Today, leading schools of education advocate for politicized notions of social justice and social action, while major teacher unions have promoted partisan and ideological materials and formal resolutions supporting pronoun policies, access to facilities based on gender identity, and broader LGBTQ programming in schools.

In practice, that ideological current has too often left little room for students who hold traditional religious convictions, such as the belief that God created man and woman, that moral truth is real, or that America—though imperfect—is not fundamentally evil.

In this context, protecting students’ First Amendment rights is not simply a legal battle. It is part of a larger cultural struggle over whether schools will form children in the moral inheritance of Western civilization or in a newer creed that often treats historic religious belief as something backward, suspect, and even harmful.

At the same time, these cultural and philosophical shifts have influenced many judges and legal scholars. This has created a legal climate in which many school officials concluded that the safest course was not an apparent posture of neutrality toward religion, but instead the removal of religion from public school altogether. In Engel v. Vitale (1962),the Supreme Court barred state-composed school prayer; in Abington School District v. Schempp (1963),it barred school-sponsored Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer; in Stone v. Graham (1980), it struck down a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms; and in SantaFe IndependentSchool District v.Doe(2000), it invalidated student-led prayer over the public-address system before football games.

Whatever the precise holdings of those cases,many administrators and school lawyers absorbed a broader message: that the Constitution “bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life,”133 while “state neutrality” required “the establishment of a religion of secularism, or, at the least, … government support of the beliefs of those who think that religious exercises should be conducted only in private.”134 The result was an environment that often favored secularism over the 2,000-year canon of Western moral and religious tradition.

–from the July 2026 Draft Report of the White House Religious Liberty Commission, page 68

Earlier this summer, the Texas State Board of Education–the state’s legislative and policy-creating body, composed primarily of Republicans–approved a list of almost 200 books, poems, and passages that public school students will be required to read across the state during their educational careers. This new required reading list isn’t about providing a rich, robust literary foundation, though. It’s about imposing further control over its public education system by erasing local control, and it is another step toward eliminating public education in the state altogether. And as goes Texas, so goes the nation.

First, let’s zoom out.

In 2024, the Texas Education Agency–the state’s administrative and regulatory arm–created a new public school curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade. The Bluebonnet Learning Reading and Language Arts curriculum is Bible-infused, with Christianity front and center of lessons, readings, and discussions. Evangelical politician Mike Huckabee’s company played a role in developing this curriculum; partisan politics shaping state-wide curriculum imposed on young people was never a question.

The Bluebonnet Learning RLA isn’t mandatory. It theoretically cannot be, either, or there’d be a Constitutional issue at hand. To work around that challenge, the state decided instead to incentivize opting in to the curriculum. Districts that choose to implement the curriculum receive $60 extra per student in state funding.

For districts feeling the financial pinch, this is no small change. It’ll become an even more appealing prospect in the coming years, too, as Texas republicans passed a statewide voucher scheme last legislative session after failing to do so before.* The state knows this and also knows that there has to be another way to force Christianity upon public school students.

The Bluebonnet Learning RLA was a stepping stone.

Enter this year’s new Texas education mandates. Rather than requiring a Christian-infused curriculum, the state decided that every public school student should experience the same literary texts throughout their education. In theory, this doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Common texts build community and cultivate common cultural experiences; this is why so many colleges offer one book/common read programs as students prepare for higher education. There’s real value in it.

The known value is precisely why Texas politicians saw an opportunity. They could mandate young people to read a set of hand-selected texts, many of which align with right-wing ideals and values, including and especially passages straight from the Bible. The reading list could also serve to uphold white supremacy through leaning heavily on materials written by straight white men. Texas has anti-DEI laws, after all.

Those who’ve been fighting the good fight in Texas over book censorship did tremendous work pushing back against the proposed required reading lists. Frank Strong’s coverage here and here and here and here is good–if sobering–reading. It should come as little surprise that the agenda was decided from the start.

The required reading list passed, and it’s padded with just the kinds of messages that the right wishes to instill. You can read the lists for each grade here, under “Proposed New 19 TAC Chapter 110, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading, Subchapter A, Elementary, §110.10, Literary Works Lists, Kindergarten-Grade 5, Adopted 2026; Subchapter B, Middle School, §110.30, Literary Works Lists, Grades 6-8, Adopted 2026; and Subchapter C, High School, §110.70, Literary Works Lists, High School, Adopted 2026.”

