Are public school third graders in Texas going to be taught that Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of a whale and lived to tell about it?
That’s a real possibility, as the State Board of Education is expected to take a final vote this month on revised Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum standards for social studies. Additionally, a required reading list that includes five texts from the Bible — including the stories of David and Goliath, Jonah in the belly of the whale, and the apostle Paul’s conversion to Christianity on the Road to Damascus — is up for discussion.
If the TEKS curriculum is approved, it will become effective in the 2030 school year and be in place for 10 years. A 2023 state law authorized the reading list, and if approved this month, it will be the first statewide mandatory reading index in Texas history.
The increasing effort to “Christianize” public schools is concerning for Frank Strong, an English and journalism teacher who started his career in Spring Branch ISD. Strong now lives in Austin and teaches high school seniors at a charter school. His daughter just finished her freshman year at Austin ISD’s McCallum High School.
Strong, along with Laney Hawes of Fort Worth and Anne Russey of Katy, formed the Texas Freedom to Read Project in 2023 to mobilize parent-led groups to fight censorship. The volunteers work remotely and have members across the state.
“I’m a Christian,” Strong says. “I also have students, friends, neighbors and family members who are not Christian, and I think that they deserve to be included in our lessons, in our schools and in our classrooms. I don’t have a problem with the teaching of any text, necessarily. I think there’s a trick to how it’s done.”
“I think it’s really troubling that our state is moving toward restricting the types of perspectives that are allowed in our classrooms,” he added. “I would characterize it as encroaching Christian nationalism, in the sense that Christianity is state-sanctioned and that it is the most valid or the only valid perspective that can be held in a classroom. I think that’s something we see in a lot of different measures that are being implemented right now.”
Christian nationalism is a belief that a nation should be defined by Christianity and that government laws and public institutions should reflect a Christian identity. It’s a problem for students and parents of other faiths, and Christians who would rather their child learn Bible stories at home or church.
The TEKS standards dictate concepts that are taught at each grade level. A proposal — already considered in April but requiring a second vote — suggests that teachers educate students on Old Testament prophets as historical figures, but the curriculum neglects to incorporate historical leaders from other religions, according to a June 5 report in the Dallas Morning News.
It’s unknown whether teachers will be instructed to present the Bible stories as fact or as theological parables used to teach lessons about things like repentance and obedience. Strong says he’s concerned about teacher autonomy and elementary school educators being put in positions where they have to answer questions about the Bible.
The State Board of Education meets June 22-26 in Austin. Strong will be there, as will Felicia Martin, president of Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based group founded 30 years ago by Cecile Richards, the daughter of the late former Gov. Ann Richards, to serve as a watchdog of the State Board of Education.
Martin says the political movement suggesting that the government promote a particular version of Christianity isn’t new. The State Board of Education is dominated by Republicans who wield a lot of power over what students are taught and what teachers teach, she says.
“Why do religious extremists focus on schools? I think that’s a big question,” Martin says. “Public schools reach every family. If your goal is to shape culture, schools are the most powerful place to do that. Many Christian nationalist advocates, who we would have called the far right in the ‘90s, believe that the school is where culture is won or lost. So public schools have become this proxy fight for who gets to define American identity.”
Cy-Fair ISD Reverses Textbook Censorship
Christian nationalism, book bans and censored textbooks have been recent topics of debate in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, the third-largest district in Texas.
After two unsuccessful bids for school board, self-described Christian nationalist Natalie Blasingame secured a seat on Cy-Fair’s board of trustees in 2021.
By 2023, the board had a 6-1 conservative majority with only one member, Julie Hinaman, representing the interests of the district’s progressive voters, typically those who vote Democrat, although local school board races are nonpartisan. The conservative candidates were backed by GOP megadonors and PACs and began removing chapters from textbooks that discussed what they deemed controversial topics: vaccines, climate change and historical events related to racial conflicts.
The conservative board also banned books, fired librarians and, based on the passage of a 2023 Senate bill, considered placing chaplains on school campuses. Parents mobilized and backed a slate of “pro-public education” candidates to unseat the conservatives. The progressive slate — Lesley Guilmart, Cleveland Lane Jr. and Kendra Camarena — won in November 2025, drawing national attention and even getting a congratulatory call from former presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Now the board has a 4-3 progressive majority and Hinaman serves as president. When reached for comment last week, Hinaman declined to talk about State Board of Education matters.
