Texas has joined the growing list of states mixing Bibles into public school classrooms, setting the stage for a possible new legal showdown.
The Texas State Board of Education voted 8-7 Friday to allow classes on Bible stories in kindergarten through fifth-grade classes, encouraging those seeking to expand the Christian faith in public schools.
Texas's neighbors to the north and east, Oklahoma and Louisiana, are already in court battles over the Bible's mandate, and the Lone Star State is likely to join them.
“It is unlikely that we will see a lawsuit in Texas. We start by making it clear to superintendents across the state that it is unconstitutional to implement this type of requirement,” the company's president and CEO said. (CEO) Rachel Laser said. Americans for the Separation of Church and State is filing lawsuits in Oklahoma and Louisiana.
The instruction allowed in Texas comes from the state-created Bluebonnet Learning, and includes lessons such as Jesus' Sermon on the Mount for kindergarteners and the Parable of the Prodigal Son for first graders. There is.
Schools in the Lone Star State are not required to adopt the curriculum, but if they do, they will receive an additional $60 in funding per student.
The State Board of Education heard hours of testimony for and against the bill before voting, including that the curriculum focuses disproportionately on Christianity and blurs the line between church and state. Some people said that it has become.
“Texas Air Force Base” [American Federation of Teachers] We believe that these teaching materials not only violate the separation of church and state and academic freedom in the classroom, but also the sanctity of the teaching profession. “These prescriptive materials cannot accommodate all learners in all situations, and teachers must be empowered to adapt to the needs of their students,” the group said in a statement.
Supporters of increasing the use of religion textbooks in schools say teaching about Christianity is part of understanding U.S. history.
“We're allowed to teach people about religious texts as part of understanding international relations after the Civil Rights Movement or the Great Awakening or perhaps 9/11. These are the texts that exist in the world, and those texts “It doesn't need to be erased because it's impactful,'' said the director of the Church, State, and Society program at Notre Dame Law School, which is part of the legal effort to create a national law in Oklahoma. Rick Garnett said. It was the first charter school to officially recognize religion.
What if schools had chosen Christian textbooks because they wanted to engage in evangelism? […] That would be discriminatory and problematic,” Garnett acknowledged. But he said that from a constitutional standpoint, the “acceptability of this plan” does not depend on how much a religion is talked about, as long as the teachings do not go so far as to prophesy. One more thing.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma is defending a rule that requires both a copy of the Bible in every public school classroom and Bible classes with no opt-out. And while Louisiana requires Ten Commandments posters in class, that requirement has been suspended as the case progresses through court.
“What's happening here is the introduction of the idea of Biblical precepts. Well, are we establishing a religion or are we just increasing access to information? So you can see that the questions have changed,” said Matthew Patrick Shaw, assistant professor of law at Vanderbilt University School of Law and assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt Peabody College.
“There is a path to declaring this constitutional.” […] So we're just giving people information. We are not telling them what to believe. They now have access to this,” Shaw added. “Okay, this is part of what we've decided is this curriculum that we want people to know about. And we're exposing people to this curriculum because of the religious content. We're publishing it because it's culturally relevant, rather than because it's culturally relevant.'' Imagine this: this is the conversation they have. ”
Those fighting the growing presence of Christianity in taxpayer-funded schools say the fight is going nowhere, especially in light of the incoming administration.
“This is also a moment where Trump's election, Trump's re-election, is giving oxygen to this movement,” Laser said.
