Last week, Ryan Walters, the state superintendent of Oklahoma public schools, sent a memorandum to schools and parents highlighting his educational priorities during the upcoming Trump administration. These priorities include “championing parents’ rights, ending social indoctrination in classrooms, protecting patriotism in curriculum, stopping illegal immigration’s impact on schools, and blocking foreign influence in schools.”
Regarding “social indoctrination,” Walters highlighted what he referred to as “radical agendas, like promoting boys in girls’ sports and pushing divisive gender and racial ideologies.”
The memo, released soon after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, is seen by many advocates as an attempt to curry favor with Trump in his vows to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Social conservatives have long prioritized this, suggesting that any federal support for schools should come with no strings attached — including Constitutional strings.
Walters made news in October when the Oklahoma Department of Education opened bids to purchase 55,000 Bibles to be placed in public schools. The Bibles were required to meet particular specifications, such as being King James Version translations and containing copies of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, Constitution and Bill of Rights.
In a strange turn of events, only one copy of the Bible matched all the required specifications: Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA Bible,” which Donald Trump has endorsed.
First Amendment advocates have been quick to call out Walters for his violations of the clause preventing the establishment of religion, which can be found in the “Trump Bible.”
In a statement this summer about Walters’ Bible study requirements, Rachel Laser, President and CEO of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said: “Public schools are not Sunday schools. Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters has repeatedly made clear that he is incapable of distinguishing the difference and is unfit for office. His latest scheme – to mandate use of the Bible in Oklahoma public schools’ curriculum – is a transparent, unconstitutional effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public school students.”
Meanwhile, across the Red River in Texas, a battle is brewing over a proposed public school curriculum that skirts the line between teaching the Bible as literature and using it to indoctrinate students into the Christian faith.
The curriculum, marketed as Bluebonnet Learning, will be available for Texas schools in the fall of 2025. Though the materials are optional for schools, districts that opt-in will receive an additional $60 per student from the state.
The Texas Board of Education has revised the original curriculum, which includes references to several world religions, including the three Abrahamic faiths. However, in an August hearing of the Committee on Public Education, Representative James Talarico (D, Texas-52) pressed State Board of Education Commissioner Mike Morath on whether other faith traditions were given equal time to Christianity.
Morath struggled to answer the question.
Regarding the teaching of Islam, Talarico asked Morath, “Is it true that the State of Texas deleted every mention of Islam’s prophet Mohammed from the new curriculum, despite him being the most central figure in a religion practiced by half a million Texans?”
Morath replied, “I don’t actually know the answer to that question.”
Talarico told Morath, “I can tell you, because we went through and reviewed it, there is no mention of … Islam’s prophet Mohammed, although Mohammed appears multiple times in the original curriculum. So those have been removed?”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Morath said.
In the hearing, Talarico noted that teachers will not be prepared or qualified to answer Bible stories that may arise from students. “When you are talking about religion,” he said, “and when you’re talking about faith, when you’re talking about theology, you’re working with fire. These are serious topics, the most serious topic in many of our lives. To me, this seems not only reckless, it seems it can do great harm to students, whether they are Christian or not.”
Oklahoma and Texas are just two examples of many in the ongoing struggles to ensure quality education is available and easily accessible to all children without undue influence from or preference for any single faith tradition.
In addition to battles over curriculum, upcoming state legislative sessions will continue the drumbeat among many in the country to defund and disempower public schools in favor of private, religious schools that are only available to the wealthiest citizens.
Protecting our public schools and our children from religious indoctrination outside their families or faith communities will require active participation from community members.
After outcries from watchdog groups, Oklahoma expanded the bid specifications for purchasing Bibles for public schools. While still a far cry from honoring the Establishment Clause, it is a small step that proves being organized and vocal can pay dividends in social change.
The Texas State Board of Education will hold an additional hearing to vet community concerns about the new curriculum on November 18.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.