Welcome to the nonprofits. Our second story this week comes from the lone Star
state where the educational system may be losing some of its shine. Texas Education
Commissioner Mike Morath introduced a new elementary reading curriculum that includes Bible stories emphasizing Judeo
Christian traditions. Democratic Representative James Tallerico criticized its Christian focus and lack of attention
to other religions, arguing that it marginalizes many Texans. The curriculum, part
of a classical education model, integrates ancient texts like the Bible to build students
cultural vocabulary, which Morath claims is crucial for tackling complex subjects. Later critics,
including scholars and former education officials, argue that it presents a Christian bias
history and neglects other faiths and significant historical movements like the Enlightenment. They warrant
of potential First Amendment violations and the challenges teachers might face in discussing religious content
appropriately. Supporters, however, see it as a move towards a more rigorous
education, with so conservatives even dismissing concerns about the biblical emphasis. The story
is from the seventy four by Linda Jacobson on June seventh, twenty twenty four.
So let's go straight to Helen here. Proponents of these changes claim that
they're focusing on improving education. Right, that's the big, the big banner
here, we're making education better in Texas. What are some of the areas
these changes are intended to address. So basically, what they're doing under the
guise of you know, promoting you know, higher reading scores, educational scores
for you know, the K through five group of you know of the Texas
you know school Texas schools, Populous is basically introducing curriculum that will introduce biblical
study and to the curriculum to raise scores and using this as a as a
as a as an excuse to raise the standard levels for the student body in
the state of Texas. Now, I got some problems. I know,
weird, Okay, listen. I like the line the Witch in the Wardrobe
as much as anybody else. It's it's when I was, you know,
ten years old, it was a wonderful fantasy story. It's it's fine,
But when you automatically admit that mare did that is biblical algory. And then
you are encouraging biblical study in children. I have some problems because why aren't
we studying other acts of literature? Why are we studying law at the rinks?
Why aren't you having kids read other classics works of literature? You know
that I remember reading when I was a young and back in the eighties and
nineties in you know, public education, where we are looking more at the
literacy level and using what educators do to say, like, you know,
this is for this particular age group. You know, this is a reading
level that it is, and they gauge what child based on the literature that
is being presented, to gauge what the reading level is, regardless of context.
Now, I have no problem with the Bible of being taught in schools,
but as a in a like you know, history of religion, you
know, as a you know, guy, not a guidebook, but like
a book about religious beliefs and histories of the people that lived at that time,
not as truth. And they're trying to slide this in not as an
educational in text to get these kids, you know, pumped up for Jesus
and drink the Jesus juice right exactly. And that's the problem so you think
so, So Aaron, let's let's hop over to you for a second.
Helen is saying that maybe, yes, it's it's a noble goal to try
to include, try to increase their their standards for these students. But these
are some drastic changes and it calls into question whether or not the new material
should be religious material. Do you think this kind of thing is appropriate for
K five curriculum? Absolutely, the way it's described this article, absolutely not.
I'm fine with teaching the Bible that it exists and that they are religious
that believe it, and maybe so that some of the history around it,
but teaching the doctrines that are in it absolute this is this is not okay.
And my main objection is because children believe what adults tell them, and
especially the younger younger child is, the more they're going to trust and believe
what people, what adults say. And it's really easy to take advantage of
young kids and get them to believe what you want them to believe. They're
like little sponges. They're really easy to indoctrinate. And so when you start
teaching the from the Bible, not teaching about teaching from the Bible, what
you're doing is you're implicitly teaching that the Bible is true, that it should
be accepted, and that you should follow what's in it and that. So
that's that's my fundamental problem with with what's going on here. Uh, what
we teach kids needs to be secular and evidence based. That makes it as
true as possible, and it also makes it as inclusive as possible. If
we were to change this curriculum a little bit and maybe teach things from the
Quran and Karan adjacent t jings, I don't think it would be getting the
support that it's gonna that it's getting in Texas. Are you sure about that?
