent graduate of the Texas public school system, I care deeply about the curriculum my friends and family will be taught,” said Sumya Paruchuri, a freshman at the University of North Texas.

“The best taught English classes that I had were when the teachers were passionate about the text they were teaching, whether they were fans of the work or understood the educational opportunities they presented for students,” Paruchuri added. “The required reading list’s attempt to standardize readings is unhelpful and counterproductive to the real needs of students and educators.”

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The Texas Education Agency received final approval Wednesday evening for roughly 4,200 corrections and changes to its elementary and secondary school curriculum.

Voting 9-6, the State Board of Education approved the changes to Bluebonnet Learning after in January. Members had said they needed more time to review copyright concerns, formatting errors and typos.

On Wednesday, some board members questioned whether the errors indicated a need to change Texas’ for learning materials, while others asked the education agency to provide an estimate of the corrections’ cost to taxpayers. Texans will bear the financial burden of the corrections because the education agency developed the materials using state funding.

“I think that when we have mistakes, that kind of undercuts the trust that we’re building with our local trustees and our local administrators,” said Republican board member Brandon Hall, who supported the corrections.

Colin Dempsey, a Texas Education Agency official who helps organize the instructional material review process, said the agency planned to calculate the costs after the State Board of Education voted on the changes.

Dempsey also said the agency has increased the number of people who review publishing materials since Bluebonnet in November 2024, expressing optimism that the increase would help the state catch errors earlier in the process. State Board of Education rules, Dempsey added, do not specify accountability measures when the board finds errors in state publishing materials.

“Clearly it’s something that we need to address,” he said.

Several board members who voted against the changes Wednesday have long opposed Bluebonnet. The reading and language arts curriculum attracted national attention in 2024 for its references to the Bible and Christianity.

The education agency has said the make up only a fraction of the overall product, which includes reading and math. have found that the reading curriculum skews heavily in favor of Christianity compared to other religions. Parents and historians have also about the materials downplaying America’s history of racism and slavery.

Roughly have indicated that they’re using at least some portions of the reading curriculum, covering about 400,000 students. The materials come with a $60 per-student incentive for districts.

Some board members requested Wednesday to hear from education agency officials who worked on Bluebonnet. Other board members said the Bluebonnet developers reached out to them directly and offered to address concerns or questions about the 4,200 errors prior to the meeting. Republican Aaron Kinsey, the board chair, said he could not force the publishers to testify if they were unwilling.

Dempsey advised against having the individuals testify, saying the agency preferred to keep dialogue between its staff overseeing the review process and board members.

Texas Education Agency spokesperson Jake Kobersky said in a statement that 4,200 represents the number of changes to Bluebonnet, not all of them errors.

“Some updates are simply improvements based on teacher feedback,” Kobersky said. “Every change and/or edit made to the product must be submitted individually for SBOE approval, regardless of the nature of the change, hence the large number. “

Dempsey said earlier this year that the 4,200 edits span more than 2,100 components of Bluebonnet. The curriculum, he noted, also has more components than other publishers.

For comparison, four other publishers that submitted correction requests reported a combined 16 edits.

Before the initial vote, board members acknowledged the trivial nature of some errors identified in Bluebonnet, while standing firm on concerns about what Republican Pam Little described as “sloppy publishing.”

“We are basically putting content out there that has not met the legislative request of us to remove, to review materials for quality and suitability,” Little said.

Democratic board member Tiffany Clark said the board and the education agency harmed students by allowing schools to teach flawed materials.

“If this is a product they’ve been using because they believe it was a high-quality instructional material, again, we have failed our students this school year,” Clark said.

The education agency will update the online version of the materials within 30 days and begin replacing physical books and teacher guides.

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The Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday delayed an initial vote on a proposed required reading list that includes several Bible passages, including some featured in the controversial, state-approved Bluebonnet reading program that some districts have adopted.

Members of the public who spoke on the issue were overwhelmingly opposed to the state’s proposed list, citing a lack of diverse authors and the religious texts among the reasons.

“What I see is an overemphasis on the Christian tradition without providing the kind of contextualization and analysis that religious texts require,” said Steven Mintz, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

In April, the board will discuss both Commissioner Mike Morath’s proposed list and an alternative, shorter list offered by Board Member Will Hickman. His list also includes some biblical texts, including the Good Samaritan, the parable of the Prodigal Son and the story of the tower of Babel.

“These are common stories that are, what I would say, part of cultural literacy,” he said.

When Texas approved a new reading curriculum that features Bible stories in 2024, education Commissioner Mike Morath told districts they could adopt it, reject it or even adapt it to their own local needs.

But a proposed statewide reading list, which relies on some of the same biblical lessons, would not be optional.

The selections, part of a longer list that also features scripture passages for and students, include Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son for first graders and a third grade text on the Apostle Paul’s conversion to Christianity. Those are among the stories that the agency published from the Bluebonnet reading curriculum, a spokesman said.

The proposed reading list, which includes classics from Shakespeare and Poe and the writings of historical figures, is scheduled for a preliminary vote by the Texas State Board of Education Wednesday.

One of the criticisms of the religious lessons in Bluebonnet is that they largely present an evangelical Christian perspective — an attribute the reading list shares, said David Brockman, a religion and public policy scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

“As with the Bluebonnet curriculum, this one-sided focus on the Bible conveys, intentionally or unintentionally, the message that the biblical tradition is more important and more worthy of attention than other religions,” he said. “This message in turn threatens to turn students, parents, and teachers who are not Christians or Jews into outsiders in their own public schools.” 

The state board narrowly approved the reading program in late 2024 after months of debate between Christian conservatives and those who argue that it emphasizes Christianity over other religions and could be used to proselytize elementary school children. The curriculum is one of several ways the state has tried to heighten students’ exposure to the Bible, knowledge that Morath says will improve overall reading performance. Bluebonnet, and now the reading list, have received praise from those advocating for a classical curriculum focused on Western culture. 

“This is the revolution America needs,” Jeremy Wayne Tate, founder of the Classical Learning Test, an SAT and ACT alternative, . 

Because of student mobility, there is a need for a “common literary canon,” according to . “When students switch schools, they will often read the same text twice or skip a text entirely due to local grade level selection differences.”

A requirement that the state include “religious literature,” in the curriculum has been for years. Some districts met that standard by offering standalone elective courses on the Old and New Testaments in high school. In last fall, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the state board could also comply by integrating religious topics into other subjects, like language arts. 

The reading list would include a kindergarten passage on the Golden Rule, which emphasizes Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where he instructed followers to “do unto others as you would have done unto you.” After a backlash, the state added references to similar lessons from other faiths. In first grade, there’s a book on America’s symbols, which also highlights connections to scripture.

‘Parents have every right’ 

Most districts in the state didn’t rush to adopt the curriculum, despite incentives from the state of up to $60 per student. A state database last summer showed that fewer than 200 of the state’s more than 1,200 districts and charters had ordered the reading materials, many of them smaller districts. Others adopted the program but discarded the religion-related lessons. 

In a , the Texas Freedom Network, which has been critical of including Bible lessons in the curriculum, showed that just 17 of the state’s 100 largest districts adopted it and were often slow to order the materials. The Fort Worth schools, now under state takeover, will begin implementing it this fall. 

Since last fall, the 72,000-student Conroe district, near Houston, has been fielding requests from parents to opt their children out of some of the biblical material. Parents are required to submit a request in writing to a teacher or school administrator, but officials told The 74 that they’re not keeping track of how many requests they’ve received. Last fall, one parent told board members that creating alternate lessons is adding to teachers’ workload. 

“Parents have every right to opt their children out of this,” Destinee Milton, who has a second grader and a fifth grader in the district, . Because the religious material is part of the same book as the rest of the lessons, “teachers are now required to spend their planning time” pasting in alternate content.

Mark Brooks, whose third grader attends Colin Powell Elementary in Conroe, asked that she be excused from lessons on Christianity and its influence on the Roman Empire. 

“I don’t think religion belongs in public schools,” he said. But the school seemed unprepared for how to handle the request. The district didn’t reply to a request for comment.

“We asked the teacher; the teacher didn’t really know. We talked to the principal; the principal didn’t really know,” he said. They eventually relocated his daughter to a separate room where she worked on a lesson about the roads that led to Rome, also part of Bluebonnet. 

Brooks said his daughter liked the alternate lesson because she finished it quickly and had more time for independent reading. He’s not opposed, he said, to brief mentions of religion in school, but described a passage on the Christian emperor Constantine crediting God with his success as a ruler as “way over the top.”

Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said that if the board approves the reading list, it’s “only a matter of time before parents begin to opt their children out of these lessons” in districts statewide. He cited a Supreme Court ruling last year that upheld parents’ rights to keep their children from participating in lessons focused on LGBTQ-related story books for religious reasons. He expects parents to exercise those same rights when it comes to religious material. 

“It’s going to be classroom chaos,” he said. 

Supporters of the program argue that the Bible is a foundational document that should be taught in public schools and is necessary to understand historical references and works of literature. The Supreme Court, they say, erred in 1963 when it that mandated prayer and Bible readings violated the First Amendment.

“It will be impossible for Texas students to understand settlement in America, the Revolution, the Constitution, or the rest of American and World history, let alone literature, without knowledge of the Bible,” said Matthew McCormick, education director for the , a conservative think tank. “Many schools are countering what they see as favor to Christianity with what looks a lot like anti-Christian bias, but this is a disservice to the education of their students.”

Survey responses from teachers, collected through a link in a Bluebonnet Facebook group, show that educators remain divided on the religious components after several months of teaching the program. 

“I am a non-Christian being forced to give sermons in class,” one teacher wrote. “No consideration was given to the rights of teachers and students of various backgrounds with this curriculum.”

But another said there’s a way to teach the material without trying to influence what students think.

“If I present something as, ‘This is what this group of people believe and your family can discuss what you believe at home,’ it’s OK,” the teacher explained. “I wasn’t thrilled with the additions, but I had to put myself in the mindset of ‘It’s a story from a religion. I’m not teaching it as fact.’ ”

“It’s not my kids that I worry about,” she said. “This is their opportunity to be a light. Their mission field is the public school.”

For many other Ohio parents, that’s a problem. 

Since he was 8, Cherie Khumprakob’s son, now 11, has been receiving written invitations from classmates to join them at LifeWise. She found one in his backpack.

“He hates getting these notes from his friends and having to tell them ‘No’ repeatedly,” said Khumprakob, who lives in the Columbus area. “Training kids to pressure their friends into religious activities while at public school, during school hours, crosses a line.”

The opposing views illustrate the tension in Ohio and other states where LifeWise is rapidly expanding. The organization expects to serve close to 100,000 kids in 34 states this school year. It has 1,600 employees and runs its own fleet of eye-catching red buses. 

Founded in 2018, LifeWise is the most visible group behind a movement to spread off-campus religious instruction during the school day. Since 2024, the nonprofit has successfully lobbied for legislation in Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas mandating that districts allow students to attend LifeWise or similar programs. Some say the requirements violate the separation of church and state. 

“That’s a big shift,” said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “This whole mandatory aspect is historically something different.” 

In a moment when Republicans are fighting to hang the 10 Commandments on classroom walls and squeeze biblical passages into reading lessons, LifeWise has taken these programs in a more evangelical direction. The organization faces pushback from parents and district staff who think Bible study should be relegated to afterschool hours. LifeWise programs that reward students with items like candy and encourage kids to recruit their friends have proven particularly divisive. 

But those are the strategies LifeWise recommends as a way to increase participation. “Send students back to school with ‘Invite a Friend’ flyers,” urges a on “boosting enrollment.” A says treats are “fun incentives” that are meant to foster a “positive and engaging learning environment.”

“Most students who enjoy a sport, activity or program will talk about it with their friends and encourage them to give it a try as well,” said LifeWise spokeswoman Christine Czernejewski. “Lifewise is no different.”

The 74 found examples of financial transactions between districts and LifeWise that could create the appearance of promoting the program. Especially in Ohio, LifeWise often enjoys strong support from school officials; one superintendent warned staff to avoid such activity while the district was “under the radar.” 

Supporters argue that LifeWise and similar classes respect the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause because they require parent permission, don’t meet on school grounds and aren’t supposed to rely on school resources for support.

Some districts are putting “tacks on the road so the big red bus loses air in the tires” just because the program teaches the Bible, said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel with First Liberty Institute, a law firm specializing in religious freedom cases.

The 46,000-student Columbus, Ohio, district from sending kids back to school with any “materials, snacks, clothing, candies, trinkets or other items.” Then the legislature amended the law to say districts can’t prevent organizations from distributing educational materials, but have some discretion over limiting non-educational items like treats. For now, Dys, who represents LifeWise, is waiting to see whether the new restrictions interfere with the program. 

“There’s just a lot of animosity and hostility towards religion,” he said. But recent Supreme Court decisions, like one siding with a football coach who held mid-field prayers and another allowing parents to opt their children out of hearing LGBTQ-themed story books, have expanded religious influence at school. “The courts … have basically been telling school districts, ‘Cool it.’ ”

In total, 16 states require districts to allow students to participate in religious studies during school hours, but a few, like Pennsylvania and New York, have had such laws on the books for years. Some states aren’t ready to take that leap. Legislation requiring districts to release students stalled this year in , and . 

At an education subcommittee hearing in February, Georgia state Rep. David Clark, a Republican running for lieutenant governor, said the programs could solve one of the most pressing issues facing public schools — enrollment loss.

“We have thousands of students leaving public schools. It could be private school; it could be home school,” he said. “I think this … protects our public schools, because it allows parents, [if] they want the religious studies, they can sign their kid up.” 

Clark alluded to data suggesting that attendance increases and behavior improves in schools with LifeWise programs. The findings, from a sponsored by , are frequently cited by LifeWise founder Joel Penton and officials who to school boards across the country. 

But some researchers say the report’s conclusions overstate the program’s benefits. Charles Riedesel, a computer scientist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, called the work “shoddy.” For one, it included the COVID year, a time when states changed how they tracked attendance because so many students were learning remotely.

‘Blows my mind’

Even though the legislation failed in Georgia, LifeWise still has programs in about six districts statewide, and church leaders are .

On a sunny Friday morning in October roughly an hour outside Atlanta, about 20 Cartersville Elementary fifth graders piled onto a LifeWise bus for a short drive to a local church. Ebby McCoy said she was missing a computer class, but likes how the LifeWise lessons “go a bit deeper” into the Bible than what she learns in church.

Former elementary school teacher Danielle Ruff energetically led the kids through a fast-paced lesson on the 10 plagues that the Bible says God inflicted on Egypt for keeping the Jews enslaved. As she spoke, students connected puzzle pieces linking the disasters in order — water turning to blood, frogs infesting homes and gnats “biting them like crazy,” Ruff said. 

“The next set of plagues only happen to the Egyptians. They don’t happen to the Israelites,” she said. “It blows my mind every time.”

Jason Morrow, a LifeWise board member, was among several volunteers on hand to help kids locate Bible verses. He called the program a “touchpoint during the week” that teaches his daughter, one of the fifth graders, that faith is “not just a Sunday weekend thing.” 

But Clay Willis, who works at the church hosting the program, said LifeWise leaders try to respect the school’s boundaries. For one, they don’t hand out candy. 

“If we sugar them up, that’s not the best way to serve the teachers,” he said. 

‘It’s insulting’

Supporters of LifeWise and similar programs point to a 1952 Supreme Court decision, , that legalized the practice. But the fact that these programs pull kids out of school during the day offers critics their leading argument. During a meeting last fall, Amber Skinner, a board member in the Worthington, Ohio, district, near Columbus, said checking students in and out of school for their LifeWise session is disruptive and eats up staff time. 

“Teachers who are funded with taxpayer dollars” spend time providing a lot of “hands-on assistance” to elementary students who need help signing themselves out, she said. 

The classes, usually held once or twice a week, often coincide with non-core offerings like art and music. Some educators think students are losing out on important material. 

Alan Limke, a retired STEM teacher from the Milton Union district, outside Dayton, kept a list of the lessons that students missed every Tuesday when they left for LifeWise. They included simple circuits, building and launching foam rockets and 3-D modeling. Leading up to the 2024 solar eclipse, when Milton was in the path of totality, he planned a month of activities, including a visit from a mobile planetarium. 

“It’s insulting,” said Limke, who grew up Catholic, but now considers himself an atheist. “I work very hard to come up with lessons that are rigorous and fun and important.”

While LifeWise requires parent permission, specific procedures vary by district, according to Czernejewski, the organization’s spokeswoman. In Ayersville, Ohio, the district Geren’s children attend, the initial permission form remains in effect year to year unless a parent requests a withdrawal. That seems wrong to Nick Sullivan, whose oldest daughter wanted to stop attending after fifth grade. 

“You’ve got to send in a paper stating that you do not want your kid to attend LifeWise or they’re going to automatically enroll them,” Sullivan said. He thinks schools should require the permission slips annually, just like other paperwork. 

Sullivan withheld his daughter’s name to protect her privacy. Now an eighth grader, she told The 74 she found the LifeWise lessons repetitive and said the instructors “would give us a full bag of candy” for reciting Bible verses. 

“I was supposed to be in study hall and they kept on sending me whether I liked it or not,” she said.

‘Crossing the line’

Experiences like those contribute to the growing opposition to LifeWise. The , formed in 2023, keeps a lookout for incidents where they think school officials inappropriately promote the program or allow LifeWise too much access. They’ve found school officials who tout LifeWise in newsletters or post photos on social media with the group’s leaders. Other examples they’ve gathered since 2023 include:

• Continental Elementary in northwest Ohio shared a video of a LifeWise representative on its Facebook page in 2022. The woman displayed baked goods students could choose from if they attended a LifeWise fundraiser. “We have yummy brownies, cookies with M&M’s,” she said. “It’s just so beautiful.” The district did not respond to questions about the video. 

