“Texas Education Board Backs Curriculum With Lessons Drawn From Bible”
“Nevaeh Crain died last year after seeking help from two hospitals for pregnancy complications.It took 20 hours and three ER visits before doctors admitted the pregnant 18-year-old to the hospital as her condition worsened. She’s one of at least two women who died under Texas’ abortion ban.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/01/nevaeh-crain-death-texas-abortion-ban-emtala/
Texas education officials backed on Tuesday a new elementary school curriculum that infuses material drawn from the Bible into reading and language arts lessons…
Advocates of religious freedom say the new curriculum is the latest major effort by conservatives to explicitly tie the nation’s history and politics to Christian values…
Supporters of the Texas curriculum say that the Bible is a fundamental part of American history and is crucial to students’ knowledge of the world. They argue that children’s literacy skills would suffer (sic) without a robust understanding of Bible references because Christian themes are pervasive in American culture….
A kindergarten lesson on the Golden Rule introduces students to Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount, for example. And a fifth-grade lesson on Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” includes an account of the final meal shared by Jesus and his 12 disciples, as well as several verses from the Gospel of Matthew….
Renate Sims, a Texas mother and substitute teacher, said at [the Texas State Board of Education meeting] that the incarnation of Jesus “is and always will be the hinge of all of history.”
“How would the canceling of such fundamental facts serve the education of our children or contribute to shape them morally?”…
Barbara Baruch, a San Antonio-area grandmother who is Jewish, asked the education board to leave religious instruction to parents and their houses of worship.
“I believe my grandkids should share our family’s religion,” Ms. Baruch said. “I need help stopping the government from teaching them to be Christians….”
David R. Brockman, a Christian theologian and religious studies scholar who reviewed the curriculum, said he believed deeply in the value of teaching about religion in public schools. But he also said lessons must be balanced, accurate and not promote one faith over others.
The Texas curriculum, he said, does not clear the bar.
In a fifth-grade unit on racial justice, students would be taught [,for example,] that Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists relied in part “on a deep Christian faith” to “guide their certainty of the injustice of slavery.” But they would not be taught that other Christians leaned on the same religion to defend slavery and segregation.
It was one example, Mr. Brockman said, of what he called a “whitewashing of the negative details of Christian history” that “helps to promote Christianity as an inherently ‘good’ religion.”
Connect the Dots 101 
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