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A cross sits on top of New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church in the Historic Southside neighborhood in Fort Worth in May 2024. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/DSCF7719-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/DSCF7719-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>Tarrant County pastors, parents and professors are preparing to participate in or closely watch debate over a proposed reading curriculum that uses Bible stories and its potential inclusion in a list of publicly available materials for Texas public schools.The controversy will head to Austin Tuesday as the State Board of Education kicks off a public hearing on the curriculum. The State Board of Education released materials in May that could be selected to join a list of approved curriculum for use in Texas public school classrooms. The move comes after Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law directing the Texas Education Agency to create its own free-to-use textbooks to help teachers with planning their classes. As state officials consider new curriculum materials, the idea of schools using Bible stories to teach kindergarten through fifth grade public school students has drawn concern from Tarrant County residents over whether the curriculum blurs lines separating church and state.Fifth graders Aubrey Halter, left, Gary Allridge and Arlette Garcia practice tracing the cursive letter U inside a classroom at Uplift Summit International Preparatory in Arlington on March 6, 2024. Their teacher, Donna Ylanan, watches as they practice. (Jacob Sanchez | Fort Worth Report)Religious scholars voice concerns over Christian representation in curriculumMark Chancey is a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University who focuses on biblical studies and public education.One of Chancey’s concerns with the proposed curriculum is the quantity of references drawing from the Christian faith in comparison with references to other religions. There are some references to other religions, such as Judaism and Islam, but the number of scripture or biblical stories — such as those about Queen Esther and Christ’s Last Supper, plus references to the Old and New Testament — places an emphasis on the Christian faith, Chancey said. “When I started looking through them, it was very clear that Christianity got the lion’s share of attention,” Chancey said. “Elementary school children are likely to draw the conclusion that Christianity is the most important religion.” 
Here’s a summary of my findings re Texas’ proposed K-5 reading curriculum. Read the full report here: https://t.co/lDKXHxM7U8 #txed pic.twitter.com/Mn5sLRkWE8— David R. Brockman (@drdrbrockman.bsky.social) 🇺🇦 (@drdrbrockman) August 16, 2024
Schools can teach about world religions, said TCU adjunct professor David Brockman, but it must “present a balanced, accurate and neutral account of religions,” he said. Brockman serves as a nonresident scholar for the Baker Institute’s Religion and Public Policy Program. Brockman spent a month looking over the proposed materials and wrote a review of the curriculum for Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. He is traveling to Austin Tuesday to attend the hearings but isn’t registered to give testimony, he said. “The reason this is a concern, a particular concern for public schools, is that public schools serve all students,” Brockman said. “Tarrant County is a very diverse county. We have some large South Asian communities up in the mid-cities, so large Muslim populations, growing Hindu and Buddhist populations, as well as a long-standing Jewish population, and then the various Christian denominations as well.”Lessons find support among lawmakers, organizationsJo Beth Jimerson is a professor at TCU’s College of Education who focuses on leadership and policy in the academic world. There are some lessons in the curriculum that are “laid out really well,” such as materials that teach the story of the Good Samaritan, Jimerson said. 
Young Texans deserve to learn with the highest quality of instructional materials as they prepare to lead our state into a promising future. Last session, we passed HB 1605 that will allow Texas school districts to adopt High-Quality Instructional Materials and provide our… pic.twitter.com/6WzNjiBI83— Dade Phelan (@DadePhelan) June 5, 2024
The new materials have also gained public support from Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Dade Phelan and Tarrant County politicians like state Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, and Rep. Gio Capriglione, R-Southlake.“Knowledge of religious themes can provide students with a greater appreciation and make it easier to contextualize various topics,” the lawmakers wrote in a June letter, adding they want students to become informed citizens while “preventing radical progressive ideologies from infiltrating our classrooms.” Organizations like Texas Values, a Christian group that told the Texas Tribune the biblical stories will “elevate the quality of education” for all students by giving them a well-rounded understanding of important religious texts and their impact on the world. Despite her appreciation for some lessons, Jimerson said, she learned these stories in Sunday school rather than a public school classroom.She is concerned about the curriculum “inviting a slew of lawsuits” from people who disagree with what lessons can be taught in public schools. “I’ve always seen separation of church and state as something that both protects the students from coercion, but it also protects the teachers from having to teach something they don’t agree with,” Jimerson said. Students walk to their classes at a Fort Worth campus in July 2022. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)
Pastors voice concerns about parent rights Mary Spradlin, senior pastor of Arlington Heights United Methodist Church, submitted a public comment to state officials in May voicing her concerns over the proposed materials. Among the issues on her mind, Spradlin said, is how teachers will navigate answering questions students may have about the Christian faith when there are varying views on the faith even among its own denominations. “There’s not one-size-fits-all Christianity,” Spradlin said. “It’s who’s teaching the Christian faith, and how they are teaching the Christian faith. A teacher who finds themselves in this murky water of having to answer religious questions, which inevitably will arise when you’re teaching religious documents, will probably answer those questions according to their own faith beliefs.” Kristin Warthen is a senior pastor at St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church and is a former high school English teacher. If a parent wants their child to learn about religion, parents have the choice to decide which church to learn from, Warthen said. St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church has served the southeast Arlington community since the 1980s and established its location on Green Oaks Boulevard in 1991. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report)Both she and Spradlin said they are concerned that the curriculum blurs the lines between the roles of public schools and Sunday schools. “We do a disservice to our parents when our children come home and our parents have to undo or unwind whatever theological teaching or error or misnomer or belief, whatever it is that the teacher holds that that family may not,” Warthen said. The State Board of Education is scheduled to start its meeting at 8 a.m. Sept. 10 and continue through Sept. 13. The education board is expected to approve a list of curriculums in November. Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org or @marissaygreene. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.