Author’s note: This May 3, 2025, Washington County will hold a school board election for three Trustee positions. Candidates can file between January 15 and February 14. This is the first in a series of articles about education.
“An avidity (eagerness) to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret and to misapply even the best of laws.”
~ Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government 1795
The most sold book in the history of printing is without question the Bible. With over six billion copies in current circulation, it has sold between five and eight billion books according to Wikipedia. The next top sellers don’t even come close: the Koran shows either 800 million sold or upwards of three billion depending on which source you believe.
The third most sold book is Mao Tse-tung’s Little Red Book which has sold 900 million. *When I told Sybren that, he said, “That’s 900 million too many, but Hillary likes it.”
Yet, the Bible, not Mao’s book, is so dangerous that teaching it in public schools has been considered a taboo.
Until now. Sort of.
On the Friday before Thanksgiving, November 22, 2024 the State Board of Education (SBOE) narrowly approved (8-7) a new optional English Language Arts & Reading (ELAR) curriculum developed by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The curriculum is designed for Kindergarten through Grade 5.
They also approved a new math program that TEA developed for grades K-8 by an overwhelming majority (11-2).
TEA developed both as part of an initiative to create high quality instructional materials (HQIM) for Texas children calling it the Bluebonnet curriculum.
HQIM is a fancy way of saying that the textbook is accompanied by a teacher’s guide and additional resources. It’s a complete curriculum helping busy teachers with additional information, suggestions, books, and videos to make their preparation-time focused and efficient. The state does not require HQIM materials to be taught, but the state wants school districts to adopt them and get away from Chrome books (computers) like Brenham ISD uses and pablum curriculum. To do that, the State of Texas incentivizes districts by paying up to $60 per child per year when the district adopts the Bluebonnet curriculum.
By the way, have you noticed the jargon of education? It’s very annoying to me as well. If they didn’t create such fancy long titles, would all these acronyms be necessary?
Sybren says, “They do it to sound important.”
After the SBOE approved the Bluebonnet curriculum, I scanned the headlines. Reading them, one might have thought that the TEA should be renamed the Christian Crusaders for Education. Here are some examples:
“Bible-Based Lessons for Public Schools Get Final Approval in Texas,” New York Times;
“Christian Nationalism Marches on with Bible-Infused Texas Curriculum,” Common Dreams (a non-profit Russian-supported news agency in the US);
“Texas education officials approve Bible-based lessons for K-5 schools,” Washington Post;
“State Board of Education approves Bible-infused curriculum," Texas Tribune, a left-leaning free news service that the Brenham Banner Press frequently sites;
“Bible lessons in elementary school? Texas education board says yes,” BBC;
“You Don’t Need to Panic about Bibles in Public Schools,” MSNBC, an opinion written by the Editorial Director of Ideas at Christianity Today.
So, I decided to research for myself.
Full disclosure, I am a founding board member of Heritage Classical Academy scheduled to open sometime in the 21st century in Houston. We are the first charter school to be a member of the Barney Charter School Initiative established by Hillsdale College.
First, I listened to part of the seven-hour hearing. What was interesting was that this agenda item was originally worded so that the State board would vote for both math and ELAR in one vote, but an SBOE member amended the item into two votes. This debate to separate the one vote into two was a lengthy, confusing, and amusing process to watch.
So, the way the SBOE voted is worth mentioning. Five members who voted against Bluebonnet ELAR voted for Bluebonnet Math. Two members said they would have voted for ELAR because it was an "exceptionally good curriculum except for the inclusion of Christian stories." Therefore, she couldn’t vote for it because it violated the establishment clause of the first amendment. Author’s note: These SBOE members need a course on the Constitution. One member exaggerated (Could I say lied?) about the frequency of Christian content in the Bluebonnet curriculum. This I learned after researching the curriculum for myself.
Here is how the vote came down by our two representatives. Tom Maynard, who represents Washington County, was in favor of both, and Stacy Childs who represents the majority of HISD in Houston voted for the Bluebonnet math but not the ELAR.
For the nerdy people, here are the votes For and Against: ELAR (Vote: 8-7) For: Ellis, Francis, Hickman, Kinsey (Chairman), Pickren, Maynard, Racine, and Young. Against: Ortega, Perez-Diaz, Childs, Bell-Metereau, Brooks, Hardy, and Little.
Math (Vote: (11-2) Against: Ortega, Brooks.
Next, I went to TEA and spent a couple of hours researching the content. Here’s the link.
Note: TEA provides a username and password so that anyone can look at these materials in depth.
This is what I found.
First of all, most units do not mention the Bible, Christianity, or any religion at all. The education is secular.
In Kindergarten, I found one unit that referred to a single biblical figure. The unit, titled “Kings and Queens,” contained 10-lessons, one of which the story, “King Solomon: the Wise King.” This was taught in the context of other kings such as King Midas and the Golden Touch, Cinderella, and Prince Lang Lieu.
