After more than nine hours of debate June 26, Texas’ Republican-led State Board of Education approved a sweeping rewrite of the state’s social studies curriculum standards and a list of dozens of books that students will be required to read each school year, both of which are infused with biblical references.
The new requirements will begin rolling out to public school classrooms in the 2030-31 school year.
The overview
As many as 25 texts will be read each year in early elementary school grades, with about 10 books required in later grades. School districts should also select additional texts to be read in the classroom, according to the SBOE. In a survey of about 5,700 Texas teachers, the Texas Education Agency determined that some elementary school classes read about 60 literary works per year, officials said during a January meeting.
Historically, local educators and school boards, rather than state officials, have determined what Texas students should read. The new reading list was created under a 2023 state law that directed the board to select “at least one literary work” per grade level, although the final list far exceeds that requirement.
The new social studies curriculum standards will expand lessons about Texas and American history, deemphasizing some teachings about world cultures and people of color. The standards also expand the amount of content students will be expected to learn each year, with hundreds of required concepts approved for each grade.
All of the board’s Democratic members and one Republican—Evelyn Brooks of Frisco—voted against the reading list, with the other Republican members voting in favor. The social studies standards were largely adopted on party-line votes.
The debate
Proponents of the new standards and reading list have said they will help students learn about “American exceptionalism,” the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding and classical literature. Some Republican board members noted that frequent references to the Bible are designed to deepen children’s understanding of Texas and U.S. history, rejecting concerns that the curriculum would proselytize or “establish a state religion.”
“This week at the State Board of Education, we’re going to roll back 80 years worth of historical revisionism, where they’ve watered down our history, where they’ve taken the Christian foundation of our history out, where they painted our founding fathers [as] villains,” SBOE member Brandon Hall, R-Aledo, told reporters June 22. “We’re rolling all of that back this week, and we are bringing the Bible back into schools.”
Critics have expressed concerns that the new educational policies do not include perspectives representing Texas’ diverse student population and rely too heavily on Christian perspectives at the expense of other religions and cultures.
“It serves an injustice to what we were called to do as elected officials [by] our constituents, knowing that we don’t have a voice in this moment to bring what we worked on to this table,” SBOE member Tiffany Clark, D-DeSoto, who is Black, said June 23. “Our voices are being left off constantly.”
Educators and historians also warned that teachers would not have enough time in the school year to cover all the required content.
“The list will eat up weeks of valuable instructional time, ranging from 77 to 142% of the year, … which is simply a mathematical bridge too far to cross,” Diane Miller with the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts said June 22.
The new reading list and social studies requirements will be incorporated into Texas’ annual standardized tests, which are administered to public school students in third through 12th grade. Students currently take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, and they will shift to a set of three shorter exams in fall 2027.
Zooming in
Under the literary works list, students will first be required to read Bible passages in first grade, beginning with the story of Jonah and the Whale. The list includes 12 biblical readings in total.
Other Bible texts on the reading list include:
- The story of David and Goliath in second grade
- The story of Moses in fifth grade
- Excerpts from the Book of Matthew in sixth grade
- Excerpts from the Books of Psalms and Matthew in seventh grade
- Excerpts from the Books of Ecclesiastes and Lamentations in eighth grade
- The Parable of the Prodigal Son in English I
- An excerpt from the Book of Job in English II
- The story of Adam and Eve in English III
- An excerpt from the Book of 1 Corinthians in English IV
Earlier in the week, the excerpt from the Book of Lamentations received significant criticism for “contributing to antisemitism.” In eighth grade language arts courses, students will be required to read Lamentations 3, which details “the destruction of Jerusalem as God’s punishment for the Israelites” alongside “Night,” a Holocaust memoir by Elie Wiesel.
“This invites eighth graders to consider whether the Holocaust was God’s punishment for the Jews,” Houston Rabbi David Segal said on June 22. “I assume this poor choice comes from ignorance, not ill intent, but either way, it’s unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, the board removed some context about slavery and racism from the social studies standards, including a requirement that students learn about “the central role of the expansion of slavery” in the U.S. Civil War and content specifying that “Africans were enslaved in the United States because of the color of their skin.”
A previous version of the social studies proposal would have first introduced students to the nation’s history of slavery in first grade, and that content was later moved to second grade. However, the standards first mention the Civil Rights Movement—a 1950s and ‘60s effort to end racial segregation and discrimination after the abolishment of slavery—in first grade.
Some Republicans said they hoped the book list and social studies standards would help students learn to love their country and understand its Judeo-Christian history.
“We are not educating children of the world—we’re educating children in Texas,” SBOE member Julie Pickren, R-Pearland, said June 22. “The Texas Constitution says that the whole purpose of a public and free education is for a diffusion of knowledge to preserve our liberties and our freedoms, … so we need to educate the next generation of Texans in a way that preserves our God-given freedoms.”
On June 25, the education board voted to postpone further discussion on the standards for four high school courses—U.S. History, U.S. Government, World History and World Geography—until its September meeting. The kindergarten through eighth-grade standards were approved June 26, and board members were still working through amendments to specialized high school courses, including economics, sociology and psychology, as of press time.
The big picture
The Bible’s presence in Texas public schools has increased in recent years, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
In late 2024, the SBOE approved for classroom use a first-of-its-kind set of state-developed textbooks, which contain hundreds of references to Christianity and the Bible, significantly outweighing mentions of other major religions. The state is currently working to correct roughly 4,200 errors in its textbooks, which schools are not required to use.
Less than a year later, state legislators passed a law requiring that public schools display donated posters listing the Ten Commandments in classrooms. In April, a federal appeals court ruled that the state could enforce that law.
Another 2025 state law allows school districts to reserve time during the school day for students and staff to pray and read religious texts. The majority of districts in Community Impact’s coverage areas voted against creating a daily prayer period, with some school officials citing existing religious protections for students, per a Community Impact analysis of district records.
One more thing
A few Texans who testified ahead of the votes June 26 expressed concerns that the social studies policy had been drafted without consideration of public input.
“[The social studies plan] is a document assembled in the dark by people who are not educators and are not content experts in social studies, deciding what a generation of Texas children will and won’t learn,” said Meghan Dougherty, an Austin-area social studies specialist. “Slow down, do the work in daylight and treat constituents who come here with the respect they deserve.”
The SBOE is required to review all public school curriculum standards every 15-20 years. Board members began reviewing the social studies standards in 2022 and later postponed that work until 2025, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
The board has held public meetings on the topic since late 2025 and formed work groups composed of educators and experts; however, large portions of the proposal were written by nine appointed content advisers, which include scholars, professors, consultants and one public school teacher.
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Publisher: Houston – Community Impact Newspaper