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Nearly 1 in 4 Texas school districts opted to introduce a new, state-sponsored curriculum to kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms this fall, despite critics saying the lesson plans overly focus on the teachings of Christianity while reducing the importance of other world religions.
Around 30 of those districts are in North Texas, with Fort Worth ISD’s adoption of the curriculum marking the second-largest Texas district to opt in. The Bluebonnet curriculum was designed by state leaders who used a reading program made by the education company Amplify as a starting point. The development took place at the same time that Republican leaders mounted an aggressive campaign for more religion in schools. The result, which includes lessons on the Old Testament and the life of Jesus, certainly aligned with that goal.
Champions and critics of Bluebonnet both point out that the lesson plans center on Christianity in a way previous Texas curricula have avoided. The New York Times managed to parse through thousands of pages of teaching materials and students’ activity books, and found that, in the history lessons alone, the original Amplify curriculum mentioned Jesus 19 times. Texas’ rewrites included 87 references, a 383% increase.
In the second-grade reading lesson plans, Christianity, the Bible and Jesus are referenced about 110 times, the Times found, while Islam, Muslims, the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad are mentioned just 31 times across all K-5 lessons. David R. Brockman, a Christian theologian and religious studies scholar at Rice University, told reporters that he believes the curriculum sends students the message “that Christianity is the only important religion.”
“[It’s] state-sanctioned indoctrination,” said Fort Worth School Board Trustee Quinton Phillips said in September, before the board voted 6-3 to adopt the materials.
Texas officials, though, say the Biblical inclusions are less about religious instruction and more based on references that have historical or literary merit.
“These references create a strong background of knowledge for students with rich texts to further their understanding of our society, including our history, economy and culture,” Jake Kobersky, a spokesman for the Texas Education Agency, told The New York Times.
What’s actually in the lesson plans?
Public school districts are not required to adopt the Bluebonnet curriculum (although there is a significant financial incentive to do so); those that do switch to the lesson plans can remove specific lessons from the materials. That is to say, some Texas school districts may not be covering all the material included in the lessons.
We reviewed the first-grade reading lesson plans, which include 10 units on topics like fairy tales, astronomy and the American Revolution. Not every unit includes references to God, Jesus, the Bible and Christianity, but several do. One unit, titled “Sharing Stories,” references the parable of “The Prodigal Son” from the book of Luke alongside stories like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.”
“The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a popular story in the Christian Bible. Prodigal describes spending money in a wasteful way. Parables are short stories told by different people featured in the Bible as a way to teach lessons on spiritual matters,” an introduction to the story, which teachers are instructed to read aloud to their classroom, says. “In the Bible, Jesus told parables to help his followers understand his teachings. These parables were important not only to his followers but also to authors and artists who have used them as inspiration to write new stories that teach lessons.”
The same unit includes a reflection activity following the reading of “The Little Half-Chick,” which is inspired by the Spanish folktale Medio Pollito. Teachers are instructed to ask students to reflect on the idea of “Doing unto others as you would have done unto you,” and to “remind them that saying is called the Golden Rule; it comes from the Christian Bible when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, and it is an idea common to many religions.”
The other religions that observe the Golden Rule are not specified.
Another unit, which centers on the American Revolution, discusses how the story of Moses influenced the founding fathers and says the writings on the Liberty Bell were inspired by God’s messages about the “Promised Land.” The unit introduces the story of Moses as being from “the Hebrew Bible, which is also reorganized as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.” Further references attribute the story to the Bible. Additional references to God and Christianity appear in the unit’s discussion of unalienable rights and the Founding Fathers’ desire to include prayer in the first meeting of the Continental Congress.
Lessons on slavery for third- and fifth-grade classrooms that were reviewed by The New York Times make mention of the way many abolitionists who opposed slavery were Christians.
“Even as the use of slave labor grew, opposition to slavery also grew, driven by colonists morally opposed to the practice, often based on their beliefs as Christians,” a line in the Bluebonnet curriculum, which was not in the original Amplify lesson, reads.
The lessons do not point out that some Christians also used their religion to defend the practice of slavery. In lessons on the founding fathers, teachers are instructed to say that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson “realized that slavery was wrong and founded the country so that Americans could be free,” without mentioning the fact that both men owned slaves themselves.
Two fifth-grade units were especially scrutinized in The New York Times’ review of the learning materials. The first, a lesson on “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., emphasizes King’s allusions to the Biblical characters Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and decenters King’s message on race and racism in America.
The second is a unit on the Renaissance, in which the Texas curriculum adds five paragraphs of Biblical context to a lesson on Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” painting. The writings discuss how Jesus’ actions at the Last Supper influenced the Christian tradition of communion, and they include excerpts directly from the Gospel of Matthew that teachers are expected to read aloud.
School districts that adopt the Bluebonnet lesson plans are eligible for $60 per student in state incentives, and prior reporting by the Observer has found that sound North Texas districts are poised to reap millions.
Irving ISD will make nearly $2 million off the new learning program, and Duncanville ISD will make close to $700,000. Fort Worth ISD, which faced a steep budget deficit in the months leading up to the state’s recent decision to take over the district, will net $2.4 million after deducting the cost of printing out the new materials.
