Texas education officials are set to vote Friday on requiring public school students to read Bible passages as part of English instruction — a move that would restore the foundational text of Western civilization to the classrooms of 5.5 million students and push back against years of curricula that stripped moral and historical literacy from American education.
The Republican-controlled State Board of Education is expected to approve the mandatory reading list, which would embed roughly a dozen biblical passages — from Noah's Ark to the Beatitudes — into English instruction statewide starting in 2030. Texas educates 11 percent of all U.S. public school students. What happens there shapes a generation.
The selected readings include David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lion's Den, Psalm 23, and excerpts from Genesis, Exodus, and the New Testament. Supporters say this isn't Sunday school — it's recovering what was deliberately removed. "We need to focus on what our nation was founded on and not apologize for that," Susan Perez, founder of Citizens for Education Reform, told the board this week. "It is the truth, and we should not be afraid."
Republican board member Julie Pickren said the readings provide "important insight into the moral and philosophical traditions that have shaped Western civilization," adding that studying "primary historical documents" develops critical-thinking skills.
The establishment press is predictably alarmed. The New York Times framed the proposal as a "sweeping" and "unprecedented" state mandate, emphasizing the board's 10-to-5 Republican majority while offering little on the substantive case for biblical literacy. Newsmax covered the debate more squarely, presenting both supporters' and critics' arguments in full.
Critics lean hard on two lines of attack: that the readings privilege Protestant translations — specifically the King James Version and the New International Readers Version — and that public schools have no business requiring religious texts. Harvard Divinity School professor David Holland argued that choosing those translations "inevitably" privileges "certain kinds of Christian understandings" of shared texts. Democrat board member Rebecca Bell-Metereau insisted there's no justification for "trying to turn our public schools into Sunday schools."
But even skeptics concede the educational problem. Chad Seales, a University of Texas religious studies professor, warned that "compulsory religion" breeds divisiveness — then admitted that "a complete ignorance of religion doesn't help a student understand American history." That's the entire case. You can't read the Founders, understand the abolitionists, or follow the civil rights movement without biblical literacy.
The proposal follows Texas's broader effort to restore the moral framework public schools were built on: the state has authorized school chaplains, approved an optional Bible-infused elementary curriculum, and required Ten Commandments displays — a law recently upheld by a federal court.
The real question isn't whether religion belongs in education. It's already there — in every pride flag and land acknowledgment administrators mandate without a second thought. The question is whether the text that shaped this nation's laws, literature, and liberty gets the same hearing.
