Texas offers engagement on biblical studies

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The Texas education board has approved a broad new statewide reading list that, for the first time, will make passages from the Bible required reading for more than 5 million public school students.

Under the new initiative, Bible stories will become mandatory reading for millions of public school students in addition to a more standard collection of books, renewing debate over growing efforts in the US to increase the role of religion in classrooms.

The rollout will be staggered, starting with elementary school students in 2030.

The Republican-controlled Texas state board of education gave final approval to the plan during a vote on Friday. Last year, Texas became the largest state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every classroom.

The move stems from a 2023 Texas law requiring state education officials to designate at least one literary work for every grade level, with the state board expanding on that mandate by recommending multiple texts for each grade. While teachers may still assign books outside the list, they must do so in addition to the required selections.

The reading list states that excerpts from the Book of Jonah and the Book of Psalms will be required reading beginning in seventh grade. Additional excerpts from several parts of the Bible, such as the Book of Lamentations and the Book of Genesis, will become part of the curriculum for high school students.

The list has sparked strong criticism. Opponents say it breaches the constitutional separation of church and state, lacks diversity and gives preference to Christianity over other faiths. Supporters argue that Judeo-Christian traditions played a central role in the country’s founding and should be represented in public school teachings.

The curriculum has drawn criticism not only for its inclusion of religious texts but also for its heavy emphasis on older works, many written by white male authors, in a state where more than half of public school students are Hispanic or Black.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... lic-school

The online response is engaging: https://teks.click

I agree entirely that Judeo-Christian traditions played a central role in the country’s founding and should be represented in public school teachings. The people of Texas should be allowed to see the texts and form their own view of what they mean.

Texas included The Beatitudes? That's brave.

[Bryn Mawr]

There's a big difference between being allowed to see and being compelled to read - the education board should not be imposing their religious views on the children of the state.

Given the recent intervention by Hegseth redefining the religious options available to military personnel it is looking like a concerted campaign by the government to introduce a state religion Trump has apparently taken a leaf out of Erdoğan's book of tricks.

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Yet every passage these deplored white-supremacist Christians demand to be studied are ones the civil rights movement moved heaven and earth to get listened to. They've opened a goalmouth which can't just be dropped like a hot potato - it's embedded in law. The students will in fact have to make a judgement on the Beatitudes - not just the single four verses but the context.

"But how terrible it will be for you who are rich! You have already had your easy life. How terrible for you who are well fed now! You will go hungry. How terrible for you who laugh now! You will cry and be sad."

That, incidentally, is their selected translation. It is not exactly poetic text but it's a poetic consequence to the legislation. They've put Texas' policy of executing death-row convicts onto the curriculum for discussion, the politics of the 1930s dust bowl and depression. Land ownership, water rights, mineral rights, the displacement of Indigenous nations, mandated straight into the school curriculum. They'll be studying who took what from whom and by what means, in Texas' public schools of all places, where the majority of the students are Hispanic or Black. Up until now you'd have been fired for doing that. Who exactly shall inherit the earth?

"By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, 'With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon; I felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, I came to its remotest height, its densest forest. I dug wells and drank waters, I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.'" Or "Dig, baby, dig! Drill, baby, drill!" as the Glorious Leader puts it.