Others testified that students need to learn about Christianity for valuable context about Texas and American history.
“There’s so much richness in biblical literature, and nine out of 10 homes have a Bible in them in America,” said Cindi Castilla, president of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum. “You can read rich literature [and] learn character traits through biblical stories, and you can understand more about where our law comes from.”
Texas Education Agency officials have insisted that the textbooks will provide students with cross-curricular knowledge and important context about American history.
The TEA released thousands of pages of elementary school reading and language arts; kindergarten through eighth grade math; and algebra 1 curriculum materials in May. If approved by the SBOE in November, the state textbooks will be available for free online and optional for schools to use.
What you need to know
The state textbooks were developed under House Bill 1605, a 2023 law that overhauled Texas’ public school curriculum standards. This is the first time Texas has created its own instructional materials.
Nearly 300 people were trained to conduct an extensive review of 142 materials proposed by the TEA and other publishers. Over 400 Texans submitted online public comments on the materials this summer, according to the TEA.
Publishers can make corrections and changes to their proposed materials before the SBOE votes on final adoption in November.
Throughout nine hours of public testimony Sept. 10, a common refrain emerged from a majority of the speakers: that the state textbooks focus too much on Christianity and are not appropriate for elementary students. Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, said the materials promote Christianity “to our youngest and most impressionable students, violating parents' rights to direct the moral and religious training of their children.”
“I support public schools teaching about religion, including the Bible, in legal, age-appropriate ways,” Chancey told the board. “Unfortunately, these materials do not do that. ... They are very religiously biased. They emphasize the Bible more than other religious texts, Jesus more than other religious figures and Christianity more than other religious traditions.”
Zooming in
The materials feature biased and sometimes racist depictions of Jewish people, according to Jewish advocacy groups and religious leaders. A proposed second grade lesson discusses the Book of Esther, which tells the story of a Jewish woman who stops a plot to kill all the Jewish people in Persia.
The lesson “specifically talks about how Jews looked different, and they talked different. They were different from other people,” said former state Rep. Paul Colbert, who is Jewish. “That is a common anti-semitic trope... Jews as the other.”
A teacher’s guide describes how Haman, an adviser to the Persian king, rolled dice to determine when he wanted to attack the Jewish people. The guide instructs teachers to roll dice to demonstrate Haman’s decision.
“This is shocking, offensive and just plain wrong,” said Sharyn Vane, a Jewish parent. “Do we ask elementary schoolers to pretend to be Hitler?”
SBOE members said it is important to accurately portray history without hurting specific groups, and vowed to continue reviewing the materials this fall.
“Historically, the Jewish people have just been targeted a lot. ...I mean, there's a long, long, long, long history of that, and I don't think that we necessarily have to hide from that, but I think that how you present that is important,” said board member Tom Maynard, R-Florence.
Courtney Toretto, a policy director for the Anti-Defamation League, said references to Christianity “far overshadow” other religions in the state textbooks.
“ADL is an organization that has long held that the best way to protect religious liberty is to ensure a robust separation between church and state,” Toretto said. “We believe in creating a just and inclusive society for all—one in which no student should have to be subjected to religious indoctrination to receive publicly funded education.”
Several Christian pastors testified that parents should be able to teach their children about religion at home without interference from the government.
“I love the stories of the Bible, and I believe that people can experience healing and light through these stories,” said Lisa Jacob, a Dallas-area organizer with the Baptist Joint Committee. “But believing and valuing my faith does not give me license to institutionalize my religion above others, as is the case with this [state-developed] curriculum.”
The other side
Christie Slape, who chairs the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty, said the state textbooks would help improve student outcomes and ensure teachers do not have to build their own curriculum.
“For parents, printed materials allow them to engage in reviewing, discussing and practicing lessons with their child, fostering a much needed return to parental involvement in their child's education,” Slape said. “For children, most importantly, they provide rigorous, age-appropriate lessons and literature that are on paper and not on a glowing screen.”
TEA Commissioner Mike Morath and other state officials have argued that the state-developed materials are rigorous, align with state standards and will help prepare students to contribute to society.
In August, Morath told Texas lawmakers that the reading and language arts materials “are designed to give kids interesting stories, but to also grow their vocabulary and knowledge of the world around them. Very interdisciplinary in terms of what they're reading: a little science, a little social studies, a little literature, all for the purpose of growing vocabulary and background knowledge. We've tried to prioritize Texas-specific stories."
Stay tuned
The SBOE will vote on all the proposed instructional materials during its Nov. 19-22 meeting. The board can approve, reject or take no action on individual materials, according to SBOE documents.
School districts can begin using any of the approved materials during the 2025-26 school year. Use of the state-sanctioned materials is optional, but districts that do so would receive up to $60 per student to purchase and print them. Districts currently receive about $171 per student, plus $16 for emergent bilingual students, to acquire textbooks, according to the TEA.
The instructional materials review process will occur every year, with publishers submitting new proposals annually.
