Texas schools take up Bible, debate ensues | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Texas schools take up Bible, debate ensues as the Texas State Board of Education decided on June 26 to require Bible study in public schools. The policy applies to all public school literature classes for grades 1 through 12, requiring students to cover 10 Old Testament and five New Testament passages among 185 mandated readings. Students can opt out if biblical material violates their conscience. Texas, which educates about one-tenth of the nation’s schoolchildren, will integrate the Bible into a curriculum that already includes literary and historical selections such as Stuart Little, The Cat in the Hat, Hamlet, Great Expectations, Animal Farm, speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., poetry by Dante and Eliot, and Anne Frank’s diary and Night. Critics highlight the omission of To Kill a Mockingbird and constitutional concerns tied to Abington v. Schempp.