Texas Advanced a Bible-Heavy Social Studies Rewrite. The Final Vote Is Friday.

The Texas State Board of Education gave preliminary approval this week to a sweeping rewrite of the state’s social studies standards, one that expands lessons on Christianity and Texas history while cutting world history. The 15-member, Republican-led board takes a final vote on Friday, the Texas Tribune reported.

What the Standards Change

The rewrite would require Texas history in every grade and eliminate the current sixth-grade world cultures course. It folds Bible stories and figures, including Abraham and Moses, into lessons across grade levels.

The board also advanced a statewide reading list, built under a 2023 law that directed the Texas Education Agency to compile reading materials for each grade. That list includes Bible passages and biblical stories for multiple grade levels.

Christianity Moves to the Center of the Lessons

The clearest example is in third grade. Under the standards, eight-year-olds would learn to “describe Moses’ contributions as a law-giver through the Ten Commandments,” and how “Christian beliefs, including valuing every individual, doing what is right, and showing compassion for others, helped shape American ideas about equality, rights, and treating people with dignity.”

“We are bringing the Bible back into schools this week for the first time in 60 years.”

Brandon Hall, Texas State Board of Education member, June 2026

Gov. Greg Abbott has endorsed the standards. Supporters say the changes reflect the documented historical influence of religion on America’s founding and do not proselytize.

Why Texas Sets the Standard for the Whole Country

Texas is the largest textbook market in the United States, so what its board approves shapes what publishers print and what students read well beyond Texas. Education Week reports that the fight carries national consequences, because a Christianity-centered Texas curriculum can become the default in textbooks sold nationwide.

It is also part of a documented pattern. Oklahoma mandated Bible instruction and Louisiana required the Ten Commandments in every classroom, both of which we covered in the national push to put Christianity in public schools.

What Critics Say

Opponents argue the standards elevate Christianity above other faiths and teach an incomplete, less accurate version of American history. Critics held a “funeral for religious freedom” at the board meeting.

Frank Strong, an Austin English teacher, told the board he would face “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.” If the board approves the changes, they take effect in the 2030-31 school year.

What You Can Do Now

Contact your Texas State Board of Education member before Friday’s final vote. Find your district’s member through the State Board of Education directory and tell them to reject standards that place one religion at the center of public-school curriculum. The board votes Friday, so the window is now.
Register to submit public comment to the Texas Education Agency on the social studies standards and the reading list. Public input is part of the official record, and a large volume of comment is harder for the board to ignore.
Call your Texas state representative and senator at (512) 463-4630 (House) and (512) 463-0100 (Senate). Ask them to revisit the 2023 reading-list law that produced a Bible-heavy mandatory list, and to protect families of all faiths and none.
Use the letter below to tell your representatives that public schools should teach religion’s history without endorsing one faith over others.