Fourteen-year-old Jillian Perkinz pleaded with the State Board of Education this week to reject a required reading list that includes Bible stories, asking members to trust that public school English teachers are capable of determining what they think is appropriate to teach.
“The proposed reading list overwhelmingly represents a politically conservative worldview, especially with regard to religion, and a narrow view of American history,” she said. “For example, throughout all grade levels, students will read from a Protestant translation of the Bible. As someone who went to Catholic school for four years, I believe that religion and Bible reading should occur in religious schools and churches, not public schools. Public schools are for everyone.”
The Port Neches ninth grader was one of more than 500 registered speakers at the Board’s week-long meeting in Austin. The panel, which includes 10 elected Republicans and five Democrats, not only gave preliminary approval to the heavily criticized reading list, it was also poised Friday afternoon to lock in a portion of a revised Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills social studies curriculum, which will take effect in 2030 and be in place for 10 years.
The Board was expected to delay to September a vote on the social studies TEKS for high school students, but opposition groups say they expect it will pass in the fall and weren’t sure why that portion was postponed. Board members met until 2 a.m. some days this week, painstakingly reviewing amendments and occasionally getting into heated debates.
The social studies TEKS has a Bible-based slant, which critics say is an intentional effort by some Christian nationalist Board members and the political action committees that get them elected. Opponents have pointed out that the new curriculum neglects historical and cultural events while expecting educators to teach biblical figures like Moses alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Many faith leaders, educators, parents and students who spoke out against the changes aren’t anti-Christian; they just don’t think Bible stories should be mandatory reading for all grade levels and presented in history class. The effort to “Christianize” public schools is so troubling for some that they held a public funeral, deemed “RIP to Religious Freedom,” on the first day of the board meeting this week.
The required reading list, authorized by a 2023 state law, is the first of its kind in the nation. Final approved documents will be posted on the Texas Education Agency website and State Board of Education websites within a couple of weeks.
Those who fought against the changes say they knew they would pass but are grateful for some small victories, such as the reading list being pared down from 300 titles to less than 200. The law only requires one approved text for each grade, but a list proposed in January had as many as 49 books for a single grade level, expected to be taught in a 36-week school year.
Selections from the books of Genesis, Matthew and Luke appear on the list but the requirements don’t include central texts from religions other than Christianity. Some critics say the reading list violates the constitutional right to separation of church and state.
Diane Miller, a tenured professor and associate dean of the College of Public Services at the University of Houston Downtown, testified in Austin this week in her capacity as a member of the statewide Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts.
“We can’t sleep at night, as English teachers, if we don’t try,” Miller said. “It’s the same reason teachers teach for no money and under poor conditions. We feel like the most important thing we can do to create a literate citizenry is to help children learn to read and write.”
Required Reading
Miller said her TCTELA group provided data at the board meeting to support the reductions to the book list and also pointed out that, for example, it wasn’t feasible for a second-grade teacher to read aloud a chapter book called The Mouse and the Motorcycle, as designated by the original list.
“It’s a huge time constraint, so that one got dropped,” Miller said. The teachers also opposed a poem about Pocahontas that included the line, “She was a woman who needed to be tamed.”
“They found an informational text to use instead and struck the poem,” Miller said. “What that revealed is that the TEA did not do their due diligence on a curriculum alignment with the book list. It is simply a list of topics and ideas, very slanted, that they want kids to read. They never thought about the skills teachers are required to teach. These books are very light on skills.”
The Board, at the urging of advocates like Miller, replaced a biography on Abraham Lincoln published by the Christian Broadcasting Network. But a motion by member Staci Childs, D-Houston, to strike the works of William Bennett, failed 5-7. Childs pointed out in Friday’s meeting that in 2005, Bennett said publicly, “If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every Black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”
Three teachers from every grade level, representing districts across the state, met on two Saturdays in May to review the book list. They were hesitant to share their names or even the district they were from in a report to the Board because they were concerned about retaliation, Miller said.
“We had board members and teachers who did not feel safe testifying,” she said. “I’m tenured and I’m currently the associate dean, but I’m not sure I’m protected in [Lt. Gov.] Dan Patrick’s world because he wants to get rid of tenure.”
The teacher organization spent about $5,000 to have copies of the books sent to the homes of the volunteers and found that many were out of print. “TEA is saying they’re all readily available,” Miller said. “We know that if Texas decides to put a short story on their list, the publishers, while they’re jumping to ask how high on the way up, they’ll do whatever. It’s just interesting that these are out of print because the publishing companies have deemed them either culturally inappropriate or they’re just not selling anymore.”
“I think some of the members chose books they fondly remembered from their childhood or books that they’ve been directed by some sort of organization as an ideological thing they want kids to read,” she added.
Many critics of the Board have pointed to Christian nationalism and ties to Republican megadonors and right-wing advocacy groups as a driving force for including biblical references in required reading passages and textbooks.
Some rabbis opposed the New King James version being used for the Bible texts on the required reading list, and some Christian parents said they didn’t want secular educators teaching their child Noah’s Ark or David and Goliath because they wanted to talk to their kids about that in the home or at church, Miller said.