The new board members were sworn into office in January and a month later, voted 4-3 to restore the censored chapters to school textbooks. The three new board members, all educators with children enrolled in Cy-Fair ISD, recorded a live podcast with Progress Texas on May 20, addressing “life after MAGA.”
Camarena said the previous board lifted entire chapters from biology and environmental science books because, “instead of just recognizing that it’s OK to have a difference of opinion and potential theories, they decided to just remove them,” she said.
“There were DEI references in the education books for [Career and Technical Education] that were removed. I challenged individuals on this. We tend to forget that diversity of ideas is important and good. I understand that you don’t believe in this theory, but when you remove it, you prevent the next generation from potentially disproving the theory because you didn’t even give them access to the information.”
Martin, who grew up in the Aldine school district of Harris County and earned a degree at Rice University, says the Texas Freedom Network was watching the CFISD school board race last year because it signaled a turning point in what parents want from public schools and their policymakers.
Strong says he got involved in advocacy work because, a few years ago, “we saw this online rage about so-called critical race theory, and these bills started to work their way through the Texas House and Senate.”
“I could tell that this was really going to affect my livelihood and the way that I teach,” he says. “That morphed into fear over books that had some sort of sexual content. I saw really great books that I love and that I teach, things like Toni Morrison, being attacked and censored. I knew that I had to act.”
He started his advocacy by creating school board voting guides. “I’m in Austin now, but I started teaching in Houston and I grew up in Fort Worth, so a lot of the areas that were hot spots where you saw these explosive school board meetings were places that I knew well,” he says.
Texas lawmakers passed a bill last year requiring the display of donated Ten Commandments placards in every public school classroom. Civil rights groups and faith leaders challenged the law, suing Cy-Fair, Katy and Houston ISDs and more than two dozen other districts, but the ruling was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Since then, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, now in a heated contest for a U.S. Senate seat, is investigating districts including Cy-Fair that haven’t actually posted the displays yet, saying they’re out of compliance with the law. A district spokesman told the Houston Press in May that they’re planning to hang the placards ahead of the 2026-27 school year, which starts in August.
Martin says she was disappointed but not shocked when the Ten Commandments law passed. “We were pretty sure that it would pass, because the ideology had shifted so far right that this was going to be the nonsense, quote unquote, that would actually finally get approved,” she says. “Progressive organizations, the ACLU and parent organizations came together, and you saw the litigation fight start pretty quickly.”
“Families should be the ones who get to direct the religious education of their children. That was sort of a sanctified role of the family, to be the provider of that information. They didn’t want schools to have an influence on that, and the government shouldn’t mandate a specific language or specific type of religion be endorsed by the school, and that’s what has started to happen.”
The Texas Legislature also passed a bill last year requiring school boards to vote on whether to designate time for prayer and Scripture reading. Almost all Houston-area districts rejected the measure, with the exception of Magnolia ISD.
Guilmart said on the Progress Texas podcast that she has a problem with the religious mandates because of separation of church and state but also because of the “logistical nightmare” that would be created by having to separate students for a special prayer time.
Lane said in reference to the Ten Commandments law and other Christian mandates that it’s “unfair to indoctrinate one group of individuals to one religion while you have a plethora of different religions not just within our school district but in the Houston area and the state.”
“The school district will follow the law, but as a parent, you always want to respect your neighbor,” he says. “I always want to respect my neighbor who does not practice Christianity, and I want them to give me the same respect. That’s what we’re trying to teach our kids.”
Advocate Mandy Drogin with the Austin-based conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, said the policies aren’t about proselytizing in school but rather making sure students have a basic understanding of the foundations of American society and Western civilization.
“No one’s saying to worship Jesus. No one’s saying anything that is proselytization,” she told the Dallas Morning News. “But we have to make sure that students, American kids, understand how America became what we are today.”
State Board of Education
The State Board of Education’s influence over curriculum didn’t happen overnight. Controversial hearings over science curriculum related to creation vs. evolution date back to the late 1990s and early 2000s when Don McLeroy, a Bryan dentist, served as a trustee for 13 years and was appointed Board chair by then-Gov. Rick Perry in 2007.
A 2012 documentary, The Revisionaries, exposes the power of the Texas board. As the biggest purchasers of textbooks in the United States, Texas dictates the materials purchased by school districts across the country, Martin says. “Whatever Texas decides that they want or do not want in textbooks, that’s what the publishers end up printing, and that ends up being the textbook for most of America,” she says.
Martin says the pursuit of a single religion in public schools is at odds with Texas values and independence.