The first Bible story of the required reading list, Roar!–Daniel and the Lion’s Den, is introduced in third grade as a classroom read-aloud. The choice to make it a read-aloud ensures that educators have to present a Christian story as important enough for all to hear simultaneously. It also forces the educator, who themselves may not be Christian, to endure the story, too. Educators are put in the position of endorsing a single religion, as there are no read-aloud selections that represent stories and heroes from non-Christian religious practices.

Christian-focused readings appear twice in fourth grade. Of all the books that could be shared with young people about the work of Martin Luther, Thunderstorm in Church by Louise A. Vernon is the one to be read. This is a book in a Christian Heritage series of books, rather than a book about Luther from a secular perspective (such as a textbook, which is where most students learn about the rise of Lutheranism within the context of European history). Fourth graders are also forced to read “The Necessity of Humility” from the Book of Luke.

In fifth grade, it’s time for Moses. Required reading includes Book of Exodus, Chapter 3: The Burning Bush and Book of Exodus, as well as Chapter 14: The Parting of the Red Sea. For sixth graders, it’s “Do Not Be Anxious” from the Book of Matthew. Sixth grade requires reading about Abraham Lincoln, and, much like the required text on Martin Luther, this one has a religious spin. The assignment is chapter six from Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage: Stories of Our Most Admired President, called “A Road Back to God.”

Despite the shrinking number of required readings in seventh grade, there are two required Bible readings. The first is “The Shepherd's Psalm” from the Book of Psalms–the message of which is that suffering is part of life, but the Lord will help you through–and the next is “The Eight Beatitudes” from the Book of Matthew–rules to follow to be a good little disciple of the Lord.

Two more Bible readings appear in the eighth-grade required reading: “To Everything There is a Season,” from the Book of Ecclesiastes, and Chapter 3 of the Book of Lamentations.

Finally, in high school, first year students will read “Parable of the Prodigal Son” from the Book of Luke. Sophomores, The Book of Job, Chapters 1-7,11,14,19,28,38-42–some real uplifting stuff–and four chapters from The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction. Two of those chapters are about Christianity, including Chapter 3, The Big Idea: Christian Salvation, and Chapter 4, Kingship, Lordship, and Government.

By the third year of high school English, the Bible is married with a praise of capitalism and rejection of liberalism. Required readings include Ayn Rand’s “What is Capitalism?” as well as excerpts from Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. Sowell is a beloved figure among the far right for his views on how harmful social progress has been over the last few decades (there’s even a Tuttle Twins book about him because he’s worth celebrating for his anti-DEI stances). Juniors also get to read about Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis. Finally, seniors read “The Definition of Love” from the Book of 1 Corinthians.

Adam and Eve and “The Definition of Love” to send off near-adults and adults from their public education. Quite the choices.

This week, the San Antonio Current shared a deep dive from The Texas Observer about the messages conveyed in the required Biblical readings in this curriculum. It is even bleaker than it appears on the surface. Across their decade+ of public school required reading, students will learn that they’re powerless against life’s circumstances–if you’re born poor or Brown or female, too bad for you. Also imparted is that those circumstances are not to be questioned or changed. Throughout their public education, young people will be told they can’t change their lot in life and that the ruling class will always wield power over them.

Those same students will be reminded that they’re “the public” and that, because they rely on public education, they’ll never be as valuable or as worthwhile as their richer, more well-connected, more devout Christian peers. Those very peers whose parents took tax money in the form of a voucher to pad the pockets of those interested in education as a business, rather than as a key to thinking, learning, growing, and being in society.

From the San Antonio Current:

Students who have been taught that they must revere the barons of the “free enterprise system,” that inequality is not worth discussing, and that they should accept their life circumstances will become a compliant workforce and a malleable voting base. They will become working adults who will not expect fair wages. They will become voters who will not protest and who will not demand change for the betterment of their life circumstances. They will not question unjust economic realities, labor conditions, or the concentration of wealth and power. 

The parents who were crying about “parental rights” at school board meetings and in the legislature for the last five years seem to be pretty quiet about these new required readings–a topic about which they have otherwise been incredibly passionate and inflamed. They aren’t concerned about their little Johnny or little Suzie being forced to read Bible passages in public schools. “Parental rights,” as has been clear from the start, is about one segment of parents having all the rights and privileges and applying them to everyone else. That sounds a lot like the messages public school students will learn.

This all leads to the question, then, of where and how the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor fits in. That case ended with the Court saying parents have the right to opt their students out of public school curriculum that positively portrays queer people because it goes against their beliefs.