• The Culver district in Indiana, west of Fort Wayne, held a LifeWise-related assembly during school hours last year that caught the attention of attorneys at the Freedom from Religion Foundation. The organization, which advocates for church-state separation, reminded Superintendent Karen Shuman of the district’s policy stating that “no solicitation for attendance at religious instruction shall be permitted on [district] premises.”
  
  In an email to The 74, Shuman said the district is “not conducting Lifewise programs” and that she had “no idea” what the assembly was about. 

• The Supreme Court said religious instruction during the school day should be held off school grounds. The Elmwood Local Schools, south of Toledo, rents space to LifeWise near a school. Superintendent Tony Borton said the lease “has not been an issue in our community.” But last year, he warned against mentioning LifeWise during high school announcements after someone complained, according to an email the Secular Education Association obtained through a public records request. “We are crossing the line with these type things,” Borton wrote. “I am trying to reign in [sic], with the hope we can do more later when we are not under the radar.”

A 74 analysis of data from GovSpend, a company that tracks government purchases, turned up a few additional examples of expenditures that could raise questions. In 2022, Ohio’s Franklin Monroe school district paid , a basketball spinning performer, $800 for a “LifeWise assembly.” A LifeWise representative, initiated the event, according to district emails. The district did not respond to questions about it. 

Another Ohio district, River View, cut a check for $2,000 to LifeWise earlier this year. The funds came from community members donating to the organization, but were improperly routed through the district, said district Treasurer Kara Kimes.

“I’d like to get these funds cleaned up ASAP as donations that are directly for Lifewise shouldn’t be flowing through the district,” she wrote to another staff member in an email The 74 obtained through a public records request.

Czernejewski, the LifeWise spokeswoman, said the organization does not advise local school districts, but that its “role is to operate in compliance with applicable laws.” She added that she was unaware of school officials promoting the program, noting that LifeWise can submit announcements to district newsletters, just like other community organizations.

‘Develop good relationships’

Off-site religious studies during the school day date back to the early 1900s when the offered “seminary” classes to students in Granite, Utah. 

Around the same time, a Gary, Indiana, an off-site religious studies program, and the concept began to grow across the country.

One of the longest-running examples is , based in South Carolina, the first state to allow districts to award elective credit for such programs. Like the lawmaker in Georgia, Executive Director Ken Breivik said the classes allow parents who can’t afford private school “to get some sort of religious experience.” But he thinks forcing districts to release students can spark a “visceral reaction” from school leaders and prefers not to talk much about LifeWise.

“We are just a different organization. We have never done a school board presentation,” he said. He will ask districts to allow a small pilot program before spreading to multiple schools. “We work really hard to develop good relationships with the schools we serve.”

In January, Penton, LifeWise’s founder, joined a to discuss an unlikely competitor in , outside Columbus: Hellion Academy for Independent Learning, or HAIL. The Satanic Temple sponsors the program as an alternative to Christian groups meeting during the school day. The organizers’ intent, Penton said, is “to rattle people” and get districts to stop releasing students for any religious instruction.

HAIL, which focuses on secular humanism rather than Satan worship, began as parent Susannah Plumb’s response to her kids’ classmates leaving school for , a Pennsylvania program.

“It’s not in-your-face proselytization, but little kids don’t understand. They see Johnny get on the bus once a week … and go on a field trip,” Plumb said. “My kids felt left behind.”

HAIL meets at a nearby library, where the kids conduct science experiments, launch community service projects and paint “kindness stones” to place in a local park at the end of the year. But she said the program wouldn’t exist if Joy El, LifeWise and others didn’t.

“I believe in the separation of church and state, but I also believe in plurality,” she said. “When there’s one, there needs to be another.”

He began opening monthly board meetings with a Christian prayer, released a about protecting children from transgender students, and at odds with his agenda. The next two and a half years were marked by a steady stream of edicts, incendiary statements and disruptions that included , funding delays and conflicts with .

“Every seven days you could expect something coming. It was almost like clockwork,” said Robert Franklin, a former associate superintendent of Tulsa Tech, a district that offers career and technical education programs. 

As Walters leaves his post as state superintendent to head the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a national anti-union organization, Oklahomans say his turbulent administration offered a preview of the Trump administration’s “” approach to overhauling education. Despite about educators “closest to the child” knowing what’s best in the classroom, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, like Walters, has embraced an aggressive, top-down approach that frequently targets teachers for an assortment of perceived ills, from equity policies to protecting the rights of LGBTQ students.

In February, an Oklahoma City called his state a “testing ground for Project 2025,” the conservative Heritage Foundation’s 920-page strategy document that federal agencies are closely following. In the same way Walters welcomed like David Barton and Dennis Prager to influence a rewrite of the state’s social studies standards, the Trump administration has assembled dozens of conservative leaders and organizations to shape a for the nation’s 250th birthday.

In both cases, improving schools took a backseat to a singular — some might say, relentless — focus on the culture war. Walters’ grip on the state’s schools was “a microcosm of what we’re now facing at the federal level,” said the Rev. Shannon Fleck, executive director of Faithful America, an online community that seeks to counteract Christian nationalism. 

In Oklahoma, where she led an interfaith network, educators grew fearful for their jobs as Walters teamed up with , who created , to monitor teachers’ social media. In Washington, McMahon laid off 1,300 staffers and officials told districts nationwide that they would lose federal funds if they didn’t eliminate programs aimed at closing racial achievement gaps. 

To some right-leaning groups, Walters was a champion for parental rights whose “courage” deserves respect. “He showed that it’s possible to push back against the machine,” a supporter on Facebook. 

In part due to his use of to get himself on conservative media, Walters’ actions drew attention far outside his state. But the visibility also made him fodder for . Stephen Colbert called out the Oklahoma chief’s mandate that every classroom have a Bible and teachers incorporate scriptures into their lessons.

“Our kids have to understand the role the Bible played in influencing American history,” Walters said in a video from behind his desk last year after spending on 500 Trump-endorsed Bibles for AP Government courses. “It’s very clear that the radical left has driven the Bible out of the classroom. We will not stop until we’ve brought the Bible back to every classroom in the state.”

For Oklahoma superintendents, the mandate was no joke. 

“Most of my colleagues across the state are in the front row at their local church every Sunday, and here’s this guy forcing the Bible on them,” said Craig McVay, who retired in 2022 as superintendent of the El Reno district, outside Oklahoma City, and is now for state superintendent. 

accused Walters of trying to local curriculum, noting that students were already allowed to bring their own Bibles to school. “Especially in the smaller communities of this state, it’s very difficult to stand up against Jesus, and that’s what he forced them to do.”

He largely failed.

Most districts have no plans to change current practices, while both the and the blocked Walters’ plan to purchase 55,000 Bibles.

Trump hasn’t conditioned federal funds on Bible reading in public schools, but the federal department is expected to issue new guidance on what he called “total protection” for . Some worry the administration will over other religions in violation of the First Amendment. 

‘Trumpier than Trump’

After Trump’s November victory, Walters created a special committee to help the state comply with the president’s education agenda. In a letter to parents, he called Trump “a fearless champion of efforts to eliminate the federal bureaucracy that has shut local communities and parents out of the decisions that impact their students’ educations.” Some speculated that Walters, who did not return calls or texts to comment for this article, was for a job in Trump’s cabinet, particularly the one the president ultimately gave to McMahon. 

His frequent social media posts continue to voice unwavering support for Trump on issues such as , , and even .

Leslie Finger, an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Texas, said she wondered if Walters’ strategy toward achieving “political prominence” was to be “Trumpier than Trump.” 

She pointed, for example, to Kari Lake, the former TV news anchor and Trump ally who that former President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020. She sued, unsuccessfully, to overturn a gubernatorial election she lost to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2022 and still denies she lost her in 2024.

But while Trump chose Lake to lead, and , the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which runs Voice of America, Walters never got the nod. To Derek Black, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina, that’s surprising.

“His brazenness seems to be a character trait the administration values, which begs the question of why he stayed in Oklahoma,” Black said. It’s “somewhat likely,” he added, that Walters “lacked the insider network to get a position high enough to suit him.”

Once Trump was re-elected, Walters advanced policies that seemed to stay one step ahead of his hero. He pushed through that expect students to “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results,” even though ruled there was no evidence that the Biden campaign “stole” the election. , the standards present the “full and true context of our nation’s founding and of the principles that made and continue to make America great and exceptional.” The Oklahoma Supreme Court the state from implementing them after parents, teachers and faith leaders sued, arguing the standards require teaching from the Bible. 

Over 1,300 miles away, the Trump administration is undergoing a similar overhaul of the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., to replace “ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” Exhibits, , focus too much on “how bad slavery was” and offer “nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

In line with Trump’s immigration policy, Walters to round up undocumented students at school and instructed districts to collect parents’ citizenship status when they enrolled their children. The state legislature opposed the plan.

The federal government has attempted to bar undocumented children from attending Head Start and issued that prohibits students, including those in high school, from receiving tuition assistance for career and technical education.

‘Christian patriot’

To Black, the law professor, Walters was “so far out of bounds” that he “cared even less about rules …than the current administration.”

He required teachers from New York and California, seeking to work in Oklahoma, to take a to screen out “woke” applicants — a move said would discourage efforts to recruit teachers. But as with Trump, his boundary pushing endeared him to Christian nationalists, who maintain a strong foothold in Oklahoma. One group, the Tulsa-based City Elders, considers Walters a “Christian patriot” who worked to advance their mission of “establishing the kingdom of God” on earth and infusing government with Christian principles.  

“This is a war for the souls of our kids,” Walters in 2022. “The brilliance of our founders and the acknowledgement of almighty God — that’s where our blessings come from. That’s where our rights came from … and the left wants us to take that out of schools.”

Last August, when GOP lawmakers called for investigations into Walters’ management of state education funds, members of the group school board meetings and were the first to sign up to speak. 

City Elders hosted him again at a gala in March, but , organized by groups that oppose Christian nationalism, gathered outside the Tulsa-area conference center. Some waved signs that said “Impeach Walters,” calling him a “danger” to education.

A month later, he came face-to-face with critics during a “town hall” event organized by the Turning Point USA chapter at Oklahoma State University, considered one of the colleges in the country. Co-founder Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated Sept 10 in Utah, founded the organization to mobilize college students around conservative ideas and encourage open debate.

But Walters couldn’t finish his sentences amid the angry chants about his and his following the death of a nonbinary student last year. He called Nex Benedict’s death, later determined to be a suicide, a tragedy. But he also used the moment to voice opposition to schools that allowed students to use facilities that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth. His administration, he said, would not “lie to students” about being able to change their gender. 

At the time, he was still a potential candidate for governor. In June, suggested that while Walters trailed frontrunner Attorney General Gentner Drummond by 27 percentage points, a path to the Republican nomination wasn’t impossible. Some question why a politician with Walters’ ambition would walk away for a new position with an uncertain future. He was also eligible to run again for state superintendent.

“It’s pretty rare for someone to resign [during] their first term in a position when they’ve got another one available,” , a civics and voting rights advocate, said on a �ճ�ܰ����岹��.��

While Walters and were once close, observers say the superintendent had no chance of getting the . They had a series of on issues ranging from Walters’ attempt to take over the Tulsa schools to his support for immigration raids at school. Walters’ allegiance to Trump may have worked against him, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor emeritus of education and political science at Teachers College, Columbia University. 

“There’s an odd lack of symmetry in the politics around Trump,” he said. “Crossing him is close to political suicide for Republicans, but trying to read from his script does not confer equal and proportionate success.”  

When McMahon visited the state in August, she a charter school tour with the governor’s office, not Walters — a move widely viewed as a political snub. 

In a farewell letter to parents, he counted eliminating “woke indoctrination” and teacher recruitment efforts among his accomplishments. He that 151 special education teachers, including 34 from out of state, would receive signing bonuses of $20,000. It was Kirk’s death, he r, that inspired him to take the job at the Teacher Freedom Alliance and that “national leaders” recruited him for the position.

“We have to have more people step up on the national stage to protect this country’s values,” he said. “We’ve got to get rid of the teachers unions.” 

In typical outsized fashion, Walters didn’t just pay his respects to Kirk. He mandated that schools hold a moment of silence on Sept. 16 at noon — at a time when students would be eating lunch or enjoying recess. 

He followed up with a declaration that all Oklahoma high schools would open a Turning Point USA club, even though leaves those decisions up to local school boards.

To Franklin, who took opposite sides with Walters on issues like Christian charter schools, the moment was telling. The former Tulsa Tech official said it underscored why Walters, despite the backing of right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation and Moms for Liberty, might struggle outside of Oklahoma.

As Walters assumes a new national position, Franklin said that unlike Kirk, the former chief never sparked a “groundswell of ‘Oh my God, we need to listen to this guy,’ ” Kirk’s organization had over 900 college chapters prior to his death and has since to establish thousands more. His campus appearances could draw thousands.

“The Charlie Kirk phenomenon only strikes every once in a while, and I don’t think Walters has that kind of following.”

But the staff, hoping to avoid debates over families’ religious beliefs, has chopped roughly 30 sections out of the curriculum, including a kindergarten lesson on the Golden Rule featuring Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and several excerpts about a Christian prayer the governor of Plymouth Colony said at the first Thanksgiving.  

The district’s elementary teachers “went through the materials looking for things that may be controversial,” said Superintendent Joe Craig. They didn’t feel those parts of the curriculum “were in line with what we wanted the lesson to focus on.” 

Fairfield’s process reflects the kind of that many districts have taken toward — the state-developed materials that prominently feature the Bible and Christianity. With feedback from 300 teachers, Fort Worth, the fifth largest district in the state, adopted the phonics portion of the curriculum, but turned down the units with religious material. Some districts ordered just a few books, likely for , while the Houston and Dallas districts opted to keep what they currently use.

Texas has spent roughly $100 million — and counting — to develop and promote its own reading curriculum. But some observers say they wouldn’t be surprised if districts aren’t rushing to pick it up, considering the State Board of Education approved it by a one-vote margin. 

“They may be reluctant to bring that same controversy into their districts, especially in communities with families of diverse religious backgrounds,” said Eve Myers, a consultant with Strive Public Policy Resources, a political consulting and lobbying firm that is tracking adoption of the program. “It’s potentially a distraction from their focus on the budget, student achievement, school safety and all the other pressing issues they must address.”

Texas has over 1,200 districts and about 600 charter schools with elementary grades. Of the state’s 20 largest districts, only Conroe, north of Houston, intends to use the program this fall. A shows that between May and late July, 144 districts and charters, mostly mid-sized or small, ordered the materials. 

State board members have asked for the total number of districts using Bluebonnet. “That’s the question we would all like to know,” said Pam Little, a board member who voted against the reading program last November.  

Other districts could be using the online version of the materials, but whether students would have actual books, and spend less time on screens, was a major debate last year during the board’s consideration of the program.

State leaders and conservative advocates say the religious content reflects a classical and appropriate way to teach literacy skills along with history and culture. Others like the emphasis on cursive writing and challenging vocabulary. In an interview with The 74 last year, State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath said a phonics-based curriculum that also builds students’ background knowledge can help the state recover from in reading skills due to the pandemic.

But the program sparked a statewide debate over whether political leaders are forcing Christianity into public schools. Bluebonnet makes its debut in the classroom at the same time schools will be required, under a new state law, to display the 10 Commandments. Gov. Greg Abbott also signed in June that allows districts to offer a daily, voluntary period of time to pray and read the Bible or other religious texts. Under a similar 2023 law, districts can hire chaplains to volunteer as counselors, but aren’t participating.  

“There is definitely a disconnect between the radical far right agenda … and what school boards who are accountable to local families and students are actually going to do,” said Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Interfaith Alliance, a national group that advocates for church-state separation. Texas, he said, is “taking away the rights of clergy and parents to lead religious instruction.”

‘Hard on the teacher’

In the 73,000-student Conroe school district, Dayren Carlisle, a curriculum director, said leaders picked Bluebonnet because teachers were previously working with a patchwork of materials. They often spent “arduous hours preparing for reading and writing instruction,” she told The 74 in an email. Bluebonnet provides a coherent set of lessons that meet state standards, she said.

But parent Christine Yates advocated against it. 

“I don’t think religious-based instruction belongs in any type of public school setting,” said Yates, whose children will be in second and fourth grade this fall. Her family doesn’t attend church and she’s concerned that the lessons dealing with faith are just “borrowing trouble.” 

Becky Sherrill, a former Conroe teacher, sympathizes with educators who will have to navigate parent’s requests to opt their children out of the lessons. It’s a right that many parents might be more likely to exercise this fall because of a June U.S. Supreme Court opinion in favor of religious families who want their children exempted from hearing stories with LGBTQ themes.

“It’s hard on the teacher. It’s already so hard at Christmas or even with birthdays,” Sherrill said, referring to Jehovah’s Witnesses she has had as students. “You can’t give some kids cupcakes because they don’t celebrate birthdays.”

She’s already homeschooling her middle school son and has pulled her daughter, a fifth grader, out of the district as well, largely because of Bluebonnet and the 10 Commandments law. 

At a May board meeting, Carlisle explained to the board how teachers will field requests from parents who want to opt their children out of the lessons. 

“If a parent were to complain about this… we would have to find a completely different text,” she said. 

But that didn’t sit well with Tiffany Baumann Nelson, one of three , who call themselves Mama Bears, elected in 2022.