“Religious freedom is a fundamental value in Texas and across the U.S., and having faith and choice, all of those are things that we stand for, free of government interference and involvement, and yet this is the type of thing that is being promoted and endorsed by these far-right extremists,” she says. “Public schools should be focused on providing students, you know, academic skills, not promoting one specific religious belief.”
The Texas Freedom Network built an advocacy hub on its website. It trains people to speak before the State Board of Education and assists with letter-writing campaigns. They’ll be out in force at the June meeting, asking the Board to slow down the process and gather more input from stakeholders.
“The Board has some very vocal far-right extremists, people who have been put in their seats by groups like Moms for Liberty,” Martin says. “These people are agents. They’re there to get attention. We get attention too when we highlight the hypocrisy of some of these processes., when we put out video clips of their hatred of other groups and ideas. Sometimes just putting the words that they say out in public is embarrassing enough. Those things can come back to bite you.”
The Social Studies Advocate, a statewide social media activist group, filed a report last week that outlines the organization’s concerns with the Board’s June agenda, pointing out that in an effort to emphasize Christianity, the curriculum misses an opportunity to provide comprehensive lessons that show more than one perspective.
Additionally, Texas Freedom Network’s Media and Communications Coordinator Andrew Freeman prepared a report that provides talking points for advocates who oppose the TEKS updates.
“The proposed social studies standards require students to learn that abolitionists like Harriet Tubman were inspired by their faith to oppose slavery and defend the dignity and worth of every person,” the report states. “But students learn nothing about how many – especially in the South – used the Bible to justify slavery and, later, segregation. This is a missed opportunity to help students learn how religion has inspired people to do great things, while others can use it to justify injustice and cruelty.”
Freeman notes that the TEKS, as currently adopted, doesn’t provide an opportunity to teach about Islam until high school, which he says equates to ignoring or erasing one of the world’s largest religions.
Strong says he’s worried about the textbook censorship and editing out history, but he’s also concerned about teachers being required to educate on religious texts they may be unfamiliar with or oppose.
“As a teacher, I do not want to be seen as superimposing my beliefs, especially religious beliefs, over the beliefs of students,” he says. “That’s something that I’ve never felt comfortable with. I think it’s especially troubling now that they’re pushing these biblical stories, this sort of emphasis on Christianity, as the founding fountain of our culture, of our literature. I think that’s giving the idea of a state sanction, which puts me as a teacher in a really uncomfortable position with respect to my students and families.”
Strong testified at State Board of Education meetings in January and April. He says he was pleasantly surprised that the members appeared to be open to feedback they received from parents, teachers and faith leaders who asked that the required high school reading list be reduced from 82 texts.
“We said this is too long and it is too white and male,” he says. “We asked that they make the list shorter to provide more teacher autonomy. They did listen. They made the list a lot shorter. I thought that was a real victory.”
The emphasis on censorship has trickled down from the State Board to individual school boards, Strong says, noting that some districts have banned Beloved by Toni Morrison, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Native Son by Richard Wright and The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
“New Braunfels ISD told all of their librarians to remove any book if they couldn’t find any reviews that were written for a K-12 audience,” Strong says. “That’s a lot of things. A lot of biographies or memoirs aren’t written for kids but they’re still appropriate for high school students. That resulted in about 600 books being removed from their libraries.”
In his high school English class, Strong teaches Letter from Birmingham Jail, the 1953 Martin Luther King Jr. essay on civil disobedience. He says he’ll advocate at the June board meeting for it to be included in the required texts.
“In that text, Dr. King makes a ton of references to figures from the Judeo-Christian tradition,” he says. “I think there is value in understanding those stories and knowing where those stories come from. And when we get to them in class, we have to say this is a biblical reference. I don’t necessarily have a problem with doing that. The world is so big and so broad and so beautiful. Everything except for a narrow range of perspectives is being left out if all we’re focusing on are these Christian texts and these right-wing ideological texts that are also on the list.”
The State Board of Education is stacked with 10 Republicans and five Democrats. As it debates the social studies TEKS criteria, the Board is being advised by David Barton, a Christian activist who has publicly said that he views church-state separation as a myth and the Ten Commandments as foundational to American education.
So to get the Board to vote against the proposed TEKS revisions or at least delay action may be an uphill battle, Martin says.
“Sometimes we show up to mitigate the damage,” she says. “The math is not going to [work] for us in terms of the votes if you have a predominantly right-wing State Board of Education. Some of these things are going to pass, but how can we make it as difficult as possible for them? If we can elevate how one-sided against the Constitution this is, we may make some progress.”