The next biblical reference was titled “Serving our Neighbors.” It began with a lesson about the Golden Rule. In the teacher’s activity guide, it points out that all world religions have variations of the Golden Rule.
Here, straight from the Bluebonnet curriculum, is what TEA says in the teacher handbook says about The Golden Rule:
“One of the books of the Bible describes Jesus giving a talk atop a small
mountain. During this talk he wanted to share some very important
lessons, so he climbed the mountain and spoke to a group of people who
were gathered to hear him. The talks Jesus gave were called sermons. A
sermon is a talk, like a lesson shared by a teacher, but the focus of the lesson is on
a religious or moral subject. When Jesus talked about morals in his sermons, he
was talking about the right and wrong way to act. Because Jesus shared this
sermon up on a mountain, this talk is called “the Sermon on the Mount.”
Mount is short for mountain.
“The Sermon on the Mount included many different lessons. Some of these included do not judge others; do not seek revenge, or try to get even with someone; and give to the needy. Beyond the Sermon on the Mount, there are many rules included throughout the Christian Bible. Jesus said that the Golden Rule sums up all of the important teachings from scripture. “So, in everything, do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
This is hardly a call to repentance from sin. There is no mention of the cross or of salvation. The teacher handbook does not clarify how Jesus’s commandment differs from the other world religions. It's presented on an equal footing. If it were me teaching this, I would point out that Christians are commanded to DO while other faiths are more passive, i.e., DON’T DO. As E. D. Hirsch argues in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Ought to Know, TEA wants students to be culturally literate, not Christians.
Other lessons in this unit include “Helping our Neighbors, Helping in our School, Helping in our Home, Helping Clean Up, Kids Help their Communities.” In that unit is a lesson titled The Good Samaritan.
In this lesson, the teacher’s guide reminds the students about the Golden Rule and then explains the story of The Good Samaritan.
Here is one section quoted from the Teacher’s Guide, titled “Kindness matters.”
“Remember the original question: “Who is my neighbor?” A version of the Golden Rule says to love your neighbor as yourself. There are four people in the story. Who do you think was being a neighbor? Think of the injured man, the second man, the third man, and the Samaritan.
“Who was a good neighbor to the injured man in the story? Why? [Pause for students’ responses.] (Answers may vary but should reflect the idea that the Samaritan stopped to help the injured man with his wounds, give him food, and help him find shelter, even though the injured man was from a region of people Samaritans disliked.) This story teaches a valuable lesson. What do you think people can learn from this story? [Pause for students’ responses.] (To help people who need it.) Have you ever acted as the Good Samaritan did and helped someone in need? [Pause for students’ responses and discuss.]"
Then, the teacher handbook explains Good Samaritan laws:
“Today, many states, including Texas, have special laws called Good Samaritan Laws.
They are designed to encourage people to step in and help someone who is hurt or needs help. What does being a Good Samaritan look like in school? The next time you see a classmate who needs help, think about the Good Samaritan in this story. What will you do?”
None of this content even whispers “go and make disciples of all nations...” If there is a moral lesson here, it is to inculcate kindness towards others and helpfulness.
Well, what about the other grades?
I found zero references to the Bible in first grade. I could not find third grade and in fourth grade listed. I found a unit on Biography featuring people who were “Fighting for a Cause.” In that 10-lesson unit, the story of Queen Esther was presented. Other people featured included William Penn, Wilberforce, Jackie Robinson, and Dr. Hector Garcia, a Texan civil rights leader.
To sum up, there is not much of the Bible contained in this curriculum. But one writer at MSNBC predicts there will be lawsuits to prevent the program’s implementation. Yes, there will be people filled with “avidity to punish" TEA to use the words of Thomas Paine in the quote at the beginning of this essay. How dare the curriculum mention King Solomon, The Golden Rule, The Good Samaritan, Queen Esther in our Texas public schools.
As Thomas Paine asserts, this avidity to punish is a dangerous enemy to liberty. The urge to weaponize the law as has been seen so often in recent years perverts all law, bringing good laws to bad ends. So should lawsuits against Bluebonnet prevail, it will be a sad day for our state.
In contrast to the Bluebonnet Curriculum, let’s step back and look at a law from our early history. I am referring to the first public education law enacted in North America by the Puritans in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In those days, there were no public schools, but literacy was not only considered important for the promise of a flourishing society, but also essential to one’s salvation. Furthermore, the Puritans jealouly protecting their rights to read the Bible understood Biblical literacy was necessary to prevent the abuse of power that historically had been imposed upon a Biblically illiterate people.
In Massachusetts (1642) and Connecticut (1647), legislators enacted the first public education law titled That Old Deluder Satan law. It required students to be taught to read.
Here is how the law began, “It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them (the Scriptures) in an unknown tongue… it is therefore ordered that every township within this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to number 50 households, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read…
The law goes on to order the town to set up a grammar school when the town size reaches a hundred householders.
We are a far cry still from the standards upheld by our forebears, but the tide is turning. I would urge you to question candidates for School Board Trustee what they know about the Bluebonnet Curriculum and to support it.