“There is no religion in this curriculum,” she argued. “They’re all historical references, and so in my opinion, there should be no alternative or modifications.”

Whether districts are removing biblical material or parents are opting their children out of the lessons, Little, the state board member, worries students could miss literacy skills they are supposed to learn. 

“Say an East Asian religious parent has decided they don’t want their child to have [a Bible story]. Is that child going to miss skill development?” she asked. Accommodating parents’ requests will also be a burden on district staff. “What is the cost involved in the manpower time for these districts to go through and eliminate the religious content? There was no need for the controversy that the religious content is going to start.” 

‘Reviewed it and loved it’

The state board narrowly approved the new program last fall after the Texas Education Agency spent roughly $84 million to adapt an existing reading curriculum, from the company Amplify. Renamed Bluebonnet, after the state flower, the Texas version includes highlights of Jesus’ ministry and offers an evangelical view of early American history. Lessons for example, include the , an art history unit based on the creation story from Genesis and scriptural references to the motto on the . 

The agency, which would not provide a list of all districts that have ordered the program, paid multiple companies and content experts to craft and review the lessons, including the far-right Texas Public Policy Foundation. Hillsdale College, a Christian school in Michigan, volunteered to work on units related to America’s founding, and a Christian media company, co-founded by Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, contributed illustrations. But Texas officials refused to identify who wrote the biblical passages. 

In response to backlash, officials added more references to Islam and Hinduism and removed some texts that were offensive to Jews, but the final version still references Christianity more than other religions.

“We reviewed it and loved it,” said Cindi Castilla, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative organization. She pushed for state board approval of the curriculum last year, saying that there is “richness in biblical literature” and that Bible stories teach children character traits and the origins of the legal system. 

Since then, she examined the final version with retired educators who have experience teaching a classical curriculum and thinks it will strengthen students’ cursive and phonics skills. That’s why Gina Eubank wishes her grandchildren’s school districts — Katy, near Houston, and Belton, near Waco — had adopted the materials. 

“I watched … fourth- and sixth-grade honor students write a thank you note and was shocked by what I saw — the lack of legible handwriting and the horrific spelling,” she said.

‘Promote, market and advertise’

Districts on the fence about Bluebonnet can reconsider their decision next year. To make it more enticing, lawmakers added financial incentives — up to $60 per student for districts that use state-approved materials. That was likely one reason why the 27,000-student Lubbock schools adopted it, said Clinton Gill, a former math and science teacher in the district who now works for the Texas State Teachers Association.

At the same time, he thinks district leaders assume students will stand a better chance of performing well on the state test if officials match it up to a curriculum the state developed. Adopting Bluebonnet “also helps the district not have to hire staff to write curriculum when they get it from the state for free.”

The per-student bonus isn’t the only way the state aims to ensure Bluebonnet becomes the preferred choice. In December, the month after the board approved it, the Texas Education Agency quickly made Bluebonnet available to order. Materials from other publishers weren’t available until May.

“It seems that Bluebonnet Learning had an advantage,” Little told Morath, the commissioner, during . She said she heard complaints from publishers over the issue.

Morath called the delay a “one-time exacerbated problem” because the state had to add new language to contracts with publishers before making their materials available to districts. While the time lapse should be shorter next year, he said there would always be some gap.

In the current , lawmakers authorized Morath to contract with businesses to “promote, market and advertise” Bluebonnet. A provides $243 million to districts to help with implementation costs, like coaching for teachers. 

Last year’s budget included $10 million for regional education service centers to do similar work for districts adopting Bluebonnet. The centers are expected to for increasing the number of districts using the materials in their region to stay eligible for future funding. 

Some leaders in the state say that top-down pressure could alter the relationship the centers have traditionally had with school systems in their regions. They help districts, especially smaller ones with fewer central office staff, stay in compliance with state regulations or work on school improvement. 

The service centers have always been a “hub of knowledge,” said Martha Salazar-Zamora, superintendent of the Tomball Independent School District, north of Houston. Expecting districts to sell Bluebonnet, she said, “has been more of a strategic push.”

She doesn’t doubt that Bluebonnet will boost reading scores for some students, but Tomball is already rated a in the state’s accountability system.  Another reason why she didn’t consider the program is because a Spanish version is not yet available. Her district, where about 35% of students are , has a Spanish-English .

“I love anything that helps kids,” she said. “I just don’t think it’s the right tool for every district.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s top school board has advanced new academic standards that would require public schools to teach about the Bible and American patriotism.

Academic standards, which are reviewed every six years, set a mandatory list of topics schools must teach. Schools and teachers decide their own lesson plans for how to teach the required topics.

The Oklahoma State Board of Education voted 5-1 on Thursday to advance proposed standards for social studies and science to the state Legislature, which will review the standards before concluding its 2025 session in May.

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The suggested social studies regulations have attracted controversy because of the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s attempt to incorporate instruction on Christian beliefs into history, government and civics classes.

For example, schools would have to begin educating second graders about biblical stories and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth “that influenced the American colonists, founders and culture.” Instruction would continue in fifth and eighth grade on the Judeo-Christian values of the American colonists.

State Superintendent Ryan Walters, who leads the department and the state board, has ordered all school districts in the state to keep a copy of the Bible in every classroom and teach from it. His administration bought more than 500 copies to distribute to Advanced Placement government classes.

Walters has advocated for using the Bible as a resource to contextualize the beliefs of the country’s founding fathers.

“Oklahoma is putting the Bible and the historical impact of Christianity back in school,” Walters said when he first released a draft of the standards on Dec. 19. “We are demanding that our children learn the full and true context of our nation’s founding and of the principles that made and continue to make America great and exceptional.”

Walters didn’t comment on the biblical aspects of the standards during the meeting, and he chose not to speak with news media afterward.

His order mandating Bible instruction in public schools already faces a lawsuit, and the topic has become highly polarizing in the state.

The proposed standards also introduce more education on patriotism starting at an early age. Students would begin learning in pre-K the “ways that individuals can be patriotic.”

The science standards would add a new aeronautics section for high schools and additional expectations for age-appropriate engineering instruction.

The process of writing the standards mostly takes place with committees of teachers and experts on each subject. Walters made headlines when he announced he also would have weigh in on the social studies standards.

The of the state Board of Education added an unusual wrinkle to Thursday’s proceedings. One new board member, Ryan Deatherage, asked to postpone voting on the standards to next month’s meeting to allow him more time to review them.

The rest of the board, though, overruled him and chose not to delay the vote. Deatherage cast the only vote against approving the standards.

New member Mike Tinney, who said he is a former social studies teacher, complimented the work drafting committees put into developing the new standards.

“There’s a lot in there, and as I went through it, I think it’s a really balanced view of history (and) social studies,” Tinney said during the meeting.

The new members, though, objected to other decisions the board previously made. New appointee Chris Vandenhende called for a pause on administrative rules the board had approved last month that would .

Those rules have not taken effect and won’t unless the state Legislature and governor approve them. Gov. Kevin Stitt to conducting immigration checks in schools.

Stitt complained the state Board of Education has fallen victim to too much “political drama,” including the proposed immigration policy. He replaced three of the board members who voted in favor of it.

In their first meeting on the board, Vandenhende, Deatherage and Tinney called for the board members, not only Walters, to have the authority to place items on their meeting agendas.

The state superintendent, as chairperson of the board, has the legal authority to set the items the board will discuss.

“Part of the board’s responsibility is oversight of the Department of Education,” Vandenhende said during a tense exchange in the meeting. “If we don’t have the ability to add items to the agenda that we think are important to that oversight responsibility, we cannot perform that function.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.

While its effort to buy Bibles for classrooms is tied up in court, the Oklahoma Department of Education initiated a new vendor search to purchase materials containing Bible-infused character lessons for elementary-aged students.

The department is looking to buy supplemental instructional materials containing age-appropriate biblical content that demonstrates how biblical figures influenced the United States. Additionally, the materials must emphasize virtues, significant historical events, and key figures throughout Oklahoma history, according to bid documents published Friday.

The doesn’t specify how many copies the state wants to buy, only that the vendor must be willing to ship directly to districts.

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Like the Bibles the department sought in the fall, this request could be challenged under the state constitution, which prohibits public money from being spent for religious purposes.

“This RFP seems to be another constitutional violation,” said Alex Luchenitser, an attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and one of the attorneys representing Oklahomans in the Bible lawsuit.

“It seeks to inject the Bible into public school curricula, and only refers to the Bible and doesn’t refer to any other religious texts, so it’s clearly a move to push Christianity,” he said.

The Education Department wants the character materials to align with Oklahoma’s new social studies standards, which have been revised to contain more than 40 references to the Bible and Christianity, compared to two in the current version. But the proposed standards haven’t been approved.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is expected to present the standards to the Board of Education at its next meeting, scheduled for Thursday. It will be the first time the board meets since Gov. Kevin Stitt three members. If approved, the standards will move to the Legislature for consideration.

The standards review committee included several nationally prominent conservatives: Dennis Prager of PragerU, David Barton of the Christian Nationalist organization Wallbuilders, and the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts.

While standards guide what schools are to teach, school districts have sole authority to choose curriculum and books.

In November, the state abruptly a search to , an effort that attracted criticism for appearing to exclude all Bibles except an expensive version endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Walters vowed to reissue that request, but a coalition of parents, students, teachers and faith leaders asked the Oklahoma State Supreme Court to block the purchase and Walters’ mandate to teach the Bible.

The Office of Management and Enterprise Services, the state’s central purchasing agency, also wants to wait. It asked the court for an order allowing it to delay the new Bible request for proposals until the case is resolved. Two OMES employees are named in the lawsuit.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

One thing is clear from the stories that populate this year’s list: Many of America’s schools are still grappling with the academic struggles that followed the pandemic – as well as the end of federal relief funds, which expired this fall. Student enrollments have yet to recover and many districts are facing – or will soon face – tough decisions about closures.

Meanwhile, some educators are testing innovative ways of teaching math, reading and science, hoping to gain back some of the academic ground lost since the COVID shutdowns. Technology is also playing a pivotal role in this post-pandemic world, with communities weighing the impact of cellphones and artificial intelligence on student learning and mental health.

November’s election – which featured debates over school choice, Christianity in public schools and the fate of the Department of Education – also made headlines here at The 74. And, as calls for cracking down on immigration grew even louder, we dug deep into the hurdles facing immigrant students and schools. 

Here’s a roundup of our most memorable and impactful stories of the year:

Exclusive: Thousands of Schools at Risk of Closing Due to Enrollment Loss

By Linda Jacobson

Long before districts close schools, enrollment loss takes a toll on staff and families, from combined classes to the loss of afterschool programs. This exclusive analysis by Linda Jacobson, based on Brookings Institution research, found that more than 4,400 schools lost at least one-fifth of their students during the pandemic — more than double the number during the pre-COVID period. The detailed look shows how the crisis is playing out at the school level and which districts face tough decisions about closures and cuts. 

Unwelcome to America’: Hundreds of U.S. High Schools Wrongfully Refused Entry to Older, Immigrant Student

By Jo Napolitano

The 74’s 16-month-long undercover investigation of school enrollment practices for older immigrant students revealed rampant refusals of teens who had a legal right to attend, shutting a door critical to success in America. Senior reporter Jo Napolitano called 630 high schools in every state and D.C. to test whether they would enroll a 19-year-old Venezuelan newcomer who had limited English language skills and whose education was interrupted after ninth grade. “Hector Guerrero” was turned down more than 300 times, including 204 denials in the 35 states and D.C., where high school attendance goes up to at least age 20. The 74’s investigation revealed pervasive hostility and suspicion toward these students in a particularly xenophobic era and a deeply arbitrary process determining their access to K-12 education.

Interactive: Which School Districts Do the Best Job of Teaching Kids to Read?

By Chad Aldeman

It’s not news that low-income fourth graders are years behind their higher-income peers in reading. But poverty is not destiny, and some schools and districts hugely outperform expectations. Working with Eamonn Fitzmaurice, The 74’s art and technology director, contributor Chad Aldeman set out to find districts that are beating the odds and successfully teaching kids to read. From Steubenville City, Ohio, to Worcester County, Maryland, and across the country, click on their interactive map to find the highfliers in your state. 

Whistleblower: L.A. Schools’ Chatbot Misused Student Data as Tech Company Crumbled

by Mark Keierleber

In early June, a former top software engineer at ed tech startup, AllHere, warned Los Angeles district officials and others about student data privacy risks associated with the company’s AI chatbot “Ed.” The LA Unified School District had agreed to pay AllHere $6 million for the chatbot and the spring rollout of Ed was highly publicized, with L.A. schools chief Alberto Carvalho calling the chatbot’s student knowledge powers “unprecedented in American public education.” But, as Mark Keierleber reported, red flags soon began to emerge. The company financially imploded and its founder Joanna Smith-Griffin left the company. In November, federal prosecutors indicted her, accusing of defrauding investors of $10 million.

America’s Most Popular Autism Therapy May Not Work — and May Cause Serious Harms

by Beth Hawkins

Today, a child’s new autism diagnosis is frequently followed by a referral to a variation of an intervention called applied behavior analysis, or ABA, and four decades of pressure from parents and advocates has created a sprawling treatment industry. Yet, even as providers and lobbyists jockey to strengthen ABA’s dominance, autistic adults and researchers increasingly say there’s alarmingly little proof it’s effective — and mounting evidence it’s traumatizing. In an exclusive investigation, Beth Hawkins spoke with families, teachers and scholars about the growing controversy surrounding autism’s “gold standard” treatment. 

A Cautionary AI Tale: Why IBM’s Dazzling Watson Supercomputer Made a Lousy Tutor

by Greg Toppo

In 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer crushed Jeopardy! champions, raising hopes that it could help create a powerful tutoring system that would rival human teachers. But the visionary at the head of the effort watched as the project fizzled, the victim of AI’s inability to hold students’ attention. As new educational AI contenders like Khanmigo emerge, what lessons can they learn from the past? The 74’s Greg Toppo took a look at how IBM’s failed effort tempers today’s shiny AI promises.

State-by-State, How Segregation Legally Continues 7 Decades Post Brown v. Board

by Marianna McMurdock

Seventy years after the Supreme Court outlawed separating public school children by race, Marianna McMurdock sought to answer a pivotal question: How are some of the most coveted public schools in the U.S. able to legally exclude all but the most privileged families? Last spring, she spoke with researchers at the nonprofits Available to All and Bellwether, which published a report that examined the troubling laws, loopholes and trends that are undermining the legacy of Brown v. Board in each state. The researchers called for urgent legal reform to offset the impact that one’s home address has on enrollment, particularly as many districts have started considering closures.

Being ‘Bad at Math’ Is a Pervasive Concept. Can it Be Banished From Schools?

by Jo Napolitano

Are you bad at math? If you are, it’s likely that self-fulfilling seed got planted early. Many math education leaders are trying to uproot that thinking, arguing that any student can master the subject with the right accommodations and tutoring. Changing the bad-at-math mindset in U.S. schools, however, will not be easy, others warn. “We use math as a means to sort kids by who gets to be at the top and who gets to be at the bottom,” one math equity advocate told Jo Napolitano. 

Hope Rises in Pine Bluff: Saving Schools in America’s Fastest-Shrinking City

by The 74 Staff

Pine Bluff, Arkansas, earned the unwelcome distinction in the 2020 census of being America’s fastest-shrinking city, losing over 12% of its population in one decade. Amid this exodus of families, students and taxpayers, its school district had to navigate school closures, budget pressures and a state takeover. Throughout last winter, members of The 74’s newsroom embedded in Pine Bluff to report on the region’s trajectory. Here are some of the powerful stories they came back with: 

Kids, Screen Time & Despair: An Expert in the Economics of Happiness Echoes Psychologists’ Warnings About Tech

By Kevin Mahnken

A prominent economist has joined the growing chorus of experts warning against the dangers posed to youth mental health by screens and social media, reported Kevin Mahnken. New papers released by Dartmouth College professor Danny Blanchflower, a leading expert in the burgeoning field of happiness economics, suggest that the huge increase in screen time over the last decade has made the young more likely to despair than the middle-aged. 

Why Is a Grading System Touted as More Accurate, Equitable So Hard to Implement?

By Amanda Geduld

As educators push for more transparency in grading policies post-pandemic, some are turning to standards-based grading. When done correctly, it separates academic mastery from behavior and more accurately reflects what students know. But misunderstandings of the model, a lack of proper training, and a rush to adopt it often leads to messy implementation. Associate professor Laura Link told Amanda Geduld that as schools look to fix learning gaps, “standards-based grading is one that seems like it can be a quickly adopted effort. But it could backfire — and does backfire — very easily.”

Texas Seeks to Inject Bible Stories into Elementary School Reading Program

by Linda Jacobson

Last May, a sweeping redesign of Texas’ elementary school curriculum that used Bible stories to teach reading was unveiled. At the time, state education Commissioner Mike Morath described the changes as a shift toward a “classical model of education.” But the revisions raised questions about potential religious indoctrination and bias. Nevertheless, in November, the Texas Board of Education approved the new curriculum in a close vote. Linda Jacobson followed the story closely.

The Political War Over the Department of Education Is Only Beginning

By Kevin Mahnken 

Fresh from their November victories, Republicans are already working to help President-elect Donald Trump achieve his promise of abolishing the U.S. Department of Education. But research suggests that, while perceptions of the agency are mixed, the public is unlikely to back a sweeping course of elimination. “Saying you’ll get rid of it reads generically as being anti-education,” one political scientist told Kevin Mahnken. “That strikes me as a very heavy albatross to hang around your neck come the midterms.” 