In the Kuran big in Texas, I mean everything big in Texas.
I'm not a prophet. I'm not a prophet, but I'm pretty sure that
would that be resoundingly uh struck down. All right, Well, let's let's
jump over to Jason for a second, because these curriculum changes just reek of
religious and political influence in here. If we were to put on our GOP
colored glasses, how would this look to us? What what do you see
here? So? Look, this is this is a dense article did just
for one so I encourage anybody who's who's watching or listening to really go back
and read through this article. Theres a lot of information. But look,
the Texas GOP had already released their mission statement a few years back. Uh
so, a renewed, revised one. So this drive for preaching Christianity in
public classroom is not surprising to me in the least. It's exactly what they
said they were going to do. And it's crazy. Guy. I took
some notes, you know, from their own platform statement on their own website.
Let's hear it. Look, look, okay, So the problem I
have here, my little preamble I have here, is that the ship that
they're promoting is anti scientific. It's it is been shown to these views and
ideas and instituting things based on these views and ideas increase harm. You know,
they decrease well being. We see this time and time again. So
and their language they're using as traitorous and treason us. So to me,
it's just disgusting all around, all right. So before before I go on
and on, so okay, they have they have a section of there called
family and defensive Marriage. We support the definition of marriage as a quote God
ordained Eagle and moral commitment only between one natural man and one natural woman.
Yeah, that's a fucking that church state separation. No, I mean,
come on, So they want to overturn oberg Fell versus Hodges, which is
same sex marriage. They said, we believe this decision overturning into Texas law
prohibiting same sex marriage in Texas has no basis in the Constitution. It should
be reversed. They go on to say, homosexuality is a chosen behavior contrary
to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God in the Bible,
recognized by our nation's founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.
Which is insane to me because I live in fucking Houston, Texas, and
the street I used to live on in the fucking middle of Houston, Texas
was painted with rainbows. We have one of the biggest pride parades in the
world, if not the biggest pride parade in the world, and we make
up a good amount of the population of fucking Texas. So what they're saying
is a fucking lie. We are a very queer city that have had openly
queer people in charge, and I just dit So yeah, fuck him,
what else, whoever wrote this and anybody you know, whatever. So we're
right to life, all innocent human Listen to the language in this right here,
okay, here it is abolish abortion. We call upon the Texas legislature
to enact legislation stopping the murder of unborn children. These are people who understand
the gravity of that term in a legal sense, and they're fucking have the
audacity to use it here. It's disgusting funding. We support the elimation of
public funding or use of public funding facilities advocate, perform, or support elective
abortions as terrible. We support completely eliminating public funding for planned parenthood abortion legislation.
They go on and on prohibition of abortion due to results of a genetic
diagnosis. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? This is heartless shit.
And the thing that blows my mind is that, And again I'm not
saying this is suain. What really boils way if you look at the demographics
of the people who are voting for people who support this type of bullshit.
These are people who need these services. These are working class people. These
are people who are suffering because of lack of these services, a lack of
their availability. It blows my mind, because what blows my mind is anybody
being surprised that this is happening because they issue this statement and they went full
force, and all the people behind it here into that being a textant.
This pisses me off because this doesn't represent me, This doesn't represent the majority
of Texans. So I'm sorry. I could ran on and on about this.
All I'm saying is this is not a surprise, and it's another way
that the Republicans and conservative people and other people the right wing, they played
the long game and they've been whittling away and doing it in their fucking faces.
Sorry, no, it was It was interesting hearing you talk about all
that. I love it. I think all that information needs to get out.
But I think if we look at like neurology and the evolution of our
brain and our nervous system, we know that our thinking processes rely heavily on
language, and so this might be a way that you know, they can
get in early and control the language. We heard a lot of that language
and what you were saying when you were quoting from their from their platform,
and so if you if you control the language, if you control the schools
that are teaching the language that they said specifically that they wanted to uh that
they wanted to build. They wanted to make a foundation that they could build
on in other in other subjects, and and so so that's definitely getting in
at the ground floor. Helen, let's jump to you for a second.
