Proposed Texas Curriculum Blurs Lines Between Church and State
Double standards in Texas schools are becoming increasingly apparent as leaders push for Biblical content in state-required lesson plans. The proposed law will be voted on in November.
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Texas is poised to have a state curriculum that would include teachings on the Bible for public elementary school students across the state.
From lessons about the Gospel of Matthew centering on the crucifixion of Jesus to portrayals of Christ’s Last Supper, the new plan would infuse Biblical content into the instruction for daily reading and language arts classes. As a result, students would make connections and draw parallels between religious topics and other humanities in their classrooms. However, the new instructional material raises the question of double standards between religious and historical content and what students are allowed to learn based on biases from educational leaders.
This proposal comes after a greater push for Christianity to be involved in everyday life by conservatives across Texas. In 2023, the Texas Senate even approved a bill that requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in all public school classrooms, an objective that was recently picked up by states like Louisiana and Oklahoma. This legislation would also allow unlicensed religious chaplains to serve as school counselors. The increasing number of theological content in public schools demonstrates the blurring lines separating the church and the state that continues to harm students across the Lone Star state, especially those who follow already marginalized religions.
Hana Dawood, a high school junior attending Coronado High School in El Paso Texas, said the new bill could create more issues for students.“It could lead to children being isolated based on their religion, or even feeling ashamed that they do not hold the same beliefs as the teacher presents,” the 16-year-old said. “Students may feel underrepresented in a society that should be aiming to make all kids feel valued in the education system.”
Other students also feel that when this content is pushed onto students in public classrooms that don’t align with any specific belief system, it becomes unethical. Seventeen-year-old Jonathan Flores, a high school rising senior from San Antonio, said another option could be to offer the new curriculum as an elective.
“I think that’s something that a private school can do, but not a public school because you choose to go there. If it’s like a class you could choose to put your kid in. Something like that, but not a mandatory thing,” Flores said.
Texas is also a state that has committed itself to keeping politics out of education, even through drastic measures that limit free speech. In 2021, Governor Greg Abbott signed an anti-CRT ban that directly restricts how educators can teach America’s racist history to K-12 students. The bill restraints open and honest conversations that acknowledge the country’s roots of white supremacy and raise less educated students. Texas officials have also limited students’ speech by establishing book bans and censoring high school newspapers. Students across Texas feel that this legislation damages their awareness of the world around them.
“Both Critical Race Theory and African American Studies are important for teenagers, such as myself, to have an understanding of. African American history is vital in explaining various aspects of the modern world, and it is vile to conceal certain parts of history for the sake of political ideals,” said Dawood.
This legislation has clarified the divergences in Texas classrooms and the priorities of educational leaders because of the lack of content from other world religions within the new material. The double standards have made it so that students are forced to only hear one perspective. A view that often perpetuates the problematic Westernized view that is also seen everywhere in mainstream media. This commentary on the world emphasizes the white-male perspective and often fosters incorrect stereotypes and discriminatory beliefs about people from the Global South and lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Students across Texas fear that with new legislation pushing certain ideologies; their education hangs in the balance.
“If you want to form an opinion about a topic. You want to be as informed as you can about that
topic” said Flores. “School opens resources about different things. I think it’s very important that we learn our history. Every part of it, the bad and the good.”
If the goal of the proposed content is to contextualize religious events from a historical lens, wouldn’t it be consistent to include teachings from all belief systems without influencing students to any specific ideology? Wouldn’t it also be necessary to first correctly and holistically teach about historical events and injustices? Without substantial changes in legislation for Texas classrooms, students across the state are left with a curriculum that perpetuates biases rather than prioritizing their education and cognizance.
Marium Zahra (she/her) is a 16-year-old journalist from El Paso, Texas covering education, politics and culture.
Edited by Nykeya Woods