18 Years, $2 Billion: Inside New Orleans’ Biggest School Recovery Effort in History

By Beth Hawkins

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed 110 New Orleans schools. Displaced families could not return until there were classrooms to welcome their kids, but no one had ever tried to rebuild an entire school system. While many of the buildings were moldering even before the storm, federal funds couldn’t be used to build something better. Some of the schools had landmark status and were of great historical significance. Eighteen years and $2 billion later, Beth Hawkins took a look at seven schools that illustrate how the district accomplished the task.

As Ryan Walters’ Right-Wing Star Rose, Critics Say Oklahoma Ed Dept. Fell Apart

By Linda Jacobson

Oklahoma state education chief Republican Ryan Walters has acted as a one-man publicity machine, a performance that’s earned him venomous foes and ardent fans who follow him with a near-religious fervor. But one casualty of his approach might be a functioning state education bureaucracy. Even Republican lawmakers have grown impatient, calling for a probe into how Walters handles state and federal funds. As Rep. Tammy West, a GOP incumbent running for re-election, told reporter Linda Jacobson, “Regardless of party, citizens want transparency, accountability and communication.”

AI ‘Companions’ Are Patient, Funny, Upbeat — and Probably Rewiring Kids Brains

By Greg Toppo

A college student relies on ChatGPT to help him make life decisions, including whether to break up with his girlfriend. Is this a future we feel good about? While AI bots and companions like ChatGPT, Replika and Snapchat’s MyAI, can offer support, comfort and advice, experts are beginning to warn of potential risks. The 74’s Greg Toppo talks to researchers and policy experts about what we should be doing to help make them safer.

Indiana Looks to Swiss Experts to Create Thousands of Student Apprenticeships

By Patrick O’Donnell

Indiana officials have turned to experts at the Swiss version of MIT for help in becoming a national career training leader by making apprenticeships available to thousands of high school students across the state. Indiana is the latest state to work with ETH Zurich — where Albert Einstein once studied — to develop ways to break down barriers between educators and businesses so that career training can be a large part of a reinvented high school experience, reported Patrick O’Donnell. 

Investigation: Nearly 1,000 Native Children Died in Federal Boarding Schools

By Marianna McMurdock 

Nearly 1,000 Native American children died while forced to attend government-affiliated boarding schools, according to a report published last summer by the Interior Department. The children are buried in 74 unmarked and marked graves, reported Marianna McMurdock, as tribes assess repatriation of remains. Nearly 19,000 children were estimated to be kidnapped, often at gunpoint, and enrolled in the schools with the aim of assimilation. “We [were] never called by our name, we were all called by our numbers,” said one survivor. 

The Nation’s Biggest Charter School System Is Under Fire in Los Angeles

By Ben Chapman 

The nation’s largest experiment with charter schools is no longer growing. These days, Los Angeles charter operators say they are just trying to survive. With tough new policies governing co-locations, falling enrollment, and a hostile district school board, charter leaders say they’ve never faced stronger headwinds, reported Ben Chapman. With enrollment plummeting across the district, some charter networks have recently announced closures while others have stopped submitting proposals for new campuses. “Now, particularly in L.A., our focus is not on growing,” said Joanna Belcher, chief impact officer for KIPP SoCal. 

Florida Students Seize on Parental Rights to Stop Educators from Hitting Kids

By Mark Keierleber 

Late last year, Florida senior Brooklynn Daniels was called to the principal’s office and spanked with a wooden paddle “that was thick like a chapter book.” Like in many enclaves that dot the Florida panhandle, Liberty County permits corporal punishment as a form of student discipline. But her flogging, the honors student said, went much further: She alleged sexual assault and filed a police report, reported Mark Keierleber. Daniels joined a student-led movement to change Florida law that has latched onto the GOP-led parental rights movement. 

Interactive: See How Student Achievement Gaps Are Growing in Your State

By Chad Aldeman

In 2012, then-President Barack Obama freed states from the accountability provisions of No Child Left Behind in exchange for reforms related to standards, assessments and teacher evaluations. That relaxing of school and district accountability pressures corresponded with a decline in student performance across the country that is still being felt — achievement gaps are growing across subjects and all across the country. To illustrate these alarming discrepancies, contributor Chad Aldeman and Eamonn Fitzmaurice, The 74’s art and technology director, created an interactive tool that enables you to see what’s happening with student performance in your state.

Left Powerless: Non-English–Speaking Parents Denied Vital Translation Services

by Amanda Geduld

Flouting federal laws, K-12 public schools routinely fail to provide qualified interpreters to non-English-speaking families. Parents must instead rely on Google translate, their own kid or a bilingual staff member who isn’t a trained interpreter for issues as simple as their child’s absence for a day or as complex and intimidating as a special education meeting or a school disciplinary hearing. The problem is pervasive and vastly underreported, experts told Amanda Geduld. School leaders say they are trying their best, but lack the money and staffing to meet the need. 

Failed West Virginia Microschool Fuels State Probe and Some Soul-Searching

By Linda Jacobson

The West Virginia treasurer’s investigation into a microschool, funded with education savings accounts, offers a glimpse into an emerging market that has mushroomed since the pandemic. When the program shut down after a few months, parents were left demanding their money back and scrambling to find other arrangements for their children. The example, experts say, shows that it takes more than good intentions to provide a quality education program. As one parent told Linda Jacobson, “I should have seen the red flags.”

In the Rush to Covid Recovery, Did We Forget About Our Youngest Learners?

by Lauren Camera

The country’s youngest elementary school students suffered steep academic setbacks in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic – just like students in older grades. But new research shows that they aren’t catching back up to pre-pandemic levels in reading and math the way older students are. And when it comes to math, many are falling even further behind. “We were shocked when we first saw the data,” Kristen Huff, vice president of assessment and research at Curriculum Associates, told Lauren Camera.

The vote was eight to seven, with one member recently appointed by Republican to fill a vacant seat breaking the tie. 

Those who decided to put the program on a list of approved curricula said they don’t think the lessons push Christianity.

“There’s a line between indoctrination or evangelism and education,” said Will Hickman, a Republican board member from Houston. “In my view, these stories are on the education side.”

But Democrat Staci Childs, who also represents the Houston area, pointed to Louisiana, where a a state law requiring public school classrooms to display the 10 Commandments, as a sign of the potential legal battles ahead.

That ruling is “closely aligned to what will happen if some kindergarten or first grade student’s parents were upset about what they were learning in class,” she said. 

The vote came after a day of public comments over the proper role of the Bible in curriculum at a time when evangelical Christians are gaining political strength. also see the incoming Trump administration as a chance to further advance their faith in the realms of education and public policy. Supporters of the state-developed curriculum, first unveiled in May, say it’s culturally relevant and presents Jesus and other biblical figures in their historical context. As an added incentive, the state will pay districts up to $60 per student to adopt the materials.

Critics, however, maintain that even with recent revisions, the lessons remain biased toward Christianity, are sometimes misleading and teach complex topics better suited for older children. Others warn that the materials overstep parents’ rights to make decisions about the role of religion in their kids’ lives. 

“All those controversies are gonna bubble up at the local level,” said Eve Myers, a consultant for HillCo Partners, a lobbying and government relations firm whose clients include publishers. Districts with , she said, would likely favor the program, called Bluebonnet Learning, “because it’s aligned with their values,” and those with diverse student populations would see resistance. 

Tuesday’s action was technically preliminary, but board members are not expected to change their positions before a final vote Friday. While Leslie Recine, appointed by Abbott just two-and-a-half weeks ago, had nothing to say during the board’s discussion, her vote proved crucial to the curriculum’s passage.

Democrat Aicha Davis, who expressed opposition to the curriculum earlier this year, vacated the seat Aug. 1 after winning election to the state House in the primary. Abbott could have appointed a replacement then, but waited until Nov. 1.

, also a Democrat, ran unopposed to fill Davis’ seat. She sought to have Secretary of State Jane Nelson, also an Abbott appointee, certify the results in time for her to join the board for Tuesday’s vote. But Nelson didn’t complete the process in time.

Clark, who will represent Dallas and starts in January, told The 74 that she should have cast the deciding vote and would have opted to remove Bluebonnet from the list.

“It’s disappointing that just days before the election, the governor chose to appoint someone else to serve temporarily in this seat,” she said. “It would have made a lot more sense to appoint the person who clearly was going to be elected by the voters in the district.” 

The governor’s office did not respond to questions about the appointment.

She attended the public hearing in Austin Monday, but didn’t get a chance to speak. The comments stretched over eight hours, with passionate arguments on either side.

Compared to a September public hearing on the program, when testimony was overwhelmingly negative, Monday’s statements were more evenly split between opponents and those who say the curriculum will bolster students’ reading skills and teach students the Bible’s important place in Western civilization.

The First Amendment “does not demand strict governmental neutrality towards religion,” Jonathan Covey, director of policy for Texas Values, said during his two minutes to speak to the board. “There is nothing the U.S. Supreme Court has laid down requiring equal time or equal treatment among religious sects.”

His group, which promotes biblical principles in public policy, recruited proponents of the curriculum to sign up to speak. Other , blowing a shofar and shouting “Hallelujah,” turned their demonstration outside the board’s chambers into a worship session. 

But critics called the program a politically motivated curriculum that would leave young children confused about complex matters of faith. Barbara Baruch, a member of the National Council of Jewish Women, San Antonio, urged board members to vote against the program by quoting from their biographies.

“Mr. [Tom]Maynard, you believe in a parent’s right to direct the education of their children. You also work very hard for your denomination. Please don’t let the government direct my children and grandchildren away from their denomination,” she said. “Ms. [Audrey] Young. I know you are married to a pastor. Ask him if he wants the government to teach religion to his congregants, starting at age 5.”

Both Young and Maynard voted to keep Bluebonnet on the list. Maynard, a retired teacher and minister, said he was impressed by what he’s observed in districts that have piloted some of the lessons.

But Evelyn Brooks, a Republican opposed to the program, said there’s not yet enough evidence that the lessons improve reading outcomes.

“We want children to learn how to read and write well and do math without experimenting on them,” she said. “They deserve that.” 

Over the summer, the state made numerous edits based on input from the public, correcting factual errors, adding a few more mentions of other world religions and removing content that some members of the public, especially Jewish parents, found offensive. But a third grade unit on Ancient Rome still includes a lengthy passage on Jesus’ life, ministry and the Resurrection. And lessons on the nation’s founding still emphasize the evangelism of the colonists more than the separation between church and state. 

Other critics Monday said the authors of the curriculum did a poor job of using biblical material to teach both history and language arts. 

“Lessons still make numerous claims that are erroneous, made-up or just plain strange,” Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, told the board. The state, he said. “contracted with people to write lessons about religion who did not know the material and did not treat it responsibly.”

While the state originally contracted with Amplify, a leading curriculum provider, for its Core Knowledge Language Arts program, it hired a variety of curriculum companies and subject matter experts to further revise the program. Two of them worked for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, which advocated for the program’s approval. The think tank also supports a 10 Commandments requirement for Texas classrooms, which failed in the legislature, but is a top priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick .

Brian Phillips, a spokesman for the foundation declined to comment until the final vote later this week. But in a foundation , former Gov. Rick Perry said he has high expectations of Bluebonnet. 

“Passing that curriculum will have every bit as positive [an] effect as what we did back in the early 2000s that took Texas from 28th in the nation to 2nd in the nation in high school graduation rates,” he said.

Because the biblical material — from the parable of the Prodigal Son to the Last Supper — is interwoven into larger language arts lessons, some said it might be hard for parents to request alternate lessons when they object to aspects of the curriculum.

“I do not think that many parents are aware of the nuances of these lessons,” said Kristi Giemza, a parent and advocate in the Lubbock district, which piloted the materials in a few schools. She expects the district to adopt it. “Because the state is dangling money in front of desperate districts, my guess is they are going to do what it takes to get funding.”

Espired, a partnership with Florida investor Brad Saft, sells right-leaning , from Fighting Indoctrination and The Truth about Climate Change to an updated guide on this year’s election, including the against President-elect Donald Trump.  Last week, Trump tapped Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who hosts a on a Christian network, to serve as .

But the company also sells , with animated Old and New Testament stories, like Noah’s ark and the Resurrection. The series features colorful illustrations drawn in the identical style as those in the Texas curriculum. A kindergarten lesson’s image of , for example, and two more on the are lifted wholesale from covers of the company’s books.

Saft, a Princeton graduate and , did not answer emails or messages on social media. Chad Gallagher, an eSpired spokesman and former Huckabee adviser, declined to provide more details on how the company contributed to the program, but called eSpired the “leading provider of curriculum to states searching for unbiased history” and “lessons that explain the literary and historical value of the Bible.”

Saft and Inspired by Education LLC, an alternate name for the company, were on a list of subcontractors for the curriculum that the Texas Education Agency shared with The 74 in May. Contacted earlier this month, officials did not respond to questions about how much the state paid eSpired or the degree of influence the company had over the lessons.

The connection to Huckabee’s business venture, also known as EverBright Media, comes as the State Board of Education is set to vote Monday on whether to add the program, called Bluebonnet Learning, to a list of approved reading programs. The state is heavily the program at a time when some districts are . The board’s blessing means districts would be eligible for extra funding — up to $60 per student —  if they adopt the program.

“Districts’ hands are tied because they are in desperate need of additional funding, yet the state of Texas is trying to force them to use this curriculum as the only way to get additional funding,” said Clinton Gill, a specialist with the Texas State Teachers Association and a former teacher in Lubbock, one of the districts that piloted an early version of the program. The state, he said, should involve teachers in developing the curriculum, “not some company with a political agenda.”

The curriculum has won praise from GOP leaders, classical education proponents and who want the Bible to be more prominent in public schools. But the first draft, unveiled in late May, drew sharp criticism from those who said the authors disregarded other religions and introduced topics of faith more appropriate for church and home.

The state has since corrected many factual errors, but the bias toward Christianity remains, according to several experts. Education Commissioner Mike Morath will need eight board members in favor of Bluebonnet for it to be added to the list, but the vote is expected to be tight. 

“This is one of the hardest votes I’ve ever had to make in 22 years on the State Board of Education. I have lost sleep over it,” said Republican Pat Hardy, who was defeated in this year’s election. This week’s series of meetings are her last on the board. “I’ve literally heard from hundreds of people on both sides.”

Last week, Texas Values, a nonprofit that promotes “biblical, Judeo-Christian values” in public policy, held a ” event to promote the curriculum in Allen, Texas, part of Board Member Evelyn Brooks’ Fort Worth-area district. She’s among the conservative Republicans opposed to the program, and has called for more transparency over who wrote the lessons. 

Officials won’t identify who wrote the biblical material. Because a contract for the work fell under a pandemic disaster declaration, the state waived typical requirements that would have shed light on what those companies did and how much they were paid. 

Mary Elizabeth Castle, government relations director at Texas Values, said the curriculum has been unfairly accused of teaching about faith “in a devotional way” and only educates students to “understand the hundreds of idioms that we use in everyday language that actually come from the Bible.” 

Texas Values also of the curriculum to speak at Monday’s public hearing before the vote.

But opponents see Bluebonnet as part of a GOP-led movement to steer public schools to the right — one that is expected to accelerate under the incoming Trump administration. More than 15,000 opponents of the Bible-themed lessons have signed , organized by Faithful America, an online network of Christians, with about 200,000 members nationwide. 

“We’re pushing back on the folks who are ignoring the teachings of Jesus because they are seeking political power for themselves,” said Karli Wallace Thompson, the group’s digital campaigns director. “There’s nothing in the Gospel that tells us we need to go out and force our neighbors to worship the way that we do.”

‘Sacred story’

The state made noticeable efforts to respond to many of the public’s concerns, according to biblical scholars who have reviewed the changes. Revisions in include a brief introduction to the prophet Muhammad, who was completely neglected originally, a chart displaying variations on the Golden Rule from six religions and a slightly shorter description of Jesus’s ministry.

But officials seemed to prioritize accuracy over making the curriculum more religiously balanced, said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University who has reviewed the newest version.

“Some of the many embarrassing gaffes and factual errors are now gone,” he said. 

The original first grade American Independence unit, for example, incorrectly described the Liberty Bell as a “symbol designed to celebrate our freedom from being controlled by the British and our freedom to pray,” even though it was cast before the revolution. Now the lesson reads: “Many people believe the Liberty Bell was designed to celebrate the traditions of religious freedom and self-government in the colony of Pennsylvania.”

The on Jesus’s life and early Christianity no longer says that Christians hid in the catacombs to worship, that scholars have debunked. The unit also excludes the miracle of the disciples’ overflowing fishing nets, reducing the lesson on Jesus from eight pages to seven. 

But it still cites Josephus, a first century historian, who reported that Jesus’ disciples said that he “appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive.” Biblical scholars largely , which they say was probably added by priests during the Middle Ages in an effort to prove that Jesus was the son of God. 

The state eliminated what Texas Jews said was an offensive activity in which students would play dice to mimic how Haman, a Persian functionary in the biblical story of Queen Esther, cast lots to decide when to kill the Jews.  

But while there is somewhat more attention to Judaism in the edited version, the bias toward Christianity is still “clear and indisputable,” Chancey said. 

If the board signs off on this version and districts adopt it, elementary school children “will learn the main contours of the Christian sacred story“ — from Creation to the work of the Apostle Paul, he said. “No other tradition gets similar treatment.”

Other modifications acknowledge that Christians have used their faith to justify discrimination and violence throughout history.  A fourth grade lesson originally titled “If You Were a Crusader” has been renamed “The Journey of a Crusader” and the fact that in addition to capturing Jerusalem from the Muslims, crusaders “were given permission to persecute and kill non-Christians.”