What will happen in Texas when parents begin to opt their students out of these required Bible lessons because it actually conflicts with the beliefs they hold and teach in their homes?

The answer is going to come, and chances are, bigots will still again hold more rights than those who are worried that compulsory Christianity in public schools crosses the line of the Establishment Clause. Those parents will be told they can “just” send their kids to private school if they’re concerned about the curriculum–“educational freedom”–and if they can’t afford it then they should either 1. tap the voucher program and further drain public funds from public schools (and if they have to, move somewhere else because it’s not the state’s fault that many counties don’t have a private school option) or 2. accept their lot in life like the required school readings tell their students to do.

It was clear from the Mahmoud decision early on that the case would be less about banning books and more about unleashing a flood of voucher programs. Several of the plaintiff parents noted that because their kids were going to be “exposed” to positive depictions of queer people, they “had” to send their kids to private religious schools “at a significant financial sacrifice.” Their argument–and the ultimate decision in the case–was that their rights to religion in public spaces were more important than the rights of queer kids to exist.

What we’re seeing in Texas is the blatant infiltration of Christian nationalism into education. The Texas required readings draw on bits and pieces of two similar yet distinct forms of evangelicalism. There’s the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBPL)–the bedrock of people like The Duggars, which demands subservience to the white male head of household in all things (“accept your lot in life and don’t question it”). IBPL preaches that success comes through following Biblical principles–the very kinds of things being not-so-subtly introduced via these required school readings.

Then there’s the Seven Mountain Mandate, which seeks to take control of seven aspects of society to push Christian dominance. It is a political and religious movement; by taking control of those seven spheres of influence, Christians take control of everything and everyone beneath them. One of those spheres is education. By gaining control over public education, those who believe in the Mandates are one step closer to restoring honor to the church. That context makes the required readings about capitalism and the Bible, happening in the same year as Sowell’s critiques of “failed liberal policies,” make a lot more sense.

A quick and dirty difference between the IBPL and the Seven Mountain Mandate strains of Christian nationalism is that the IBPL puts significant emphasis on the role of the individual and demands adherence to a strict hierarchy. The Seven Mountains Mandate puts significant emphasis on the complete takeover of societal pillars to Christianize everything.

To Texas politicians, the fight over required reading was never about whether or not to add another diverse book. It was about which flavor of evangelicalism should come out on top.

They’ve settled on appeasing both.

This won’t be the last we hear of required public school reading in conservative states. Those same states that have pushed the idea of “local control” relating to schools for years are now the same states dictating the books and Bible passages that are required reading for all students. It wasn’t enough to ban the books. Now, they’re being mandated–and the message of why is the same as it has always been: erasure of anything that doesn’t fit into the imagined mold of ideal. We will see copycat legislation–perhaps even down to the exact required Biblical readings–emerge in future state legislative sessions.

It’s a matter of time before the Bluebonnet Learning RLA becomes the required public school curriculum. Now that the right has succeeded in requiring Christian reading, it isn’t much of a leap to require Christian lessons. Educators already require students to read these Bible passages. It only makes sense that those students now write about them and other associated passages and readings.

Why not save the preacher’s teacher’s precious time?

Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission’s new report lays out exactly what Texas is doing as the nationwide goal: building a “public” school system drenched in Christianity and little more.**

The truth is that the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” appears neither in the First Amendment nor anywhere else in the Constitution. What the First Amendment does say is that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In practical terms, that means the government may not take over the functions of a church or coerce religious observance. For example, the government cannot dictate who will preach, teach, or carry out a religious institution’s mission or second-guess an institution’s religious decisions.

Nothing in the First Amendment allows the government to create a “wall” between an individual’s personal faith and our nation’s public life.

– Chapter 2 of the July 2026 Draft Report of the White House Religious Liberty Commission

The government, as they say, can’t coerce you into believing a religious doctrine. But there’s nothing in the law saying they can’t force it upon you in public spaces anyway.

It’s your duty to accept your lot.

Notes:

*For more insight into why Texas’s fight for vouchers was especially challenging, given that it’s a GOP-dominated state, read The Education Wars by Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider. Texas has a long history of pride in its local schools–see, for example, the phenomenon of Friday Night Lights. Texas also has deep funding inequities across its schools, and because most of the state is rural, access to institutions is challenging. In those more rural areas, the public school is not only the only choice for education, but it’s also often poorly funded to boot. The haves and have-nots in Texas education are about to become an even bigger divide with their new scheme.

**That document references Mahmoud no fewer than 17 times.