Texas board approves required Bible reading in public schools
By: By JIM VERTUNO and JAMIE STENGLE (AP News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Texas board approves required Bible reading in public schools
Ruth Nasrullah, left, and Rocio Fierro-Perez, political director for the Texas Freedom Network, participate in an interfaith funeral-themed protest outside the Barbara Jordan Building in Austin on Monday, June 22, 2026. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Bible stories have become required reading for more than 5 million public school students in Texas.
The vote to approve the plan Friday by the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education reflects a broader conservative effort to introduce more religion into U.S. schools. Last year, Texas became the largest state to require every classroom to display the Ten Commandments.
The mandated reading list has drawn fierce opposition. Critics argue that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state, lacks diversity, and favors Christianity over other religions. Supporters say Judeo-Christian traditions were fundamental to the nation's founding and that should be reflected in the public school curriculum.
Here's what to know about the reading list and the broader fight over religion in public schools:
State Board of Education Vice Chair Pam Little votes on a proposed required reading list during a meeting on social studies standards at the Barbara Jordan Building in Austin on Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (Jay Janner /Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Republicans and Trump are pushing more religion into classrooms
President Donald Trump has pledged to protect and expand religious expression in public schools nationwide, and Texas — a red state that is home to about one in 10 of all U.S. public school students — often sets the agenda.
In 2023, Texas became the first state to allow the hiring of chaplains to counsel students, and the following year, the board narrowly approved an optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools. Last year, Republican lawmakers required public schools to display the Ten Commandments, a measure recently upheld by a federal appeals court.
Texas has about 5.5 million public school students from kindergarten through high school. The required reading list will begin taking effect in 2030.
"We need to focus on what our nation was founded on and not apologize for that," Susan Perez, founder of Citizens for Education Reform, told the education board during testimony this week. "It is the truth and we should not be afraid."
List requires Bible readings from elementary to high school
Picture-book stories for elementary students including "David and Goliath" and "Daniel and the Lion's Den" are on the required reading list. By fourth grade, students will encounter passages about Jesus in the New Testament.
One proposed Bible story, a picture book about Noah's Ark, was removed from a list of first-grade titles this week after a board member said it only had one page of text and voiced objections to descriptions of animals killed in the flood.
By middle school, students will be expected to read several passages about Jesus, including passages from his most famous sermon, and another where he instructs people to cast aside earthly anxiety and seek the kingdom of God. Another connects a reading from the Book of Lamentations and its themes of the destruction of Jerusalem with readings about the Holocaust.
In high school, students will read the parable of the prodigal son, portions of the Book of Job, and the story of Adam and Eve.
Texas may be the first state to enact a required reading list that includes Bible passages.
Antero Garcia, president of the National Council of Teachers of English and a Stanford University professor, said he doesn't know of any other state that has such a list. Educators at the district and school level usually choose what texts their students will read, Garcia said.
Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America's Freedom to Read program, said she believes a reading list with mandatory religious texts is "unique" to Texas.
"I think there's lots of state lists that exist that are like advised readings, suggested readings," she said.
Critics say the proposal favors Christianity over other religions
The required readings rely heavily on the King James Bible, one of the most popular translations, and more recent evangelical translations that critics argue lean too heavily on Christian interpretations of the texts.
Other critics question whether religious stories should be taught at all in schools attended by thousands of children of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and other faiths, and others who identify as atheist or agnostic.
"I do think that it's disturbing that there are no texts from other religious traditions that are included," said Frank Strong, an English and journalism teacher and co-founder of the student advocacy group Texas Freedom to Read.
___
JAMIE STENGLE reported from Dallas.
JIM VERTUNO Vertuno has been covering news, sports and politics from Texas for The AP since 1998. He won a National Headliner Award for sports writing in 2013.
The administrator of this group reserves the right, along with the site moderators, to moderate all and any postings to this group, including the right to enforce the ToS, the CoC, and also including anything that the administrator deems within his sole discretion to be offensive, including and not limited to off topic or 'no value' comments, with the power to delete in exercising those rights.
It would be best, therefore, to be civil in posting on this group.
By now it should be well known that I am unable to open certain sources, videos and pictures. If I cannot, I will ask that they be described and explained. If the poster refuses to comply, their comment will be deleted. Instagrams are banned.
Tags
Who is online
86 visitors
This takes me back more than 80 years when the primitive governing bodies in Canada required Christianity to be taught in public schools, along with real estate restrictions from selling homes in certain classy areas to Jews, and private clubs with restrictions against Jewish members. Back then, when the Christian religion was taught in the classrooms, the students who were not Christians were allowed to stand in the halls outside the classroom. Of course Canada GREW UP not long after those days.
Seems to me Texas is reverting back to being childish in their education system - will it allow Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist etc students to stand in the halls while they indoctrinate the Christian students with the only "true" faith?
Childish doesn't begin to describe it. can you imagine the backlash if the Koran special sections become required reading? Of course not.
Groups are all ready scrambling to establish standing to sue the buggers & bitches and Texas to require all or have none.
Another waste of taxpayers money ( the first being taxpayer supplied vouchers so the "holier than thou groups can get state money to teach religion at private schools)
This should not pass SCOTUS, but who knows these days.
I had trouble thinking about the right word to use and I'm not sure "childish" was the right one because even a child would be more grown up. I was pondering words like "backwards", "Neanderthal", "retro" etc.
I might have used retarded but brainwashed is probably more apt. Their allegiance to their country is second to their allegiance to stories about a dead rabbi from
2,000 years ago whose followers killed more humans than any other organized recognized religion.
Maybe that's why there's been so much antisemitism since.
But only the cherry picked good parts....
LOL