A fifth grade lesson now explains that Martin Luther King Jr. directed his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to clergymen who supported segregation. “It was unfortunately also true that many people of the time supported those laws, including Christians like these clergymen,” the text reads. Critics of the original version said glossing over that point gave students an inaccurate portrayal of the Civil Rights movement.

Critical examinations of some of Christianity’s darker chapters are a welcome addition to the curriculum, said David Brockman, a religious studies scholar at Rice University who has both versions. But a third grade lesson still says Spanish conquistadors’ merely “shared” their Christian faith with indigenous tribes and doesn’t delve into slavery, forced labor and other harsh methods used to convert them.

The updates don’t “correct the overall problem of soft pedaling Christian involvement with violence and oppression in the past,” he said.

Presenting students with America’s virtues as well as its faults was important to Steve Meeker, a retired middle school world geography teacher from the Montgomery Independent School District, north of Houston, who was hired to review earlier drafts of the curriculum. 

He provided feedback on a second grade unit that discusses how an evangelical religious movement called the Great Awakening  influenced the Founding Fathers’ views on slavery. The text quotes a letter in which Thomas Jefferson expressed that he “ardently” wanted to see slavery abolished. But while children would learn that George Washington made plans in his will to free his slaves, Meeker feels there’s still too little attention to the founders’ role as slave owners.

Jefferson might have wished for the end of slavery, but “he certainly didn’t act on it,” Meeker said. “He owned more than 600 slaves and is only recorded as having freed ten of them.”

Meeker, who also teaches a class at his church on the , appreciates the overall attention to familiarizing students with the Bible. Over his 42 years of teaching, he noticed that students were increasingly puzzled by everyday sayings like “my brother’s keeper” and the “handwriting is on the wall.” But he also noted that lessons about Jesus might make non-Christians uncomfortable. 

‘Exciting and engaging’

Some supporters of the state’s program are concerned that the intense debate over the biblical material has overshadowed other aspects of the curriculum, which, Morath says, is meant to improve students’ vocabulary and background knowledge. 

The state’s lessons will give students “great exposure” to Texas history with material that reinforces content from science and social studies, said Courtnie Bagley, education director at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. The state also hired her to work on lessons about geology and the state’s oil and gas industry.

“I could see how engaging and enjoyable it would be for a kid to read in second grade about the and Dolly Madison rescuing all the artifacts in the White House,” she said. “Those are exciting and engaging stories.”

The state, meanwhile, continues to expend vast resources to get the materials in teachers’ hands. According to grant documents, the agency is spending $50 million on printing and another $10 million to train districts how to implement the curriculum. That’s on top of the $103 million the state has already spent on the program. 

Work on the project began in 2020, when it paid Amplify, a leading curriculum provider, $19 million in federal relief funds for its program. Based on the work of educator E.D. Hirsch, the lessons teach basic reading skills as well as content from art, history and science.

But Morath viewed that purchase as just a starting point and began commissioning lessons, like the one on Queen Esther, based on the Bible.  

In 2022, the agency signed an $84 million contract with Boston-based Public Consulting Group, which includes a . That company then subcontracted with a mix of curriculum developers and experts to modify the program with more Texas-related content and Bible-based lessons.

Espired and Saft, Huckabee’s business partner, were among them. The company markets primarily to a homeschooling audience, with ads on and . But in the first months of the pandemic, the , under former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, paid $245,000 for its and distributed it to schools.

Gallagher declined to comment on whether the company has completed work for other state education agencies, but said, “ESpired has many clients for their curriculum development services because parents are generally not satisfied with much of the existing materials and curriculum that has traditionally been available.”

Learn Our History, another series of eSpired guides, “helps kids learn all about American history from a positive, patriotic and faith-based standpoint,” Huckabee said in a . Like the Texas program, it emphasizes the role of in the nation’s founding.

The company, however, also has some , with several complaints to the about recurring charges for products that parents said they never purchased or guides they never received.

“I’m a pretty savvy consumer who doesn’t usually get bamboozled by the fine print,” parent Shannon Ashley after ordering the company’s COVID guide. “I knew I never actually gave them permission to regularly charge my card, and they never actually threw that fine print in there.”

An advisory board member for the , which seeks to pass legislation based on “biblical principles,” Huckabee has who argue the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. His 2020 book, , warns of the “dangers of corruption advocated by liberal politicians.”

Before serving as governor from 1996 to 2007, Huckabee was a pastor in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He ran for president in 2008, but has also led tour groups to Israel, where “I have been visiting since 1973 when I was a teenager,” he . Huckabee, who there is “no such thing as a West Bank” and has expressed for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would lead efforts to bring an end to the war in Gaza, Trump said in a .

‘Rules of the game’ 

Texas’ move to write its own curriculum has also left traditional publishers, like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Savvas, wondering how competing against a state agency will affect their business — and whether districts will drop their materials in favor of a program that comes with strong financial incentives.

“Publishers have always sought after the Texas market because obviously it’s very large, with over 5 million students,” said Eve Myers, a consultant for HillCo Partners, a lobbying and government relations firm whose clients include publishers. “The biggest question is, ‘What are the rules of the game now?’ ”

Curriculum companies also frequently make their authors available to districts to train teachers and explain the research behind their product, Meyers said. 

But so far, the state has refused to identify the authors who transformed Amplify’s program into Bluebonnet. And even with the recent edits, some board members, like Brooks, say it’s too soon to know if it will improve students’ reading performance. In a , she blamed “grassroots leaders who say ‘You have a Bible story in the curriculum, so it must be good.’ ” 

“There’s no time to say how effective it is,” she said. “It’s being rewritten and revised in real time.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — A new office within the Oklahoma State Department of Education will promote expressions of religion and patriotism in public schools.

The head of the agency, state Superintendent Ryan Walters, announced Tuesday he established the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism. He said the new division will align with incoming President Donald Trump’s aim of protecting prayer in schools.

The office will investigate alleged abuses against religious freedom and patriotic displays, according to a news release from the Education Department.

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Walters cited a September 2023 incident in which a from a classroom at the urging of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which contended it was unconstitutional for a public school to allow religious displays. At the time, Walters said the removal was “unacceptable.”

The that students and public school employees are permitted to pray on school grounds, but school employees cannot lead students in prayer or other religious activities while doing their jobs. The Court in public schools, finding it a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of government-established religion.

Walters said public schools have been “ground zero” for erosion of religious liberty. While calling church-state separation a “myth,” he , sought to and advocated for opening a in the state.

“It is no coincidence that the dismantling of faith and family values in public schools directly correlates with declining academic outcomes in our public schools,” Walters said in a statement Tuesday. “In Oklahoma, we are reversing this negative trend and, working with the incoming Trump Administration, we are going to aggressively pursue education policies that will improve academic outcomes and give our children a better future.”

A group of 32 parents, students, teachers and faith leaders from Oklahoma to block Walters’ Bible education mandate and to stop the use of state funds to buy Bibles. The plaintiffs are represented by multiple national legal groups, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

“Superintendent Ryan Walters cannot be allowed to employ the machinery of the state to indoctrinate Oklahoma’s students in his religion,” foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said last month. “Thankfully, Oklahoma law protects families and taxpayers from his unconstitutional scheme to force public schools to adopt his preferred holy book.”

Since the Nov. 5 election, Walters has been paving the way in the state Education Department for major policy changes from the next Trump administration, including the potential closure of the U.S. Department of Education. Trump has proposed eliminating the federal agency and sending education funds in block grants to states.

Among other policy goals, Trump has advocated for more patriotic education and giving parents a greater role in the public school system, including in the hiring and firing of principals.

Walters said Monday he is convening an advisory committee of Oklahoma education leaders and policymakers to implement the Trump education agenda.

The state superintendent similarly has supported pro-America education and patriotic displays. He invited right-wing policy advocates and conservative media personalities, most of whom live out of state, to help .

In August, Walters issued guidelines instructing all districts to develop a policy for displaying the U.S. flag. He did so while criticizing Edmond Public Schools, which had asked a high school student to remove an American flag from his truck.

The Edmond district did so because it had an existing policy prohibiting students from bringing flags of any kind to school. The district displays the American flag in front of every school and in each classroom, it said in a statement.

Walters quickly took aim at Edmond, saying “no Oklahoma school should tell students they can’t wave the American flag.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

A Louisiana law that will require schools to place displays of the Ten Commandments in every classroom is “coercive” and “unconstitutional,” according to the federal judge who issued an order Tuesday that stops the law from taking effect Jan. 1.

Nine families have sued the state, arguing the new law amounts to the state endorsing a religion and conflicts with the First Amendment.

Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill, who is defending the law that GOP Gov. Jeff Landry signed, maintains the Ten Commandments have historic standing as a foundational document for U.S. law.

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“We strongly disagree with the court’s decision and will immediately appeal,” Murrill said in a statement sent through her spokesman.

In a social media later in the day, the attorney general noted the ruling applies only to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the four parish school boards that are named defendants in the lawsuit.

“School boards are independently elected, local political subdivisions in Louisiana,” Murrill wrote. “Only five school boards are defendants, therefore the judge only has jurisdiction over those five. This is far from over.”

The new law requires 11-by-14-inch displays along with an accompanying “context statement” that explains the commandments’ role in education. It applies to any school that accepts state money, including colleges and universities. The schools are not compelled to spend money on the posters though they can accept donated materials.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, a federal court appointee of President Barack Obama to Louisiana’s Middle District Court in Baton Rouge, said in his that the plaintiffs would more than likely prevail in their case. He wrote that the law amounts to coercion because families must ensure their minor children attend school.

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The American Civil Liberties Union, which is among the organizations representing the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a victory for religious freedom.” The plaintiffs include non-Christian and nonreligious families.

“This ruling will ensure that Louisiana families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide if, when and how their children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, another group representing the plaintiffs. “It should send a strong message to Christian Nationalists across the country that they cannot impose their beliefs on our nation’s public school children. Not on our watch.”

Defendants in the case include Louisiana K-12 Superintendent Cade Brumley, members of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the school boards from East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Tammany and Vernon parishes.

The plaintiffs argue Louisiana’s law violates the long-standing precedent from Stone v. Graham, a 1980 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a similar statute in Kentucky.

Landry welcomed a legal challenge of the new law before he signed it, predicting the Supreme Court would uphold the measure. He and other conservatives have been buoyed by a 2022 ruling from justices in favor of a high school football coach in Washington state who was fired after praying at midfield after games and allowing students to join him. After the 6-3 decision in Bremerton v. Kennedy, the coach was rehired at the school.

“I cannot wait to be sued,” the governor said at a June fundraiser for Republicans in Tennessee.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on and .

Over the last several months, The 74 has taken a look at some of the biggest education issues at play during the 2024 election cycle. Here’s an overview of the federal, state and local races and ballot measures that are poised to impact students, teachers and families the most. 

The White House 

In the first presidential debate of this election season between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, the candidates were asked a question that was top of mind for parents and child advocates:

“In your second term, what would you do to make child care more affordable?” asked Trump during that June debate. 

But rather than focus on children, many critics said the two candidates behaved like them.

Even after Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in as the Democratic party’s presidential nominee and tapped Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a former public high school teacher, as her pick for the vice presidential candidate – education and child care still did not make it to the center stage of election season conversations.

Instead, most clues about Trump’s education policy have come from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, an ambitious Republican agenda to transform the federal bureaucracy under a second Trump presidency. While Trump has denied any involvement in the creation of Project 2025, experts say the plan reflects many of the ideologies held by the former president and, if enacted, would have considerable fallout in the world of education. 

Project 2025’s chapter on education, for example, offers prescriptions for eliminating Title I grants to high-poverty schools, revising accreditation requirements under the Higher Education Act and dismantling the Department of Education, among other things. Overall, the plan seeks to reimagine the US government as a guardian of parents’ rights and supports school choice. 

Publicly, Trump has also said that he would pull funding from any schools that teach critical race theory or support transgender rights. 

Meanwhile, Harris has not offered much in terms of her education policy. She has made it clear that she thinks Trump’s plan to eliminate the Department of Education would be a terrible idea and has criticized his attacks on curricula taught in schools.

One item that could be on the table during a Harris presidency is a pay hike for teachers. Few may remember it now, but Harris took the biggest swing on education policy of any Democrat in the 2020 presidential primary: a $315 billion to raise teacher pay and overhaul the profession. The American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second largest teachers union, was the first group to voice their support of Harris as a presidential candidate this summer. 

While the two candidates have vastly different aims when it comes to education, there is one area both camps seem to (mostly) agree on: Expanding the Child Tax Credit. Both the Harris and Trump campaigns have embraced proposals to expand the program, which offers relief to parents of kids under 17 years old. Depending on the election outcome, neither party may hold enough power to enact its vision, however. 

National Issues

Bible teachings in public schools: Republicans have spent a lot of energy getting the Bible into public schools. Much of the spotlight has been on Oklahoma state Superintendent Ryan Walters, who mandated that schools stock classrooms with Bibles. Louisiana passed a law requiring schools to post the 10 Commandments in classrooms, the subject of , while the Texas Education Agency has proposed a Bible-infused reading curriculum that includes stories from the Old and New testaments. 

Whether those ideas will resonate with Christian voters is harder to answer. One recent poll suggests it won’t. On a long list of concerns influencing churchgoers’ views in this election, public schools ranked near the bottom as a reason why they would pick a presidential candidate. Instead, the economy and border security topped the list. 

School boards: Moms for Liberty, the conservative advocacy group, hasn’t been able to repeat its success at the polls since 2022, when its school board candidates were scoring victories across the country. Some say voters are clearly tired of what one researcher called the “politics of disruption.” Others believe the group’s leaders are more focused on adding members and mobilizing voters for Trump than winning local races. There have also been efforts to recruit moderates to run against conservative candidates like those from Moms for Liberty. 

A good indicator of who will win school board seats is whether the candidate has the endorsement of a teachers’ union. According to research out of Ohio State University and Boston College, a union endorsement increases support for candidates by as much as 20 percentage points among various voting blocs, with the effects particularly concentrated among Democrats and those who favor organized labor. Almost no group, including Republicans, responds negatively to the endorsements, the authors found.

School choice: A high-stakes political battle is brewing around school choice. GOP groups are funneling millions of dollars into state races to defeat critics of education savings accounts. In Texas, observers say, the victories by pro-ESA candidates could lead to a more conservative legislature or a potential Democratic backlash. 

It’s worth noting that voters have a history of rejecting private school choice measures at the ballot box. Recent voucher proposals garnered less than a . But advocates in three states are hoping to break that trend on Election Day. In , voters will decide whether to preserve or overturn 2023 legislation that created a private school scholarship program. Initiatives in and , if approved, could pave the way for lawmakers to create vouchers or education savings accounts in the future.

State and local races and ballot measures 

Arizona: The outcome of Arizona’s legislative races could upend what has been one of America’s most welcoming environments for school choice. Democrats, who already hold the governorship, could take control of both legislative chambers by flipping just four seats, which would make Arizona voters the first in the nation to hand over governance of an ESA program to its opponents. 

California: A single, heated school board race in Los Angeles could help decide the fate of the nation’s largest charter school sector and the LA Unified School District. Upstart vows to bring a pro-charter voice to LA Unified’s board, but faces stiff opposition from union-backed incumbent . 

Delaware: With at least eight high-level reports over the last 25 years calling for a wholesale overhaul of a Jim Crow-era school funding formula that gives more state aid to wealthy districts and shortchanges disadvantaged kids, whoever wins Delaware’s governor race will have their work cut out for them. 

Illinois: October was already destined to be a tumultuous chapter in Chicago politics, as voters prepared for the first school board elections in the city’s history. But the abrupt resignation of the city’s existing school board, and the related crisis of governance over the country’s fourth-largest school system, has magnified local divisions over finance and the role of the powerhouse Chicago Teachers Union. Now locals are wondering if the mayor can keep the district solvent — and his own administration afloat. 

Indiana: In Indiana’s governor race, GOP U.S. Senator Mike Braun, who’s been endorsed by Donald Trump, wants to expand the state’s school choice voucher program. If elected, Braun and his running mate, far-right , have pledged universal school choice for every Indiana family while focusing on parental rights and school safety. His opponent, former state schools chief Jennifer McCormick, who has the backing of the state teachers union, seeks to expand affordable child care, fight what she believes is excessive state-mandated testing and call for an equitable school funding formula. 

Massachusetts: In Massachusetts, Ballot Question 2 asks voters to decide if the MCAS exam should remain a high school graduation requirement. If it passes, Massachusetts would have no statewide graduation requirements, making it an outlier nationally. Instead, its some 300 districts would determine requirements locally. Those in favor of repealing the requirement — largely backed by the state teachers union — argue it narrows curriculum and harms students with disabilities and English language learners. Those who want to keep the test, including Gov. Maura Healey, say it’s an important accountability measure. 

Minnesota: If Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are elected in November, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan, will become the first Indigenous woman governor in U.S. history. The daughter of a Hubert H. Humphrey campaign strategist and an Ojibwe land-rights activist — Flanagan was the youngest person elected to the Minneapolis School Board. She has promoted free school lunch and Indigenous curriculum.

North Carolina: North Carolina’s race for governor has been marked by scandal. In September, that Republican nominee Mark Robinson called himself a “Black Nazi” and posted “slavery is not bad” anonymously on a porn site. Beyond the controversies, Robinson has kept education debates centered on eradicating the presence of “politics” and “indoctrination” in schools, and . His challenger, Democratic candidate Josh Stein, told that his top priority as governor would be to improve public education. He has also supported to address the youth mental health crisis, and wants to expand access to community colleges and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Whoever is elected as the state’s leader will appoint individuals for , subject to confirmation by the assembly. 

