Svante Myrick, president of People for the American Way, writes in an op-ed for The Hill that Texas leaders seem interested in only one sort of freedom.
They say everything is bigger in Texas — apparently, including the hypocrisy.
How else do you explain people who say they oppose “indoctrination” in public schools, but want to turn elementary school classrooms into Sunday Schools?
With help from a temporary appointment by Gov. Greg Abbott (R), the state board of education has narrowly approved a controversial new curriculum that targets elementary school students for religious indoctrination. Texas officials may deny that’s what they’re doing, but it’s the reality that Rice University religion scholar David Brockman found when he studied the plan.
For example, the biblical creation story is used in an art lesson for kindergartners, with questions for students not about the art but about the biblical account.
“It is difficult to avoid concluding that this art appreciation unit is being used to smuggle in what is effectively Bible study,” Brockman wrote.
He also found that the teaching plan treats biblical stories about miracles and the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection as historical facts. A section on the Roman Empire for older students draws heavily on New Testament accounts of the life of Jesus, something unclear in the letter parents would receive about the curriculum.
The curriculum slants history, highlighting Christian opposition to slavery and segregation while ignoring the ways Christianity was used to justify and defend them. Brockman concluded that the way the curriculum addresses religious liberty suggests a political agenda and “smacks of indoctrination rather than education.”
Religious-right activists have been trying to turn public schools into mission fields for a long time.
