A Curriculum Tempest in a Texas-Sized Teapot

The state could avoid controversy and improve a proposed elementary curriculum by making some modest changes to its accounts of Bible stories.

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An elementary literacy curriculum commissioned by the state of Texas has drawn flak for allegedly promoting Christianity. The reaction has been somewhat overheated, but the curriculum could be improved—and made more palatable to critics—with some modest changes.

To those wary of religious indoctrination, the headlines on recent stories about the proposed curriculum might ring alarm bells. “Texas seeks to inject Bible stories into elementary school reading program,” announced the education news website The74, which broke the story. The Washington Post’s headline was “Proposed curriculum is called overtly Christian.”

The Texas Education Agency and the state’s education commissioner, Mike Morath, say they’re not promoting Christianity but simply trying to ensure that the state’s five-million-plus students acquire the knowledge they’ll need to understand cultural and historical allusions.

If you know nothing about the story of the Good Samaritan, for example, you’re likely to have trouble understanding texts that refer to it without explanation. Ensuring that students have the knowledge assumed by texts they’re expected to read—including texts at higher grade levels and in their adult life—is a crucial part of fostering reading comprehension.

But critics charge that the curriculum crosses the line between teaching about religion, which is permissible in public schools under the U.S. Constitution, and inculcating specific religious beliefs, which is not (at least under current Supreme Court precedent). They also say the curriculum is disproportionately focused on stories from the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Before getting into the specifics of this controversy, it’s important to provide some context. Although there’s little reliable data on what is actually taught in American classrooms, most elementary schools these days probably teach little or nothing about religion of any kind, for fear of crossing the line between what is permissible—or acceptable to parents—and what is not.

But that’s only part of a much larger problem. Elementary schools transmit little or no information about the world, period. That’s because the overwhelming focus in elementary and sometimes middle school has been on reading and math, the tested subjects.

Part of reading instruction involves teaching children to decipher written words, but most of the time spent on reading focuses on enabling them to understand what they read. Unfortunately, instead of building the academic knowledge and vocabulary that fuel reading comprehension, schools have had kids spend many hours practicing reading comprehension skills like “determining the author’s purpose” or “making inferences,” using easy-to-read texts on random topics. Social studies and science have been marginalized or even eliminated.

The result is that many students reach higher grade levels without the knowledge of history, geography, or science assumed by the curriculum. That’s especially likely to happen if they come from less highly educated families and have had little opportunity to pick up academic knowledge outside school. As a result, these students often experience frustration and academic failure, through no fault of their own.

Texas and Knowledge-Building Curriculum

In the past few years, several elementary literacy curricula have been developed that systematically build students’ knowledge while also teaching them to do things like make inferences. Texas, to its credit, is one of the few states that have encouraged schools to use such curricula.

Several years ago, the state contracted with Amplify, publisher of a knowledge-building curriculum called Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) to produce a Texas-specific version that retained much of the same content. (I have spoken at events sponsored by Amplify but do not accept speaking fees from that company or any other curriculum publisher.)

Texas didn’t require districts to use Amplify’s curriculum, but they made it available online for free. Since 2021, some 400 Texas school districts have used the materials, and some have seen significantly higher test scores.

Then last year, a state law, HB 1605, directed the Texas Education Agency to create “high-quality” curriculum materials with the stated purpose of relieving teachers of the burden of searching for or creating their own lesson plans. That’s a laudable goal, but given that the state had already made a high-quality curriculum available for free, it’s not clear why further action was needed. Another factor may have been vigorous pushback from conservative parents who object to what they see as liberal or anti-Christian bias in the Amplify curriculum.

The irony here is that many left-of-center teachers and academics have denounced CKLA for being Eurocentric or even a “master narrative curriculum,” as one of them told Ed Week. But conservative parents can become equally exercised, seeing lessons on Ancient India or Ancient China as religious indoctrination because they include material on Hinduism and Buddhism. Some object to lessons on Greek mythology for the same reason.

Pushback from Conservative Parents

Texas, a generally conservative state, has seen its share of such complaints. A YouTube video linked in The74’s coverage shows 10 minutes of a meeting Morath had with conservative parents a year or so ago. He begins by saying that the state hadn’t had time to adequately vet the Amplify curriculum before its release, and he knew it had “problematic” aspects. Those remarks are followed by a presentation from a woman identified by The74 as Jamie Haynes, who runs a website on “concerning” curriculum and books.

“Amplify is desensitizing our children and is indoctrinating them on many, many, many levels,” Haynes says in the video. “If the Devil could come together and create some curriculum that didn’t go over the line but went as close as it could, and then poke through every once in a while, that’s what Amplify is.”

Morath seems to agree at this point, saying “Yup.”