Another pivotal race in North Carolina will be for superintendent. Republican candidate Michele Morrow, a homeschooler who rallied outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6, has a history of disparaging public schools with choice words like “indoctrination centers.” She faces Democrat Maurice “Mo” Green, a lawyer and former district superintendent. Whoever wins will be responsible for more than 2,700 schools and a $13 billion education budget. 

Rhode Island: Providence, Rhode Island’s school board has been appointed by the mayor for decades, but voters will be able to pick board members again this election. The catch is that state control of the district was just extended to 2027, limiting what the new board can do. New members will still have to navigate their way out of state control as well as handle challenges with low test scores, falling enrollments, school closures and demand for more charter schools. 

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OKLAHOMA CITY — A group of Oklahoma parents, students, teachers and faith leaders have asked the state Supreme Court to block a and keep a copy of it in classrooms.

Thirty-two plaintiffs filed on Thursday, contending the mandate violates the Oklahoma Constitution’s ban of state-established religion. They asked the justices to deem the requirements unenforceable and stop the use of taxpayer funds to buy Bibles.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education is to place in public school classrooms. State Superintendent Ryan Walters ordered public schools to incorporate more instruction on the Bible, particularly in fifth through 12th grade history courses.

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Walters has said his aim is for schools to teach the historical and literary importance of the Bible, not to proselytize.

“It is not possible for our students to understand American history and culture without understanding the Biblical principles from which they came, so I am proud to bring back the Bible to every classroom in Oklahoma,” Walters said in a statement Thursday.

The plaintiffs and their attorneys contend Walters is wrongfully prioritizing his own Christian faith over other beliefs.

Several school districts have said they have no plans to add more instruction on the Bible other than what the Oklahoma Academic Standards already require. The state standards don’t mention the Bible by name, but they mandate districts to teach about major world religions and the role of religion in the founding of American colonies.

Walters, the Oklahoma State Board of Education and officials from the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, which oversees procurement for the state government, are listed as defendants in the lawsuit.

All 32 plaintiffs are Oklahoma residents of various faiths or no religion. They each objected to the state using their tax dollars to purchase Bibles.

They contend the Education Department failed to follow state requirements for purchasing and rulemaking when implementing the Bible order. Neither the agency nor the state Legislature have changed the state academic standards to justify it, the plaintiffs said.

Most said they have children attending public schools and feared school-based Bible instruction would interfere with the religious or moral teachings they apply at home.

One family reported their child had to take a quiz at a public school about God and Biblical lessons, which they said made the non-religious student “feel marginalized and unwelcome at school.”

The Rev. Mitch Randall, a Baptist pastor from Cleveland County, urged the Supreme Court to strike down the Bible mandate and uphold the separation of church and state — a legal concept Walters has called a myth.

“As a Christian, I’m appalled by the use of the Bible — a sacred text — for Superintendent Walters’ political grandstanding,” Randall said in a statement.

Oklahoma City pastor the Rev. Lori Walke also is a plaintiff. Walke, of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ, said the state violates religious freedoms when requiring schools to teach one particular religious text.

“The government has no business weighing in on such theological decisions,” Walke said in a statement.

Attorneys from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice are representing the plaintiffs.

Walke and most of the legal organizations involved in the case have sued the state of Oklahoma before on religious liberty grounds. They filed a lawsuit last year hoping to block the opening of the nation’s first Catholic charter school in Oklahoma.

The after Attorney General Gentner Drummond argued against the concept of a publicly funded religious school.

ACLU of Oklahoma executive director Tamya Cox-Touré said church-state separation is a “bedrock” of the nation’s founding principles.

“All families and students should feel welcome in our public schools and we must protect the individual right of students and families to choose their own faith or no faith at all,” Cox-Touré said in an announcement of Thursday’s court challenge.

Walters referred to the legal organizations involved in the case as “out-of-state, radical leftists who hate the principles our nation was founded upon.”

“I will never back down to the woke mob, no matter what tactic they use to try to intimidate Oklahomans,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma State Department of Education’s request for bids from Bible suppliers, which many speculated would result in the purchase of Bibles affiliated with former president Donald Trump, has been changed at the urging of another state agency.

The Education Department’s original request for 55,000 King James Version Bibles to place in Oklahoma classrooms would have accepted only products bound in leather or a leather-like material that also contain the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution. 

The agency announced Tuesday it amended its request for proposal, called an RFP, to allow the extra documents to be bound separately from the Bible when provided to schools. The new RFP also adds “price” to the evaluation criteria.

The Office of Management and Enterprise Services, which oversees RFPs and state contracts, requested the changes. The Education Department and its head, state Superintendent Ryan Walters, said they are “pleased to make” the amendments. OMES did not return a request for comment.

Reporting by found few Bibles would have met the original RFP requirements, but two products matched the criteria — both of which are Bibles endorsed by the Trump family.

Trump has earned a name, image and likeness fee for his endorsement of Lee Greenwood’s $60 God Bless the USA Bible. A similar $90 product, called the We the People Bible, has been endorsed by Donald Trump Jr.

Walters has endorsed the former president for reelection. 

He ordered all public school districts in Oklahoma to keep a copy of the Bible in classrooms as a historical reference and to incorporate the Christian text into their lesson plans, especially for history courses.

Walters said the bid process wasn’t targeted at any particular vendor. Doing so would be illegal.

“There are numerous Bible vendors in this country that have the capacity to fulfill this request,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “The purpose of the RFP process is to find a vendor that can provide the product we need, of reasonable quality, at the best value. There are numerous state employees engaged and committed to a process to determine who that best vendor will be, and I have no involvement in that process, as it should be.”

Vendors have until Oct. 21 to submit bids under the amended RFP. The winning bidder will be awarded a one-year contract to ship 55,000 copies of the Bible to Oklahoma schools two weeks after receiving the contract.

Walters said his agency set aside $3 million to pay for the Bibles and from the state Legislature next year. A spokesperson for Walters said the agency is using money saved from administrative and personnel costs. Rep. Mark McBride greets state Superintendent Ryan Walters before a House education budget hearing Jan. 10 at the state Capitol. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, about whether the Education Department can move funds from one budget category to another without legislative approval. McBride, who leads a House committee on education funding, also asked whether this expense would require approval from OMES and the governor’s secretary of education.

The amended RFP requests the extra founding documents to be bound in durable material when provided separately from the Bible. The Bible is not allowed to contain study guides nor additional commentary, according to the RFP documents.

“My number one goal is to ensure that our classrooms have copies of the Bible so that it can be utilized as an appropriate tool to properly and accurately teach Oklahoma students of its important influence in the history of our country and its secular value. Period,” Walters said.

However, several district leaders have said they have no plans to incorporate the Bible into their school curricula beyond what is required in Oklahoma Academic Standards.

The academic standards already mandate that schools teach about world religions and the role of religion in the establishment of American colonial governments. Oklahoma law allows districts to decide how they teach state standards.

A school-focused law firm in Oklahoma City, The Center for Education Law, predicted Walters’ Bible mandate is “likely” to end up in court. A coalition of civil rights organizations, including church-state separation advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, has requested public records explaining the $3 million budget and the Bible mandate.

“Diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase Bibles is nothing more than a blatant attempt to divide Oklahomans along religious lines and undermine the public-school system,” said Dan Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

During several hours of public testimony before the State Board of Education, multiple speakers noted negative or inaccurate representations of Judaism and a lack of attention to contemporary Jewish life or Americans. 

Sharyn Vane, one of the speakers who addressed the board, called the new program, branded as Bluebonnet Learning, “wildly problematic in its depictions of Jews and Judaism.” She referred to a second grade lesson on Queen Esther in which Haman, an official of the Persian king, cast lots to decide when to kill the Jews. The lesson includes students playing a game of dice. “This is shocking, offensive and just plain wrong. Do we ask elementary schoolers to pretend to be Hitler?”

Another speaker pointed to how fourth graders are asked to highlight positive aspects of the Crusades.

“We were being murdered en masse,” Emily Bourgeois, public affairs director for Shalom Austin, said about the persecution of Jews during the Middle Ages. “There’s not really a whole lot of benefit to that.” 

The public’s comments, while more critical than favorable, demonstrated the intense pressure on board members to either tone down the emphasis on the Bible, add more references to other world religions or accept the proposed curriculum as is. The Texas Education Agency, which developed it, now has until Oct. 14 to complete any revisions before the board votes in November on a final list of approved materials. Groups opposed to the biblical content have urged the board to reject lessons that they say come close to proselytizing. But conservative organizations, , have encouraged their networks in recent weeks to bombard members with emails calling for approval of the state-developed materials with no changes. 

​​”The Bible is the single most impactful piece of literature. It is the single biggest influence on the formation of Western civilization,” Aaron Harris, a who has been to the materials, said during the hearing. “Any denial of that fact is just silly.”

Some board members seem to have already made up their minds. In her , Audrey Young, a Republican whose district includes Houston, said not including the Bible in the curriculum will “continue to severely limit [students’] opportunity for academic success.”

“Separation of church and state as a legal concept does not mean the two realms never interact,” she wrote. “It only means that one does not control the other.”

Julie Pickren, a conservative Republican board member — who often posts Bible verses on social media — defended the Bluebonnet Learning curriculum throughout the meeting, saying she’s received 12,000 emails in favor of the program, but just a “minuscule” number opposed.  

‘Y’all must have done something right,” she told Colin Dempsey, a director at the agency that has managed the review process.

Others, however, are still probing for information on who influenced the development of the curriculum, which was adapted from Core Knowledge Language Arts, a widely used reading program published by Amplify. At least twice, Board Member Pam Little, also a Republican, asked whether the agency engaged a religious committee to provide input on the lessons. 

The state has posted a list of the members of the But a spokesman for the agency said he was unaware of a separate group of faith leaders who were involved in the process.

One group involved in the development of the materials — and now — is the , a right-leaning organization. Two experts with the foundation, Thomas Lindsay and Courtnie Bagley, worked as “subject matter experts” on the lessons. Lindsay was also on the advisory board. The group’s involvement has spurred some critics to raise questions about whether improving reading scores is the primary objective of the new curriculum.

“Gov. Greg Abbott’s education commissioner is outsourcing the education of a generation of Texas school children to people more interested in pushing political agendas than in educating kids,” Carisa Lopez, deputy director of the Texas Freedom Network, said during a press conference Tuesday. “That should be alarming to all parents regardless of their religious or political beliefs.”

Last month, the watchdog group, which monitors far-right movements, issued on the curriculum, saying the authors present Christian beliefs as “straightforwardly true.” Author David Brockman, a religious studies scholar at Rice University, cited, for example, a third grade lesson on Christianity that states, “In the years that followed, many heard about the resurrection of Jesus.” 

“Students may well gain the impression that the Resurrection was a historical event — a faith claim a public school curriculum has no business conveying,” Brockman wrote.

State officials, meanwhile, have already accepted many of the corrections submitted by the public, according to now posted on the agency’s website. Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, submitted dozens of corrections. The state revised, for example, a line that said the word “genesis” originated with the first book of the Bible. But they made no changes to the statement: “God gave King Solomon wisdom on all things.” Chancey commented that the wording promotes “a particular religious belief.”

‘A position of authority’

Bluebonnet Learning, which will be optional for districts to use, is just one of 142 programs in reading and math publishers submitted to the board. The fact that Tuesday’s speakers exclusively spoke about Bluebonnet highlights the intense controversy the Bible-infused curriculum has ignited since late May when the agency released it. 

Expecting the polarizing comments, Board Chair Aaron Kinsey asked Austin Kinghorn, a deputy state attorney general, to weigh in on the constitutionality of the curriculum. Kinghorn asserted, as most supporters of the curriculum have, that it’s permissible to teach about religion in public school and that the Bible played a pivotal role in American history. But if lessons amount to proselytizing, he said, they would violate the First Amendment. 

Multiple times, he noted the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in , in which the court upheld a high school coach’s right to pray in public at football games, as the most recent legal test of whether references to religion in school cross the line. Coercion, he said “doesn’t exist nearly as often” as some perceive.

But other legal experts said the Kennedy decision doesn’t necessarily answer the questions raised by the Texas curriculum, or similar actions in other GOP-led states. In Oklahoma, state Superintendent Ryan Walters has that teachers use the Bible in instruction, and in Louisiana, a new law requires the 10 Commandments posted in all classrooms. 

“The entire premise of the Kennedy ruling is that the coach was not acting from a position of authority, but was acting solely in his private capacity and that those who joined him in his private prayer did so voluntarily,“ said Derek Black, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina. Schools can “expose students to portions of the Bible as an example of literature or religious text, as long as it is in the context of exposure to lots of other historical literature. But they cannot teach the Bible as religion or truths that someone should or should not follow.”

‘World religions’

High-level debates over what children learn are nothing new in Texas. 

About a decade ago, the state of an online curriculum system, called CSCOPE, after conservatives complained it was anti-American. The majority of districts in the state used the materials, but some critics didn’t like that lessons introduced students to other world religions, like Islam. 

A similar controversy derailed plans in 2022 to adopt a new . Republican lawmakers argued the material would violate the state’s law against teaching “critical race theory” because it included lessons on race and LGBTQ issues, among other topics.

For reading, the state spent $19 million in 2020 to purchase the Amplify program. At the time, the state rejected two of the units Amplify submitted that covered the world’s major religions. As The 74 first reported, the state asked Amplify to add some stories from the Bible, like the one on Queen Esther. The company wrote a draft, but it ultimately bowed out and didn’t bid on the next phase of the project

In 2022, the state contracted with Boston-based Public Consulting Group to further revise the Amplify lessons. Notes from an April 2022 “project kick-off meeting,” which the Texas Education Agency shared with The 74, show officials planned to “bring world religions back in.” Another notation said a second grade unit on , which focuses on mythology, would be a “form of teaching other religion.”

The proposed materials, however, include sparse mentions of Islam and Hinduism while predominantly featuring stories and passages from the Bible. And religions like Sikhism aren’t mentioned at all.

That lack of representation “takes away the opportunity for students to develop a genuine understanding of practices and perspectives outside their own,” Upneet Kaur, senior education manager for , told the board. “Sikh students know the devastating impact of this all too well.”

But Carole Haynes, one of the nearly 250 reviewers the state hired to examine the proposed materials, wrote in a that countries where other religions are dominant are unlikely to “allow Christianity to be included in their school curriculum.”

“It’s so important that we have children read these biblical stories,” wrote Haynes, who is a curriculum consultant. She mentioned a kindergarten lesson on the that highlights Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. “It wasn’t politicization. It wasn’t teaching them Christianity. It was teaching them moral character. That’s where our kids are deficient.” 

Many also can’t read on grade level. Roughly half of Texas’s elementary school students are proficient, and this year’s show declines in the percentages of third and fifth graders meeting expectations. Fourth graders made a 3 percentage point gain. 

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has said Bluebonnet Learning will improve students’ vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. His presentations for lawmakers point to reading gains in districts that have piloted some earlier versions of the lessons. 

But Board Member Tom Maynard, a Republican, said overall, results from those districts have been “spotty.”

While the public’s comments during Tuesday’s hearing overwhelmingly focused on the religious aspects of the program, there was also ample discussion over whether the program follows the research on teaching students to read. Dempsey, the agency official managing the review process, said the “product scored very well” among the reviewers, who examined whether it covers state standards and is considered “suitable” for classrooms.

“I think the big question is,” Maynard said, ‘Does it work?’ ”

And because of the pandemic, they say they don’t have to. 

A state official told The 74 that the work — an $84 million contract the state signed in March 2022 — falls under a Gov. Greg Abbott issued to speed up delivery of masks, vaccines and other critical supplies during the height of the pandemic. That means the paper trail that typically follows people who contract with the state, including work and payment reports, doesn’t exist in this case, the official said. 

Some members of the state board of education, which will vote on the curriculum in November, are accusing education Commissioner Mike Morath and his staff of a lack of transparency.

“I did not get a lot of my questions answered when it came to who wrote the curriculum,” said Evelyn Brooks, a Republican board member whose district includes the Fort Worth suburbs. She’s one of at least three members who asked officials at the Texas Education Agency for more details. “It’s hard and it shouldn’t be. Someone knows this information.” 

Morath said the overhaul will bring classical education to over 2 million K-5 students in Texas. The model is designed to strengthen kids’ reading skills while also teaching them culture, art and history, including the Bible’s influence. Interviewed in early May, the commissioner would only say that “hundreds of people” worked on the project.

But that doesn’t satisfy board members who say the curriculum borders on proselytizing and promotes a distinctly evangelical view of American history.

A teacher’s guide for a third-grade lesson on ancient Rome, for example, devotes eight pages to the life and ministry of Jesus — presenting many of the events as historical facts, scholars say. But the Islamic prophet Muhammad isn’t named anywhere. A kindergarten lesson on “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” draws parallels to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. And an art appreciation lesson walks 5-year-olds through the creation story from the Book of Genesis.

“Who are the people that sat down in this fancy room and said this is the knowledge that every Texas student should have?” asked Staci Childs, a Democrat who represents the Houston area. She said she understands teaching the importance of religion in American history, but thinks the balance is off. “I just don’t think that it’s fair to have that many biblical references in the text in public schools across the state.” 

The comments come a day before a Friday deadline for the public to or suggest corrections to the curriculum.

Texas won’t force districts to use the materials, but is offering up to $60 per student — a total of $540 million — to any that adopt the program. That’s an incentive many are unlikely to turn down at a time school systems are and calling for to offset them. 