We just heard Jason talk about the GOP and how these changes fit into their
over overall political agenda. What if we step back and look at it from
the perspective of separation and church of state. What are some of the specific
problems that are we're seeing with these changes. Well, as a natural born
woman and as a person that makes all the fun choices, I guess I'm
stuff to say, so rich there is this is now. I know that
my fel Panels and all of you that watch the show are very intelligent people.
I know that you're selling religious bias all over the fucking place with this,
because though they say they're going to have equal time for other religions to
be taught under the same umbrella, because we're raising reading standards and everybody,
we're not. We're not preaching religious doctor and a week that much. So
I have some quibbles because if you actually read this article and what the GOP
is saying, no, they have no intention of allowing you know, the
Quran to be taught or the Tora, or you know, anything in like
Hindi text or even like can we do some origins of species maybe that'd be
fine. You know, you don't see any of this is all based on
Bigiblical curriculum. It is using the Bible and saying that, oh no,
we're just going to raise reading levels, We're gonn to teach it as an
academic you know, as a part of an academic curriculum, not as something
that should be taking this truth. But they're talking out both sides of their
mouths because, as Jason pointed out, this is a lie. It's a
lie. But that's the story that they're spinning. And for people that you
know, don't have access to certain types of education, education, this information,
you know, people that aren't you know, they're voting with their feelings,
not with what is actually a part of what is being presented to the
school board. Like because if you are a you know, someone that believes
in God, isn't against other religions, you know, just you know,
live and live, and they go to church. But they're not educated on
the subtext of this. They're going to say, oh, you know,
Oh, they're teaching the Bible as you know, a part of the literacy
program. Oh they're going to give equal time to other religions. Oh that's
good. You know, that's not happening. It is spinning the story to
get those people that are not going to think about it anything deeper. They
are not going to look at the legislation. Now, look at what they're
presenting to get them in the voting booth. Right, So it's almost like,
don't pay attention to what's going on behind the curtain over there. It's
all good, it's all in the Nate. We're just improving the educational system.
Aaron I wanted to jump over to you for a second. There was
there're some financial enticements that are involved with these changes that's being offered for districts
that will embrace the new curriculum. What do you think that says about those
changes, The fact that they're offering cash for that, How do you think
that What kind of picture do you think that paints. Yeah, they're offering
sixty bucks a student for any district that will start using this curriculum, and
that really shows me that they don't have a leg to stand on that the
only way they know they can really get this into schools is to entice people
with money that if they just presented it to the schools, the schools will
say, well, no, we're not going to teach religion in our schools
were a public school. But as soon as the attached attached money to it,
well, of course the schools now they have to say yes, because
our schools are funded awfully horribly in this in this country, we do not
give schools and teachers the money that they need to educate our kids properly and
appropriately. And so this is on its face, it's just it's a bribe,
is what it is to me. It's just a bribe to school districts
to adopt this curriculum that everybody knows is it should has nothing has should not
be in public schools, right right, yeah, I agree completely. Let's
look for let's look at the Supreme Court for a second. Here. We
currently have a pretty conservative, well very conservative US Supreme Court, and we're
we're facing the possibility of becoming even more conservative over the next few years.
So if the public school change, public school curriculum changes like these are enacted
without challenge or worse, are enshrined into constitutional law. How will that affect
the education of our children in the United States, in Texas and the United
States as a whole, in our place in the world. Let's go to
Jason first there. What do you if this gets pushed maybe pushed to the
Supreme Court and the Supreme Court says thumbs up. I mean, we're kind
of stuck with it. What is that? How is that going to affect
us? And as we move on, well to to answer your question,
but kind of but not, but kind of. We see the same shit
going on in Florida right now, right We did a story about this recently
about DeSantis incentivizing teachers directly to take part in education type programs about you know,
with religious fundamentalist stuff. You know. So we're seeing a general push
of this kind of across the board with these hyper conservative states. So I
say that to say that I don't think that it's not not a calculated move.
