Texas Just Made The Bible Mandatory Reading In Schools

BREAKING NEWS: Texas just did something no state has ever done. Moments ago, the State Board of Education voted to require more than 5 million public school students to read Bible passages as part of their mandatory English and literature curriculum – the first requirement of its kind in the nation.

The board wants folks to think of this as cultural literacy. But critics say, if you look closer, it's something else.

What Bible Passages Are Now Required Reading?

The proposed reading list included several biblical passages spanning every grade from kindergarten through senior year. For younger students, the primary translation is the International Children's Bible (ICB) — a simplified Protestant text the publisher describes as designed for "new Bible readers of all ages and abilities to understand God's Word." The King James Version appears at 8th and 11th grade. Catholic-approved translations don't appear anywhere on the list. Texts from any non-Christian tradition — the Quran, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita — are nowhere to be found.

Here are the required Bible passages specified on the just-passed list:

• Kindergarten: The story of "Jonah and the Whale" was initially proposed but was ultimately removed from the final list.
• 1st Grade: The story of "Noah's Ark" was initially proposed but was ultimately removed from the final list.
• 2nd Grade: David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17: 1-25, 32-50 ICB)
• 3rd Grade: The Story of Daniel in the Lion's Den (Adapted Children's Bible)
• 4th Grade: The Necessity of Humility (Luke 14:7-11)
• 5th Grade: Moses & Exodus (Exodus 3: 7-11; 14:15-18, 21-29 NIRV)
• 6th Grade: Do Not Be Anxious (Matthew 6:25-34 ESV)
• 7th Grade: The Shepherd's Psalm (Psalms 23 KJV), and The Eight Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12 KJV)
• 8th Grade: To Everything there is a Season (Ecclesiastes Chapter 3)
• 9th Grade: The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32 EST)
• 10th Grade: The Book of Job (Job 1:7,11,14,19,28,38-42 NIRV)
• 11th Grade: Adam & Eve (Genesis 2 and 3 NIRV)
• 12th Grade: The Definition of Love (1 Corinthians Chapter 13 ESV)

Regardless of which Protestant translation appears at which grade level, a common thread runs through all of the passages: none uses a Catholic-approved text, and none draws from any non-Christian tradition. The International Children's Bible, the primary translation across the elementary grades, was developed by and for Protestant readers. The King James Version, which arrives at 8th grade and returns in 11th, carries a longer and even more charged history. As University of Texas religious studies professor Chad Seales points out, it was the standard version used in American public schools until the 1950s – which explains why parochial Catholic schools exist in such numbers... Catholic parents built their own schools precisely because they didn't want their children receiving Protestant biblical instruction on the public dime.

Rabbis in particular have rejected the curriculum's "Judeo-Christian" framing , pointing out that even Jewish scripture is being filtered entirely through translation choices made by and for Christians.

History, it turns out, has a way of repeating.

Who Is This Really For?

The 2023 law that set this process in motion required at least one mandatory book per grade level. The board chose to propose 5 to 15 books per grade instead – nearly 300 titles in the original draft. Even the board member who championed the final version acknowledged it: "There is not one other state that will have a required reading list as robust as this," he said. The law gave the board an inch; they took a mile.

Then there's the question of what survived the cutting process and what didn't. When the board trimmed around 100 titles from the original proposal, Alice Walker's Everyday Use was cut. Frederick Douglass' What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? was cut. Booker T. Washington's writings? Cut. Most of the Bible passages stayed. With America's 250th anniversary a week away, the board's choices are telling: they removed the most celebrated Black American meditation on what "independence" actually means, and kept so many Bible verses.

The diversity problem runs deeper than religion. Critics from both parties raised concerns about the underrepresentation of women, Hispanic, and Black authors throughout the list. Board member Tiffany Clark, who voted against the new list, didn't mince words: "The booklist is not diverse, and if these are the same classical literature pieces which has ranked us 44th in the nation for third grade reading, we have failed students." At the same meeting, the board voted to eliminate the sixth grade "World Cultures" course entirely – part of a broader social studies revamp that deemphasizes global history in favor of explicitly Texas and American content.

Teachers aren't buying the cultural literacy framing either. The Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts – drawing on surveys of over 2,600 educators – found that in almost every grade, the list would be "mathematically impossible" to teach within a standard school year. While teachers are still permitted to teach books outside of the list, many fear that there simply won't be enough classroom hours to add any additional material on top of the statewide mandatory list.

"The required reading list's attempt to standardize readings is unhelpful and counterproductive to the real needs of students and educators," said Sumya Paruchuri, a recent graduate of Texas public schools. Teacher Frank Strong was more direct: "For the first time, I face the prospect of teaching a state-mandated text list that tells some of those students that their faiths, their families, and their cultures mean less to our country than those of their classmates."

A More Complex Book Than the Curriculum Admits

Harvard Divinity School professor David Holland, who teaches a course on scripture and American politics, put it plainly: choosing a Christian translation of texts shared with Jewish tradition inevitably privileges certain theological readings over others. Teaching the Exodus story responsibly, he said, would require students to grapple with how the same passage inspired Black freedom movements and, simultaneously, justified the displacement of Native peoples. As Seales adds, "I don't know how in the world a public school teacher would be qualified to help a student understand all the nuances involved in scriptural interpretation."

The curriculum's defenders are asking teachers to present scriptures as historical documents while using devotional translations and sourcing material from a televangelist's media company. Those things don't sit easily together.

This Didn't Come out of Nowhere

Today's vote doesn't stand alone. The state of Oklahoma spent $6 million putting Bibles in classrooms last year. Texas already requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom, following a controversial law upheld by a federal appeals court earlier this year. The state has also expanded school prayer periods, and authorized chaplains to counsel students. Mandatory Protestant Bible readings are the next step in a pattern that looks increasingly like a deliberate effort to Christianize Texas public schools.

For families whose children are Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, or simply not religious, the question isn't only legal. It's personal. When the state requires a child to read one tradition's sacred text – translated through that tradition's own theological lens – the message being sent isn't subtle.

Is mandatory Bible reading a question of cultural literacy, or religious imposition?