The controversy is occurring against the backdrop of GOP support for teaching the Bible in several states, including Texas’s neighbors. A new Louisiana law requires schools to hang the 10 Commandments in classrooms, while Oklahoma state Superintendent Ryan Walters is that educators use the Bible for instruction.

But no state has invested as much time and money as Texas in connecting its curriculum to Judeo-Christian messages.

As The 74 first reported in May, Morath signed a contract for K-5 reading and K-12 math materials with the Boston-based Public Consulting Group. In turn, the organization subcontracted with curriculum writers and experts, including officials at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation and .

At Hillsdale, Kathleen O’Toole, who leads work with charter schools affiliated with the Christian college, said her team only “offered resources on a few units having to do with early American history.” The college performed the work for free, she said.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation declined to comment on its role. 

The contract Morath signed with the Public Consulting Group requires the company to submit monthly progress reports “documenting all subcontractor payments.” But when The 74 requested the documents in June under the state’s , Sherry Mansell, a coordinator in the general counsel’s office, said the state dropped the requirement because of the governor’s pandemic emergency order. The absence of those spending reports “understandably could cause some confusion,” Mansell wrote in an email. In a follow-up, she said the agency is “ensuring we receive the goods and services as specified in our contract.”

The Public Consulting Group did not respond to phone calls or emails. 

When Mansell said no reports were available, The 74 asked an education agency spokesman to identify who wrote the new lessons and how much they were paid.

He didn’t respond until asked again Tuesday night. This time, he replied “absolutely” when asked if the public had a right to know the information and emailed a series of zip files containing over 100 pages of Public Consulting Group invoices for the past three years. None of them contained details about the religious lessons’ authorship. Reached again Wednesday, the spokesman declined to address the matter further.

‘Political considerations’

If board members are expected to approve the materials in November, Brooks said, they should know who wrote them.

She isn’t the only Republican on the board with reservations. Pat Hardy, a longtime GOP board member, said the state developed the new materials to placate the far-right wing of the party, which has pushed hard in recent years to expand Christianity’s presence in public schools. 

“They’re going to appeal to the Christian nationalists with their Bible stories. They’re just trying to gather votes,” said Hardy, who to a candidate who accused her of not being conservative enough. Nonetheless, she’ll remain in office for the vote on the curriculum in November. 

The Republican members’ views could hold sway on a board where they retain 10 of the 15 seats. Morath needs at least eight members to vote yes on the proposed curriculum for it to pass. 

Other Republicans on the board were less outspoken. Tom Maynard, whose district includes Austin, said there are “definite positives” in the curriculum as well as some needed “cleanup,” but didn’t offer specifics. Keven Ellis and L.J. Francis said they would save their comments until after a September meeting when the board will review the materials.

Questions about who wrote the biblical lessons are especially salient “when the curriculum is so shocking,” Democratic Rep. James Talarico, a seminary student and former teacher, told The 74. Talarico has been critical of the materials’ minimal attention to other world religions.

At a House education committee hearing Monday, he grilled Morath about whether “political considerations” influenced the overhaul. Talarico specifically named , vice chair of the board of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and an oil magnate who has donated millions of dollars to conservative candidates — from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to running for the state legislature. 

“Is the Texas Public Policy Foundation an expert in curriculum design?” Talarico asked the commissioner. He also noted that the state unveiled the material four days after the Texas GOP adopted calling for required Bible instruction in public schools. “Are those two related?” he asked.

Morath dismissed the suggestion. The agency sought expertise from a “pretty broad swath of individuals,” he said. Those included experts in Texas history, which figures prominently in the curriculum. Lessons with engaging stories, including from ancient texts like the Bible, can improve students’ vocabulary and comprehension skills, he told the lawmakers. He shared data from Lubbock, one of the districts that piloted early versions of the curriculum, where the percentage of third graders meeting expectations increased from 36% in 2019 to 47% this year. 

But Talarico questioned whether teachers are adequately trained to respond to student’s questions about religious topics raised in the curriculum like the Resurrection of Jesus and the Eucharist.

“When you’re talking about faith and you’re talking about theology, you’re working with fire,” he said. “These are serious topics. To me, this seems not only reckless, it seems that it could do great harm to students, whether they’re Christian or not.”

Republicans on the committee said their constituents have been “craving” such lessons. 

Rep. Matt Schaefer rejected Talarico’s concerns that students of other faiths might feel left out. Other major world religions, like Islam and Hinduism, he said, “did not have an equal impact on the founding belief systems of our country.” 

Biblical experts who have analyzed the new lessons, however, find inaccuracies and say some of the material is misleading. 

The Texas Freedom Network, which describes itself as a “watchdog for monitoring far-right issues,” released an of the curriculum Thursday, saying several lessons give students a distorted view of history.

The authors of the curriculum “smuggled” in lengthy passages on Christianity when a sentence or two would have been sufficient, David R. Brockman, a religious studies scholar at Rice University and the report’s lead author, said in an interview. He pointed, for example, to a reading from the Book of Matthew on the Last Supper as part of a fifth grade study of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting.

“I really wanted to keep an open mind,” he said, adding that the emphasis on the Bible makes sense when teaching students about Western civilization, but doesn’t help them learn to live in a diverse society. “Are they looking purely backward or are they looking forward? Texas students are not going to be living in 1787.”

Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he submitted over 80 comments to the state. Some focus on a second grade lesson about , which talks about her faith in God, prayer and protecting the Jewish people’s freedom to worship.

The curriculum authors edited biblical material “to their liking to make it more religious,” he said. “The Book of Esther never mentions God, prayer or worship — not even once.” 

His analysis of at least four other lessons that include Bible verses showed the authors exclusively relied on the New International Version of the text, a he called a “distinctively evangelical translation” that was “made by evangelical scholars for evangelical Christians.”

A spokesman for the education agency did not address specific criticisms but said officials would examine potential inaccuracies revealed in the comments.

‘Will it teach students to read?’

Pam Little, another Republican board member, said her constituents are split “about 50-50” over the significance of the biblical material. Some conservative parents, she said, are upset “because they don’t feel like public schools are the place to teach Christianity.”

But others, she said, are more concerned with whether the lessons will improve student performance. This year’s elementary test scores show there’s still a long way to go. The results were , with declines in third and fifth grade and an increase in fourth. 

The real question is “Will it teach students to read?” Little said. “For some reason, we seem to be having problems in Texas with that.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — New guidance from Oklahoma City Public Schools regarding a state mandate to teach the Bible requires teachers to reference the text’s historical and literary aspects only in the “specific instances” that state academic standards allow.

In issuing the guidance on Wednesday, Superintendent Jamie Polk also advised teachers to document detailed lesson plans and not to stray from district-approved curriculum materials.

The Bible must “not be used for preaching or indoctrination,” and Oklahoma City schools, the state’s second largest district, must maintain “absolute neutrality and objectivity” when referencing it, Polk said.

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“Our goal is to provide a balanced, objective approach that respects diverse beliefs by adhering to both state requirements and federal laws and regulations,” she said in a memo to teachers, who returned to work this week.

Last month, state Superintendent Ryan Walters starting in the 2024-25 school year.

His mandate also includes a provision that all classrooms keep a copy of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Walters’ order aims to add extra guidelines to the state academic standards, which are a lengthy list of topics and concepts that Oklahoma public schools must teach.

The Bible is not mentioned in the existing standards for social studies, English language arts, fine arts or music — the subject areas Walters identified for Bible instruction. However, the social studies standards require schools to teach about major world religions and the role of religion in the establishment of some American colonial governments.

Walters’ guidelines seek a much deeper exploration of the Bible, including analysis of biblical passages, instruction on its influence in Western civilization and American history, and references to it in literature and fine arts.

“To ensure our students are equipped to understand and contextualize our nation, its culture, and its founding, every student in Oklahoma will be taught the Bible in its historical, cultural, and literary context,” Walters said in a statement on the mandate.

The order quickly became controversial over concerns for church-state separation and local control of school curriculum. Leaders of multiple school districts have since said their districts won’t implement more instruction on the Bible outside of what state standards already require.

Polk said her guidance is meant to give legal cover to teachers in case one of them faces a complaint.

“We have to protect teachers, and when this came out, one of the first things we did was we rallied together as a team, and I had the curriculum department at the table and I had the legal department at the table,” Polk said in an interview with Oklahoma Voice. “I asked the legal team, ‘If one of our teachers got in trouble because of the Bible, what would you need to defend them?’”

Documenting lesson plans, including the way teachers present the information to students, will be “essential,” she said.

The Center for Education Law, an Oklahoma City law firm that provides legal counsel to OKCPS, raised doubts over the viability of Walters’ Bible mandate. Any attempt by the state to direct how Oklahoma schools teach academic standards would infringe on local district authority and is “invalid under Oklahoma law,” the law firm wrote in a letter to schools.

Polk’s statement to teachers on Wednesday also referenced another, similarly polarizing announcement from Walters asking schools to provide a cost analysis of educating undocumented students. Walters said his administration would release guidance on the matter in the coming weeks.

Families don’t have to provide information on their immigration status to enroll their children in public schools. The Oklahoma City district doesn’t ask for these details, and Polk said it doesn’t plan to start doing so.

The recent orders created a tricky start this summer to Polk’s tenure as Oklahoma City’s superintendent, but after 36 years in education, she said she knows “there’s always something” that will stir debate.

She said she still aims to maintain a working relationship with the state Education Department to ensure students “receive what they need in order for them to have a diploma in one hand and a plan in the other as they walk across the stage.”

“The topics change, but there’s always conflict,” Polk said while looking back on the national controversies that erupted over past decades. “But as Americans, how do we navigate problems?

“How do we come to the table then and let me hear your voice so I can accept your viewpoint, but you too then get to hear my voice?”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters issued guidelines Wednesday for how teachers should include the Bible in public school curriculum that include requiring analysis of biblical stories and art.

And amid a growing swell of pushback from districts, he warned there would be consequences for school districts that don’t comply.

Grade-level specific guidelines apply to students in fifth through 12th grades. They require students to analyze literary elements of biblical stories and to identify how those have impacted Western culture. For high school students, it entails assigned essays on the Bible’s role in literature, history and culture. Pieces of art and music inspired by the Bible are also required to be taught.

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Every classroom must also have a physical copy of the Bible, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Ten Commandments.

“The Bible is indispensable in understanding the development of Western civilization and American history,” Walters said in a statement. “To ensure our students are equipped to understand and contextualize our nation, its culture, and its founding, every student in Oklahoma will be taught the Bible in its historical, cultural, and literary context. As we implement these standards, our schools will maintain open communication with parents to make sure they are fully informed and full partners in their kids’ education.”

Walters the inclusion of the Bible in state curriculum during a June State Board of Education meeting, but Wednesday was the first time his agency announced specific guidelines regarding their inclusion.

In the weeks since Walters’ announcement, some of the state’s have said they will not comply.

Following the announcement, Rick Cobb, superintendent of Midwest City-Del City Public Schools, said in a statement that it is not appropriate to mandate the Bible to be in classrooms or instruction.

“The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled this summer that selection of instructional materials is a matter of local control,” Cobb said. “I hope that remains the law and continues to be our practice.”

Walters said he will ensure all districts comply.

“Some Oklahoma educators have indicated they won’t follow the law and Oklahoma standards, so let me be clear: they will comply, and I will use every means to make sure of it,” he said.

Mixed reaction and questions about legality

The new guidelines drew mixed reactions.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of state-church watchdog group Freedom From Religion Foundation, said the guidelines are unconstitutional.

“It’s just absurd,” Gaylor said. “And he’s just signaling as fast as he can, as loud as he can, that he expects schools to brainwash children in the Christian religion.”

While the group is working with a coalition of other organizations to determine a plan of action, Gaylor said they are taking time to digest the material.

Gaylor said it would be appropriate for a properly trained teacher to offer an optional class to high school students on the Bible.

“But what he’s saying is every single teacher is to be given a Bible, and that’s just simply unconstitutional,” Gaylor said. “What about giving every teacher the Quran? What about giving every teacher Richard Dawkins’ blockbuster book, ‘The God Delusion’?”

Chuck Stetson, CEO of the NewYork-based Bible Literacy Project, said he commends the guidelines and wishes they would be implemented in every public school nationwide.

“This is educational instructions [to] the public schools, and it’s perfectly legal, and it’s what kids need to know,” Stetson said.

The organization provides textbooks on the Bible’s literature and influence. Stetson said the guidelines have similarities to the organization’s textbooks.

Not including the Bible in public schools disadvantages students, he said.

“For example, in Shakespeare, there are over 1,200 biblical references in the 38 plays of Shakespeare,” Stetson said. “My contention is that if you don’t know the Bible, you can’t possibly know Shakespeare and what he’s talking about.”

Stetson said the Bible is the “most-read literary book in the world,” and students miss out on literary and historical context when the Bible is not taught.

However, Stetson said he was unsure how the additions to curriculum could be implemented in lower grade levels.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s top education official on Thursday ordered all public schools in the state to incorporate the Bible into their curriculum as a historical text.

State said he wants the Bible kept and taught in every Oklahoma classroom, particularly how it is referenced in America’s history and founding documents.

“We’re going to be looking at the Mayflower Compact (and) other of those foundational documents to point to and say, listen, here’s conceptually what the founders believed,” Walters said while speaking with news reporters on Thursday.

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State academic standards for social studies already require schools to teach students about the impact of religion on U.S. society and government.

The academic standards are a lengthy list of topics Oklahoma public schools must teach. Local school districts are allowed the freedom to decide their own curriculum, or how they teach the standards.

Walters’ announcement drew quick opposition from Democratic lawmakers and groups advocating for separation of church and state.

The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the order would further marginalize religious minorities in public schools and violate religious freedom. The Muslim civil rights organization has advocated against adding specific religious teachings to the classroom.

“Although we and the American Muslim community recognize the important historical and religious significance of the Bible, forcing teachers to use it and only it in their curriculum is inappropriate and unconstitutional,” said Adam Soltani, director of the Oklahoma chapter. “We adamantly oppose any requirements that religion be forcefully taught or required as a part of lesson plans in public schools, in Oklahoma, or anywhere else in the country.”

State Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, said the matter could end up in court, costing the state taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile, she said it fails to “provide solutions to the real problems facing our schools,” like the teacher shortage and falling below the regional average in public education funding.

Oklahoma already has been grappling with the role of religion in public schools. The state Supreme Court on Tuesday that was weeks away from opening in the state. The Court found the concept of a religious, state-funded school is unconstitutional and a violation of state law.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond led the legal challenge against opening the Catholic charter school, called St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. But when reached for comment Thursday, his office did not raise alarm bells over Walters’ order on Bible teaching.

“Oklahoma law already explicitly allows Bibles in the classroom and enables teachers to use them in instruction,” the AG’s spokesperson, Phil Bacharach, said.

Walters has been a vocal supporter of St. Isidore. He called the Court’s ruling on the Catholic charter school “one of the worst” of its decisions and said the concept of separation of church and state is “a myth.”

Oklahoma Catholic leaders indicated they intend to appeal the ruling. A meeting agenda for the school’s Board of Directors states St. Isidore will “delay opening to students at least until the 2025-2026 school year, as it seeks review by the United States Supreme Court.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

Rep. James Talarico had concerns.

The third-term legislator from Round Rock, near Austin, pointed Morath to a lesson on the Sermon on the Mount — Jesus’s instruction to “do unto others as you would have done unto you.”

The text makes only passing reference to similar messages in and , and never mentions that taught a version of the Golden Rule 600 years earlier. 

“I think it’s pretty egregious and will shock a lot of Texans,” Talarico said of the curriculum.

If it seems strange that four paragraphs about an ancient text in for kindergartners arouses such passions, welcome to the latest Texas-sized controversy about Christianity in the classroom.

Talarico is not just a Democrat in a deeply red state, but a former middle school English teacher and a seminary student studying to be a Presbyterian minister. Morath, he said, agreed the new material doesn’t grant “equal time“ to other religions. “I thought that was a fundamental flaw in this curriculum. He did not.”

As parents, academics and activists begin to pore over the thousands of pages the education department released, Morath’s acknowledgement sheds light on the state’s approach. 

The new curriculum is based on the increasingly popular notion of “classical education,” which stresses the primacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition in shaping Western literature and U.S. history. As The 74 first reported last week, the project won praise from conservatives and parents who want students to get more rigorous reading material. Connecting coursework to ancient texts, including the Bible, offers students a cultural vocabulary they’ll need to tackle more complex assignments in middle and high school, Morath said.

He downplayed the religious material as a “small piece” of the curriculum, and called the biblical lessons

But a review by The 74 shows that biblical figures and stories are central to multiple lessons across the 62 K-5 units. The curriculum not only gives short shrift to other religions — Muhammad appears to have escaped mention, despite his role in shaping a faith practiced by half a million Texans — but scholars who have examined the material say it offers a decidedly Christian interpretation of history, particularly the story of America’s founding and civil rights struggles.  

A textual guide for a third-grade unit on recommends teachers play “Silent Night” or “Away in the Manger” as they begin a lesson on the life of Jesus — from his birth and ministry to Crucifixion and Resurrection. In addition to a smattering of New Testament vocabulary (“messiah,” “disciple”) students get what appears to be a factual account from Josephus, a first century historian, on Christ’s death: Jesus’s disciples reported that he “appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive.”

But scholars overwhelmingly the authenticity of this account, which they say was likely added by medieval clerics more than a thousand years later in an attempt to prove Christ’s deity.

“To use this as historical proof, which is exactly how it is presented in this lesson, is quite unwarranted and specious,” said L. Michael White, a biblical scholar at the University of Texas-Austin.