Haynes goes on to complain that Amplify “sexualizes children” and “undermines traditional values and beliefs all over the place.” Turning specifically to religion, she accuses Amplify of “painting Christianity in a negative light. There’s witchcraft, and magic, curses, and sorcery. … There’s one mention of Jesus, that he was a teacher a couple thousand years ago, no big deal. The only other time we can find God, our God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—is in the American unit .. in the Pledge of Allegiance.” Mythology, she says, is also “a huge problem in Amplify.”

I’m pretty familiar with CKLA, and I don’t recognize it from Haynes’ description. Yes, there’s mythology, and not much discussion of Christianity, but sexualization of children and sorcery? Not that I’ve seen.

But of course, reasonable people can differ in their interpretations of texts. During the meeting, Morath cites a passage included in Amplify’s curriculum about “how to eat a guava” as an example of inappropriate sexualization; to me, it reads like an example of including non-sexual sensory details in a narrative, which I imagine is how it was intended. (You can read it here and see what you think.) Later, Haynes projects an excerpt from the myth of Cupid and Psyche that says Cupid visited Psyche only at night; the text says nothing about sex, but Haynes seems to believe it’s inappropriately suggestive. I don’t.

Nor, for the record, do I find much validity in the left-wing critiques of CKLA as a “master narrative curriculum.” From what I’ve seen, it presents a pretty balanced account of, say, American history, including age-appropriate discussions of its uglier aspects, like the Trail of Tears. But I understand that others, including some whose opinions I respect, disagree.

Curriculum Needs to Specify Content

Fortunately, we don’t all have to agree on what curriculum content is appropriate. I don’t believe there’s one list of topics that all children need to learn about. The ultimate goal is for students to acquire the critical mass of general academic vocabulary that will enable them to read and understand texts on topics they’re not already familiar with.

However, because vocabulary doesn’t stick in long-term memory without a meaningful context, the only route to that general knowledge lies through learning about lots of specific topics. Still, there are various routes that can work. To learn the meaning of a word like dynasty, kids could learn about European dynasties, Asian dynasties, African dynasties, or indigenous American dynasties.

What’s crucial is that the curriculum be internally coherent, so that it builds knowledge in a logical sequence. If it assumes kids have certain information by, say, fifth grade, it needs to have provided that information at prior grade levels.

And that does requires at least some of us to agree on specific content and, to some extent, how to cover it. If the curriculum doesn’t specify content, students are likely to get instruction only in abstract comprehension skills, which doesn’t work, or to get a haphazard assortment of content selected by individual teachers, which also doesn’t work.

At the same time, there’s a legitimate argument to be made for emphasizing Western culture in American schools, including Bible stories. That’s not because Western culture is inherently superior to others but rather because the literary and historical allusions Americans are likely to encounter tend to assume knowledge of that culture more than others.

Culture does change, and the curriculum should change with it. But it changes fairly slowly. Even today, students are more likely to encounter a reference to the story of Achilles’ heel than one to a story from, say, the Bhagavad Gita. Arguably, it’s even more important for students from non-Western cultures to acquire information about Western culture at school, since they’re less likely to absorb it at home.

The Controversy in Texas

So where does the controversy brewing in Texas fit into all this? I fear it could become another exhibit in the “culture wars” that have emerged there and elsewhere—for example, in Florida, when that state adopted new African-American history standards last year.

Media coverage of such battles can give the impression that the country is hopelessly polarized. In fact, polls show that Americans largely agree on such questions as whether kids should learn about slavery and racism. I suspect most would also agree that it’s okay for kids to learn about Bible stories to acquire background knowledge.

A key question, of course, is how it’s done. In Texas, there are surrounding circumstances, including that YouTube video, that could be taken to suggest an impermissible religious purpose despite protestations to the contrary from Morath and others.

For example, the state turned to some politically conservative organizations to revise the curriculum after Amplify decided not to bid on the contract. And a few days before the curriculum was released, the Texas Republican Party adopted a platform calling on the state board of education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance.”

I also have some personal experience of how pervasive Christianity is in many places in Texas. Last year when I was visiting the state to give a presentation on the importance of knowledge-building curricula, I was invited to join a lunch attended by a number of education officials, including Morath. Just before we tucked into our barbecue, one of the officials was invited to lead us all in saying grace—and he did. This might have raised eyebrows in, say, Massachusetts, but no one in the room seemed to find it unusual.

Nevertheless, the proposed Texas curriculum should be judged on its own merits and not on the basis of surrounding circumstances. And it should be said that it’s only a proposal; many other curricula are also under consideration, according to news reports. Public comments are being accepted from Texas residents until August 16, and the state may respond with changes. The board of education will make a decision in November, and whatever curriculum they approve will be available to schools beginning in August 2025.