Like it's obvious that the people are talking together and organizing these things,
and you see a lot of the stuff, like the pro voucher stuff here
in Texas being funded by people from Philadelphia or Pennsylvania. So there's a whole
thing going on. So that said, sorry, Whenever it does go to
the Supreme Court, and if it does pass, I think we're gonna see
the same type of broad, quick sweeping change that we saw with Roe v.
Wade. I think it's I think it's just gonna fucking hit like right
then and there there's people waiting right now who use Texas and Florida as more
or less they're bully big brothers, right, They're like, let's see if
they can get away with this shit first, and if these motherfuckers can get
away with it, we're going to slip on in right behind them. Because
Texas and Florida have huge influence on the United States and the policies here Texas
especially, it's like a country within a country. So I think that if
this does pass, and this ship in Florida starts passing and this starts becoming
normalized, we're going to see the same thing happened with Roe v. Wade,
And we're going to see a very dramatic shift in education in the more
conservative states, and we're going to see a lot of violations of church state
separation, right, Helen, did you want to jump in on this sound
like you wanted to? Oh yeah, I got opinns all right, because
also the article mentions of the issues of both sides of debate and goes into
the actual that this is kind of racist, which is something that which goes
because what happens is is that if you only have one type of education,
you are limiting access for all people to get access to different information, but
especially in white run schools for people of color, if you're only giving them
one thing, where people that our white have might have better access to money
to upper education versus you know, a poor person of color, They're not
going to have the same opportunities. And I really wanted to mention this.
We are recording this on Jane teenth, so I didn't want to be remased
on how like this will affect, you know, people of color, especially
in the state of Texas, where Martin Luther King points to from when he
wrote the letters to Burringham, Jill placed the fifth graders to Martin Luther King,
this that some of the criculum points to, you know, the marking
to oh my god, I can use words King, Martin Luther King to
use biblical allusions, including the persecution of early Christians and Jews who refuse to
worship false idols, but it ignores King's intended audience, white moderate preachers who
have never felt the sting darts of segregation darted. King's focus was the incompatibility
of racial segregation with Judeo Christian values in the Christian faith. So Bryanman Pierce,
President CEO of the Southern Education Foundation, a non profit focus on equity,
because this is also quote mining, where white evangelicals will use King and
other black leaders to support a position that they want to hold. So this
is another thing that also leads into the racial equality that's already happening in schools,
and this is just going to intensify it. Yeah, I mean,
one of the one of the important best practices I guess we would say in
the education system is diversity. If students can if students can find personal connections
and personal can relate personally to the content, they're much more likely to be
successful. They're much more likely to become a better reader, to become a
better math student, to become a better science student. If they can see
their own faces in the dialogue. Then there it makes them more interested in
the dialogue. And I think that anything if we're if we're going to be
concentrating things to just the Christian perspective, just the religious perspective, just the
white man's perspective, and that kind of thing. Anytime we do anything like
that, it's just it can't help but decrease the quality of the education that
we're going to see. And then of course that's the opposite of the main
goal. You know, they start out by by uh uh, you know,
cheering on how they're gonna how they're going to increate improve the educational system,
and then they're doing steps that are doing the exact opposite of that.
Aaron, I want to give you a chance for a last thought here before
we wrap this up here, any anything, any takeaway you want to give
us here today. Yeah. I think the root of all these changes is
fear. People are trying to push religion down other people's throats because religion doesn't
hold up to modern day scrutiny, scrutiny to modern day morals, to modern
day scientific methods, to modern day skepticism, and so people are scared of
the religion, so they have to throw it. They have to put it
into schools, and they have to scram it down, shove it down your
throat. And it's because they're scared of actually facing the problems in their religion.
Right, just like what you were saying before about the sixty dollars a
student, right, if it was, if the curriculum was good, it
would sell itself. And so it seems like this is kind of a last
ditch effort to force all of that onto the plates.