Texas Edu Board Approves Broad Bible Course Guidelines
Members of the Texas Board of Education have approved broad guidelines for Bible courses in state high schools that align curriculum standards for the elective with those of high school English and history classes.
Lawmakers had passed a bill last May that gave Texas high schools the freedom to provide an elective course on the history and literature of the Bible.
The decision on Friday to apply existing curriculum standards to the Bible elective comes two weeks after Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott sought clarification from Attorney General Greg Abbott as to whether the bill requires public high schools to offer the Bible elective if 15 or more students request it. Abbott has six months to respond.
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The majority of board members agreed that the current curriculum standards would work for the Bible courses for now until the attorney general issues an opinion on the bill.
"I believe that every school board should be able to pick whichever Bible curriculum they want. We already have TEKS (curriculum standards) written for the Bible curriculum," State Board of Education member Terri Leo told the Houston Chronicle.
"It's not like we haven't covered that subject. But they're broad enough to allow local districts to choose whichever one they want. And that's where that battle should be fought."
The board said Friday they may revisit the issue in September, after Abbott weighs in, the Star Telegram reported.
Kathy Miler, president of Texas Freedom Network, which opposes conservatives in politics, said the board should provide local school districts with specific content standards to avoid lawsuits and consider the religious freedom of others, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Jonathan Saenz, legislative affairs director of the Free Market Foundation, which defended one school district in a lawsuit against its Bible course, disagreed with Miller's demands.
"It's a shame that there's people out there like her group that really wants to delay the process," Saenz said in the same report.
Specific curriculum standards would "create more bureaucracy and more burdens on local school districts," he added.
Leo meanwhile felt the board followed the guidelines in the bill and to get too specific would prompt many school districts to drop the course.
"To me, we'd be opening up a can of worms if we got really specific here," the board member said, according to the Star Telegram.
He pointed out to the Dallas Morning News that the course was an elective allowing parents and students the option to decline to take the course if they disagreed with its contents.
The course is supposed to be offered in high schools by the fall of 2009.