In keeping with classical education’s focus on religious allusions, that lesson sets the stage for a fifth grade study of C.S. Lewis’s The celebrated fantasy tells the story of four siblings who evacuate to the English countryside during World War II. They emerge through a magical armoire to encounter Aslan, a noble lion who later sacrifices himself for one of the children and returns from the dead. 

The teacher’s guide calls it a “biblical allegory.” 

“Explain how the Old Testament of the Bible had many prophecies about a future savior that are written as fulfilled in the New Testament by Jesus,” the note says. “There are also prophecies in the New Testament by Jesus. There are prophecies in the Bible about a future where Jesus returns to the world to make wrong right.”

Those instructions alarm one prominent education figure. In the early 1990s, Sandy Kress helped develop an accountability system for Texas schools that inspired No Child Left Behind, the landmark federal education law. Kress, who is Jewish, later advised George W. Bush when the former governor became president.

“I would argue this is teaching Christianity,” said Kress. His school reform days behind him, Kress now teaches and funds projects that encourage between Christians and Jews.

Morath’s staff called on Kress for guidance on the curriculum last year, and on his advice, recruited his rabbi to review earlier drafts of the material. Kress told The 74 that he wants further revisions and is hopeful the state will consider them.

“Can Christians do this in a way that is respectful of other faiths … without feeling the need to prove Christian doctrine? That’s the test for them,” Kress said. “Whether they pass the test or not will prove whether this is an honorable exercise and whether it would be able to survive a constitutional challenge.”

State officials declined to comment on their dealings with Kress and Talarico. In a statement, Morath said the biblical material in the curriculum “does not include religious lessons as one would find in a religious school.” He added that the content reflects “various religious traditions” and that “students will learn about aspects of most major world religions.”

But in response to criticism, education officials promised to add “language from the First Amendment” on the need for a clear separation between church and state to its lessons on American history.

The public has to comment on the proposed curriculum, which goes to the state Board of Education for approval in November. The stakes are high. If adopted, the curriculum would instantly become not only the nation’s largest classical education model, but the biggest infusion of Judeo-Christian teachings into the public education system in decades. The state is encouraging districts to adopt the material by offering incentives of up to $60 per student.

To Morath, the new curriculum offers schools their best chance at raising reading scores in a state that saw during the pandemic. In addition to phonics-based instruction in the early grades, the curriculum draws from history, science and the arts to boost students’ knowledge of the world. While the biblical material has drawn the most attention, there are many units that have no religious references and highlight famous Texans, like civil rights leader and Black-Native American aviator . Students learn best, Morath said, when they get early and repeated exposure to a subject.

“When you’re designing elementary reading materials, you have to pick topics and stick with them for a few weeks,” he told The 74. In districts that have piloted some of the material over the past three years, “the vocabulary complexity is night and day different” than some of the more simplistic reading lessons teachers used before, he said.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Texas on offering districts “rich content based on the science of reading and not outdated practices,” while and classical education advocates brushed off concerns that the materials have too many biblical references.  

The Texas curriculum “strikes me as a rather mild step in the right direction,” said John Peterson, a humanities professor at the University of Dallas. For years, he said, “anything passingly biblical [has been] treated as a form of pornography, something filthy and shameful, and only to be consumed in private.”

‘Zero reference points’

Jeremy Tate knows firsthand how difficult it can be to engage students who lack a basic knowledge of the Bible. When he taught Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to 10th graders in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, they had “zero reference points” for the collection of stories told by medieval pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral.

Some students didn’t have any knowledge of the Bible, let alone “anything about a pilgrimage, a relic or any of the language that was so much a part of the vernacular,” said Tate, now CEO of the , an alternative college entrance exam.

He’s concerned, however, about the classical movement being “politically hijacked” by Republicans trying to appeal to conservative Christians.

“In some ways, it’s an impossible battle,” he said. “We’re living through a moment where very few people can think outside of political categories.”

As if to underscore that point, the new curriculum arrived just four days after the state’s Republican party unified behind calling for mandatory “instruction on the Bible, servant leadership, and Christian self-governance.” Delegates also want students to study an from Thomas Jefferson that use to argue that church-state separation is a myth. 

‘Cultural heritage’

That approach contrasts with Morath’s more measured admonitions to those who reviewed the materials. The commissioner’s charge to a 10-member advisory board at their first meeting last summer was to “make sure we were on the side of literature as opposed to a worshipful treatment of that material,” said Marvin McNeese Jr., an adviser who teaches at the College of Biblical Studies in Houston, an orthodox school that he said takes a “traditional interpretation of the Bible.”

The volunteers included some recognizable names, like former GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, who served as a cabinet member during the Trump administration, and Danica McKellar, and mathematician who has been outspoken about her faith.

McNeese said he spent about 40 hours between August and February reviewing lessons and doesn’t see a problem with its Judeo-Christian emphasis. 

“It’s because of our own cultural heritage,” he said. “All the stories that I read directly explain something that students may very well come across. I mean, we have laws named Good Samaritan laws.”

Under federal law, schools can teach the Bible as literature, but not in a devotional way. Mandatory Bible readings and prayer were common in many public schools until a series of in the early 1960s ended those practices. The court, however, allows voluntary prayer and under its current conservative majority has increasingly tilted in favor of religious expression. 

Conflicts about biblical material in public school have recently erupted over Bible verses in a Florida and in an that posted a New Testament verse on a hallway wall. But experts say the scope of Texas’s undertaking increases the potential for trouble.   

The Bible references in the new curriculum start in kindergarten, when children draw pictures inspired by the creation story in the Book of Genesis. By fifth grade, students studying poetry ponder what King David meant in Psalm 23 when he wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd.” In between are familiar Bible stories about the wisdom of King Solomon, the prodigal son and Paul’s conversion to Christianity on the road to Damascus.

The Texas lessons frequently say “according to the Bible” or “as the Bible explains,” but Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, dismissed those as “meager efforts” at objectivity. “The literalistic way they present Bible stories encourages very young children to simply take them at face value,” he said. 

He pointed to a fifth grade lesson on Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” in which teachers read a passage from the Book of Matthew for added context. Students, he said, are bound to be left with questions. 

“How did Jesus know someone would betray him? What does Jesus mean when [the teacher] says the bread is his body and the cup is his blood?” Chancey asked. “Is the teacher ready to explain all the different versions of Eucharistic theology found in different forms of Christianity?”

Many of those teachers have probably never received training on how to discuss religion in a public school classroom, said Kate Soules, founder and director of the Religion and Education Collaborative, which focuses on how schools talk about matters of faith. Teachers might be better off focusing on the literary value of Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” than prompting students to think Aslan, the lion, represents Jesus, she said. Teachers could “very quickly end up in violation of the First Amendment.”

The tone and focus is a concerted departure from the curriculum Amplify, a leading publisher, offered the state in 2020 under a $19 million contract. In over 40 pages, that version gives to Christianity, Islam and Judaism. A separate unit features on Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

The state, however, rejected those sections, said Amplify officials, who later balked when Texas asked for additional biblical content. As The 74 previously reported, the company opted not to bid on a contract for the next phase of the project. 

Experts say the current curriculum is notable not only for its emphasis on Christianity, but for what it omits. 

A first grade lesson on American independence, Chancey said, paints an idealistic picture of religious liberty by asserting different denominations “thrived in the colonies.” In reality, pilgrims were often intolerant of . 

The program devotes ample space to the evangelism of the colonists during a period of religious revival known as the Great Awakening. But The 74’s review found no material on the considerable influence of thinkers from the Enlightenment, a concurrent intellectual movement that inspired the writings of early American thinkers on individual rights and church-state separation. 

‘Both sides of that debate’

That stained glass lens extends to the Civil Rights era. In both second and fifth grade, the text emphasizes the Christian faith of Black leaders as key to the movement to end segregation. But there’s no mention of who used the Bible to justify racism and Jim Crow laws, like Henry Lyon Jr., who that God “started separation of the races.”

“If you just portray that religious leaders were against segregation, that’s extremely misleading,” Chancey said. “You had religious leaders on both sides of that debate.” 

An assignment on points fifth graders to Martin Luther King Jr.’s biblical allusions, including the persecution of early Christians and Jews who refused to worship false idols. But it ignores King’s intended audience — “white moderate” preachers “who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation.” 

“Dr. King’s focus was the incompatibility of racial segregation with Judeo-Christian values and the Christian faith,” said Raymond Pierce, president and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit focused on equity. 

Pierce has a divinity degree, leads a Sunday school class and teaches political theology at Duke University. His family tree extends back through the founding of the Black Pentecostal Church in the early 1900s. “It does not get much more fundamental than that,” he quipped.

But he’s also a civil rights attorney. In reviewing excerpts from the curriculum for The 74, Pierce found himself turning to to Virginia lawmakers in 1785. Madison wrote that while Christians fought for their own religious liberty, they could not “deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.” 

Those who support the Texas curriculum are “pushing a warped version of Judeo-Christian principles,” Pierce said. “It is quite troubling that these supporters either intentionally or naively want to bring divisive issues within the Christian Church into our public schools.”   

To share tips on Texas’s proposed reading curriculum, contact Linda Jacobson at lrjacobson@proton.me.

From the story of Queen Esther — who convinced her husband, the Persian king, to spare the Jews — to the depiction of Christ’s last supper, the material is designed to draw connections between classroom content and religious texts.

“If you’re reading classic works of American literature, there are often religious allusions in that literature,” state education Commissioner Mike Morath told The 74. “Any changes being made are to reinforce the kind of background knowledge on these seminal works of the American cultural experience.” 

With the potential to reach over 2 million K–5 students in the nation’s second-largest state, the update marks a big step in a movement embraced by conservatives to root young people’s education in what they consider traditional values. But it’s bound to raise questions about the potential for religious indoctrination in a state that has been a battleground for such disputes. Last year, for example, Texas passed a law allowing to work as school counselors.

“It is reasonable to devote some attention to [the Bible], and state education standards across the nation often require such attention,” said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “The problem, of course, is that sometimes the legitimate reason of cultural literacy is used as a smokescreen to hide religious and ideological agendas.”

In an interview with a Christian talk show, GOP , who describes himself as a “,” praised the curriculum changes, saying they will “get us back to teaching, not necessarily the Bible per se, but the stories from the Bible.”

The release comes four days after the state Republican party calling on the legislature and the state Board of Education to require instruction on the Bible. Texas education department officials declined to comment on the platform and have emphasized that the new curriculum includes material from other faiths.

While largely hidden from public view, the redesign sparked behind-the-scenes debate long before its release. When a leading curriculum publisher balked at the state’s request to infuse its offerings with biblical content, Texas officials turned to other vendors. They include conservative Christian in Michigan and the right-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation, which an unsuccessful to require the 10 Commandments in every classroom, according to a list obtained by The 74.

‘Great works of literature’

Going far beyond typical reading and writing fundamentals, the new lessons draw on history, science and the arts — “what many people call this classical model of education,” Morath said.

To understand “,” a book about a Jewish family hiding in Denmark during World War II, he said students should understand more about “Jewish cultural practices” and “the vilification of this ethnic minority.” 

A unit on “Fighting for a Cause,” one of several that officials shared with The 74, includes the Old Testament story of Esther and how she and her cousin Mordecai “fought for what they knew was right and made a difference that not only affected the Jews of Persia but also Jewish people today.”

The mentions range in size from a page on Esther to a few paragraphs about Samuel Adams at the Continental Congress. His plea to fellow delegates to pray together, despite religious differences, is offered as a first-grade vocabulary lesson on the word “compromise.” 

Fifth graders are asked to read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “.” Written after his 1963 arrest for leading a , King compared his act of civil disobedience to the “refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar” in the Book of Daniel.

“If you don’t know who Nebuchadnezzar is, you don’t know what [King’s] talking about,” Morath said. “How do you make sure that you can unlock in the minds of our kids their ability to wrestle with … ideas that have surfaced in great works of literature?” 

Not just literature, but art. A lesson on “The Last Supper,” da Vinci’s Renaissance masterpiece, points fifth graders to the New Testament. 

“The Bible explains that Jesus knew that after this meal, he would be arrested, put on trial, and killed,” the text reads. “Let’s read the story in the book of Matthew to see for ourselves what unfolded during the supper.”

While drawing parallels to religious texts, Morath said the lessons would respect bright lines regarding the separation of church and state.

“This is still a curriculum for public school and we’ve designed it to be appropriate in that setting,” he said. 

New religious-related material in a proposed Texas elementary school reading program includes Old Testament references to the Liberty Bell, an exploration of the meaning of the Jewish holiday Purim and the story of Christ’s last supper. (Texas Education Agency)

The role of Amplify

The redesign builds on a $19 million m delivered during the pandemic by Amplify, a based in New York.

Roughly 400 districts have used their materials since 2021. Some teachers give them high marks for building students’ and comprehension. But not everyone has been pleased. Last year, Morath who decried its emphasis on and minimal attention to Christianity.

“There’s one mention of Jesus, that he was a teacher a couple thousand years ago,” said Jamie Haynes, who runs a on “concerning” curriculum and library books. “The only other time we can find God, our God — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — is in the American unit.” 

The issue of how — and whether — to incorporate religious content was fraught long before the curriculum reached school districts.

State officials asked Amplify to provide a lesson on the story of Esther and suggested a unit on Exodus, said Alexandra Walsh, the company’s chief product officer.

While it had previously tweaked its curriculum for other states, Walsh said the company had never been asked to add biblical material. And when it suggested inserting content from other world religions, the state rejected the idea, said Amplify spokeswoman Kristine Frech.

“There was not much appetite for a variety of wisdom texts,” she said. “There was much more of an appetite for the tie to traditional Christian texts.”

The company opted against bidding on a contract to provide additional revisions. In a statement, Texas education officials dismissed Amplify’s charge that they turned down material from other religions as “completely false” and stressed that the finished product “includes representation from multiple faiths.” But the state declined to specify how many of the new lessons have religious themes or derive from Judeo-Christian sources.

In an interview with The 74, Morath pointed to a World War II lesson that focuses on J. Robert Oppenheimer’s upon witnessing the explosion of the first atomic bomb in Los Alamos: “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” The words, featured prominently in the recent Oscar-winning film, derive from the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture.   

Kindergarteners studying the Golden Rule would learn that the idea comes from the “Christian Bible,” according to the text, but that similar principles can be found in the “ancient books” of Islam and Hinduism. Another section on the Renaissance highlights Muslim settlers in Spain and their contributions to philosophy, poetry and astronomy.

‘Biblical literacy’

After Amplify bowed out, the state an $84 million contract to the Boston-based Public Consulting Group to revise the curriculum.

For the reading program, the company worked closely with several authors who specialize in , including its role in westward expansion and launching the national space program, according to a list of vendors provided by the state.

But it also leaned on conservative organizations steeped in the culture wars. Contracts went to two officials at the Texas Public Policy Foundation: Courtnie Bagley, the think tank’s education director, and Thomas Lindsay, a higher education director and vocal opponent of . The foundation, which called the 10 Commandments bill an “important step in bringing faith-based values back to the forefront of our society,” declined to comment on their contributions. Public Consulting Group officials also did not respond to questions. 

Hillsdale, another vendor, is a major player in advancing classical education. It authored the , a civics and history model that emphasizes American exceptionalism and is a favorite of conservatives opposed to lessons on institutional racism. When the Florida Department of Education dozens of math textbooks in 2020, citing content influenced by critical race theory, a analysis showed two Hillsdale representatives objected to the proposed materials.

The state did not respond to questions on the role Hilldale and the Texas Public Policy Foundation played in the new curriculum. Hillsdale officials said they provided their feedback free of charge. 

“Hillsdale never profits from its work in K-12, nor does it accept one penny from federal, state or local taxpayers,” said spokeswoman Emily Davis. She added, “Religion is taught for the sake of cultural literacy, not to promote a particular religion.” 

Originally the province of well-heeled private or parochial schools, classical education has blossomed in recent years both as a response to pandemic lockdowns and what some parents view as progressive trends in traditional public schools. The philosophy is rooted in the liberal arts and historical texts, with a sharp focus on the Greek and Roman foundations of Western civilization.

The movement entertains healthy debate about the role of religion, but most practitioners agree that giving students a strong body of knowledge requires the use of primary sources, including the Bible.

“They’re going to need to have some biblical literacy, if only to interpret John Milton, or Dante or Shakespeare,” said Robert Jackson, a senior research fellow with the at Florida’s Flagler College.

‘Devotional in nature’

In Texas, the proposed changes would go far beyond any previous attempt to inject biblical content into its classrooms.

A allows school districts to offer high school electives on the Bible. Demand has been extremely low, however. According to the Texas Education Agency, just over 1,200 of the state’s 1.7 million took the course this year.

But even with their limited scope and popularity, the courses offer ample fodder for skeptics. Writing for the Texas Freedom Network, a religious liberty and civil rights organization, Chancey, the Southern Methodist professor, the courses to be “explicitly devotional in nature.” Despite requirements for teachers to complete special training and maintain “religious neutrality,” Chancey wrote that the Protestant Bible was the preferred text in these courses, while Catholic, Hebrew and Eastern Orthodox Bibles were “presented as deviations from the norm.” In several districts, the courses were taught by local ministers.

The state is now working with a much larger canvas: not a mere elective, but an entire elementary reading curriculum, with a potential audience of millions of students.

Officials are quick to point out that adoption of the new program is voluntary. But a potential $60 per-student it is offering for participation may make it difficult for school systems to refuse.

The updated materials are now open for public review and are scheduled to go before the state Board of Education for approval this fall. Aicha Davis, a Democrat on the Republican-led board, predicted “they would totally support something like that.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that this is happening,” she said.