As with the Amplify curriculum, even then schools won’t be required to use it. But unlike the Amplify curriculum, which was merely available for free, districts using the new curriculum will receive $60 per student—a powerful incentive in a time of strapped school budgets.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Curriculum

So, taking the curriculum on its own merits, what do I think? To be clear, I haven’t read the whole thing. It’s over 100,000 pages, so I doubt few people have. But I have perused a number of lessons, with particular attention to those that critics say cross a line.

First, it’s clear that—compared to the typical reading or literacy curriculum, which is light on content and heavy on isolated comprehension skills—there is much to admire. In fact, in many respects the curriculum is still not all that different from CKLA, which is rich in content and introduces young children to complex texts and topics through engaging read-alouds and discussion.

Crucially, the curriculum also connects what students are reading and writing to what they have learned about through listening and discussion, enabling them to read and write at a higher level because the content is already familiar.

And, as defenders of the curriculum have argued, there are many lessons that have nothing to do with religion. Kindergartners learn about the five senses, fairy tales and folktales, and plants. Second-graders learn about the War of 1812 and insects—as well as Ancient Greek civilization and Greek myths (although there seems to be more emphasis than in CKLA on the fact that these are fictional).

There are also omissions and additions, some to make the curriculum Texas-specific but others that might have been politically motivated. Ancient India and China, along with discussions of their religions, are gone, as are Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In a second-grade unit on “Fighting for a Cause,” Susan B. Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt have been replaced by Queen Esther and William Penn, for a subunit on “people who fought for religious freedom.” On the other hand, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Cesar Chavez are all still there.

Even if some changes were made in response to pressure from conservative parents, that doesn’t necessarily make them illegitimate. Decisions about what to cover are inherently political to some extent, and elected officials need to take into account the preferences of their constituents. After speaking with educators in conservative school districts in Texas and elsewhere who have had to excise some Amplify lessons in response to parents’ objections, I can see how the proposed curriculum could alleviate headaches while also allowing for a more coherent educational experience for students.

But there are limits, and from what I’ve seen, I believe Texas’s proposed curriculum does sometimes veer into what many would consider religious indoctrination. That doesn’t mean it should be scrapped. If those on both sides are willing to make some compromises, they could avoid another unproductive skirmish in the culture wars. They could also end up with a curriculum that may not completely satisfy everyone but does provide kids with a solid foundation of knowledge and skills (including skills related to decoding words, which are also covered).

As a model, Texas might look to the Virginia state board of education, which—in contrast to the bitter clash over African-American history standards in Florida—managed to reach a bipartisan agreement on new social studies standards last year. The board was split evenly between Democratic and Republican appointees, but rather than digging in their heels when conflicts arose, each side was willing to give up something. “Those looking for a story of America as an unblemished hero’s journey will come away disappointed,”  board member Andrew Rotherham has written, “but so will those who see America as little more than an aggregation of historical sins.”

“The Bible Explains …”

I won’t take the space here to go into all the instances I thought crossed a line in the Texas curriculum, but I’ll offer a few examples.

The text generally introduces stories from the Bible as just that—stories. In a third-grade unit on Christianity and the Roman Empire, the text begins by saying that the New Testament texts “describe what modern Christians believe to be the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus” (emphasis added). That sounds okay to me.

But as the story goes along, the curriculum repeatedly uses the phrase “The Bible explains,” as in “The Bible explains that Jesus rose from the dead.” Using the word “explains” suggests that the account is factually true. Why not use another word, or say, “According to the Bible …”?

And sometimes the curriculum goes into more biblical detail than seems necessary. Yes, it’s important to know what DaVinci’s “The Last Supper” is depicting, but to understand the painting, do fifth-graders really need to learn that “Jesus wanted his followers to understand that in the same way that the body is sustained by bread, the soul is sustained by faith in Jesus”?

When first-graders are learning about American symbols, do they need to know the biblical origins of the inscription on the Liberty Bell? I consider myself a fairly well-educated person who gets a lot of literary and historical allusions, and I didn’t know that was a quotation from Leviticus. I don’t think that’s held me back.

Of course, many parents in Texas will be fine with those features of the curriculum, but many others may not be. Texas has over 450,000 residents of Indian descent and over 400,000 residents who are Muslim. A surprising 18% identify as having no religion, including 5% who are atheist or agnostic. They and other non-Christian parents—or even Christian parents whose views differ from those assumed in the curriculum—might be fine with having their children introduced to Bible stories, but they probably don’t want those stories presented as historical fact.

I’m going to give Texas education officials the benefit of the doubt and assume that they truly want to provide all of the state’s students with the knowledge they need to succeed—not to convert them all to Christianity. If that’s the case, I would suggest decisionmakers take a close look at the curriculum while imagining themselves in the shoes of parents—and teachers—who are not themselves Christian or don’t share the beliefs that are sometimes stated as fact.

The curriculum has much to offer Texas students and their families. It would be a shame if some rejected it because they felt it was not for them—and if continued news reports on the controversy led to the perception that the country is mired in hopeless polarization.