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Texas\u2019 latest curriculum revisions build upon these already fraught requirements. Credit: Shtterstock \/ Trong Nguy\u1ec5n<\/p>\nTexas\u2019 latest curriculum revisions build upon these already fraught requirements. Credit: Shtterstock \/ Trong Nguy\u1ec5n<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by the\u00a0Texas Observer<\/a>, a nonprofit investigative news outlet and magazine. Sign up for their\u00a0weekly newsletter<\/a>, or follow them on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0X<\/a>, and\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>.<\/p>\n In late June, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) set\u00a0controversial new curriculum requirements for the state\u2019s public schools<\/a>, which educate approximately 5.5 million students. Alongside further curtailing of cultural, ethnic, and geographic diversity, the new requirements mandate the teaching of Bible passages in Texas public schools. Though widely discussed in various media outlets, coverage of this last mandate has failed to fully grasp how it will shape students, future voters, and democracy alongside Texas\u2019 already highly politicized public school curriculum.<\/p>\n With all levels of state government under their control since 2003, Republicans have systematically reshaped how Texas public school students understand economics, history, society, religion, and citizenship. By 2010, the SBOE set standards<\/a> that exaggerated biblical influence on the nation\u2019s founders and dismissed the historical separation of church and state. Those education standards also reduced or eliminated coverage of labor issues, economic inequality, slavery, and segregation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another telling requirement that the SBOE set in 2010 was for high schools to offer courses that teach \u201cEconomics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits<\/a>.\u201d In response to those heavily politicized educational revisions, the education-reform think tank Thomas B. Fordham Institute concluded that Texas students were \u201cexplicitly urged to condemn federal entitlement programs, including Texas-born President Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s \u2018Great Society<\/a>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The conservative-leaning institute classified Texas social studies standards as offering \u201ca politicized dissertation of history<\/a>\u201d with \u201cmisrepresentations at every turn.\u201d It noted that \u201cfrom the earliest grades, students are pressed to uncritically celebrate the \u2018free enterprise system and its benefits\u2019\u201d as well as \u201cminimal government intrusion\u201d in the economy. And in this reshaping of Texas public education, business leaders were depicted as the bringers of social and national progress alongside such figures as the Founding Fathers and United States presidents.\u00a0<\/p>\n When, as the Fordham Institute put it, \u201cstudents are pressed to uncritically celebrate\u201d business leaders alongside the writers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they learn that to critique the free enterprise system and its leaders is to critique the nation\u2019s very foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n The latest curriculum revisions build upon these already fraught requirements. Consider two Bible excerpts that the SBOE chose to include in the state\u2019s school curriculum standards are \u201cTo Everything There is a Season\u201d from the Book of Ecclesiastes and \u201cThe Necessity of Humility\u201d in the Gospel of Luke<\/a>. \u201cThe Necessity of Humility\u201d teaches acknowledgment of individual limitations and dependence on higher authority. \u201cTo Everything There is a Season\u201d focuses on the idea that life operates in cycles beyond individual control, emphasizing acceptance over forceful, immediate action.\u00a0<\/p>\n Going forward, Texas students will be taught Bible passages about accepting limitations and depending on higher authority. Students will learn that life circumstances are beyond their power to change. They will learn that their place and the place of others in the economy and larger society should not be questioned. Instead, they should celebrate the wealthy and powerful for their economic success.\u00a0<\/p>\n Students who have been taught that they must revere the barons of the \u201cfree enterprise system,\u201d that inequality is not worth discussing, and that they should accept their life circumstances will become a compliant workforce and a malleable voting base. They will become working adults who will not expect fair wages. They will become voters who will not protest and who will not demand change for the betterment of their life circumstances. They will not question unjust economic realities, labor conditions, or the concentration of wealth and power.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Texas schools, religious lessons will join an already ideologically influenced curriculum that aims to create a passive student body, workforce, and citizenry. All Texans and all Americans, of any religious or political leaning, should be deeply alarmed.<\/p>\n Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>| Twitter<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n
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