“We had a first-grade teacher who is a self-proclaimed Atheist on our work group,” Miller said. “She said she knew the Christian parents didn’t want her teaching their children those stories. She was going to teach them as literature and fake. What the State Board is doing is putting teachers across the state of Texas in a position of having tense parent-teacher conferences. They’re the ones on the front lines who are going to have to say that they have to make the children read these Bible texts.”
The required reading texts are testable, meaning they could show up on the STAAR exam. Though a parent can opt out of their child learning Bible stories, that student will be unprepared for the state exam, Miller said.
Social Studies TEKS
Jillian, the young testifier from this week’s Board meeting, is the daughter of Tiffany Perkinz, a Democratic candidate for the State Board of Education who will face Republican incumbent Julie Pickren in November for the District 7 seat.
In order to get the eight Democratic votes needed for a majority, three seats must be flipped in November. If that happens, the decisions made this week could be revisited. Most of the current Board members don’t have a background in education, nor does TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, Perkinz pointed out.
“In my opinion, the bad things that they are doing are part of a very far-right agenda,” Perkinz said. “They’re trying to hijack our education system.”
Perkinz is a certified high school English teacher and tutor. She’s Catholic and has six children, four of whom are enrolled in public schools. The other two aren’t school-age yet. She said she’s bothered by the characterization that critics of the Bible-based curriculum are opposed to Christianity.
“Christianity and Christian nationalism are two different things,” she said. “A lot of people who are Christians don’t have any desire to use the government to push their beliefs on others. The Christian nationalists often don’t view Catholics as Christians. The passages that they’re pushing all come from evangelical Christian translations.”
Busloads of people from across the state testified in support of the Christian infusion, arguing that the Bible is a historic text and most Texans are Christian. Board member Brandon Hall, a Republican youth minister from Aledo, said he supported a K-12 curriculum that honors the Judeo-Christian roots of United States history.
“America and Texas have been a Christian nation and a Christian state forever,” Hall said. “The proportion of the impact [Christians have] had is why they are included. There are other faiths that are represented, but they’ve had a minimal impact, especially in our founding and our culture and laws leading up to this point.”
But Miller said the social studies TEKS isn’t just about adding Christianity; it’s about rewriting history. “During one conversation on the Black Power movement, they wanted to take out everything that had to do with advocacy and protests,” she said. “They wanted to say it was a cultural movement. That’s not accurate. It diminishes the impact that people of color have had on our history.”
Perkinz agreed that the curriculum changes do more than sprinkle Christian lessons into the classrooms. It alienates children who don’t practice that faith in their homes, she said.
“To add it into the curriculum and make it state-sponsored takes it to another level of ‘othering’ those kids,” she said. “Kids have to be able to see themselves reflected in the books they read in English class and the stories that are told in history class. They’re taking it a step further where they’re not just pushing Christianity but they’re also using the curriculum to demonize Muslims. They’re trying to manipulate the curriculum so that Christianity is presented as perfect but any time Islam is mentioned, it’s negative.”
The State Board of Education members, who are unpaid volunteers, hold a lot of power in their ability to dictate what public school children learn, Perkinz said.
“Because Texas is such a large market, the textbook companies usually look to Texas first and plan their materials based on Texas standards,” she said. “When these 15 members are writing standards that demonize Muslims, elevate Christianity, center the white Protestant narrative and erase other voices, that’s going to become the standard for the country.”
Bluebonnet Curriculum
The TEA announced this week that it would spend more than $8 million to correct more than 4,200 errors in its Christian-infused state-sponsored Bluebonnet curriculum, and the state is paying public school districts to adopt it.
The Houston ISD Board of Managers voted Thursday to adopt the Bluebonnet instructional materials for kindergarten through fifth grade, and the district expects to receive $3.3 million for doing so.
Miller, who spoke to the Houston Press from the State Board of Education meeting in Austin, said, “People around here like to say that Bluebonnet is a teacher-proof curriculum. Like, you can have a crappy teacher and all they have to do is read off the script.”
“We know that teaching is more nuanced than that,” she said. “Teaching takes perception. We’re professionals and we went to school for this. You wouldn’t want somebody without a medical license to be treating your flu or setting your broken bone,” she said.
Perkinz said the Bluebonnet errors, which include copyright violations as well as minutiae like misplaced commas and misspelled words, occurred because the state was trying to push the curriculum through so quickly. “It’s all connected,” she said. “Bluebonnet is being used by districts that are under TEA state control, and the TEA takeovers are spreading. Bluebonnet being Bible-infused is connected to the state-mandated reading list, which is filled with the Bible.”
The effort to add Christianity into public school classrooms isn’t a new thing.
A state law passed last year requires districts to display donated Ten Commandments posters in every classroom. Although the law was challenged, a federal appeals court upheld it and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in November against Democrat James Talarico, launched an investigation to ensure Texas districts are in compliance.
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.
Frank Strong, an Austin teacher who co-founded the Texas Freedom to Read Project, said Friday that the action taken at the board meeting was discouraging but it’s motivated him to get out the vote in November.
“The events of this week really highlighted the fact that we need to elect representatives at all levels who put public schools first and aren’t playing political games with our public schools,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to focus on next. We need a board that is going to take teachers’ concerns more seriously, and we don’t have that right now.”
