4 hours ago
3
This school year, many Texas districts are teaching from an elementary curriculum that features extensive content about the Christian faith, according to a New York Times analysis.
Oct. 14, 2025
A new state-sponsored English curriculum infused with lessons about the Bible and Christianity could reach tens of thousands of Texas schoolchildren this year.
More than 300 of the state’s roughly 1,200 districts signed up to use the English language arts lessons, according to data obtained by The New York Times through a public records request. Many are rural, and relatively small.
The curriculum was created as several states, including Oklahoma and Louisiana, fought to bring prayer or religious texts like the Ten Commandments into public school classrooms, blurring the line between church and state.
Texas leaders adapted the curriculum from a popular reading program made by the education company Amplify. A large majority of its lessons are typical for grade-school children, but the Texas version features new content on Christianity, the Old and New Testaments and the life of Jesus, according to a Times analysis of thousands of pages of teaching guides and activity books.
The emphasis on Christianity is greater than in other popular reading programs, scholars say. It is especially notable as Republican leaders mount campaigns against public school curriculums that they argue indoctrinates children in left-leaning ideologies.
And as a national movement to expand religious instruction arises in public education, the lessons could serve as a potent blueprint for other states.
History lessons weave in stories about Jesus
It is not unusual for public schools to introduce students to religious texts and figures.
A typical elementary school lesson on ancient Roman civilization, for example, might describe how Christianity influenced the Roman Empire. The old Amplify curriculum spends about four paragraphs on Jesus’s parables, his crucifixion and the Christian belief in his resurrection.
In the original grade unit, Jesus is mentioned 19 times.
The Texas lessons include several new pages about the life of Jesus. They detail the Biblical story of his birth in a Bethlehem manger, New Testament accounts of an angel describing him as the Messiah and stories about the miracles he performed.
Image
Jesus is mentioned 87 times.
State education leaders have said that the lessons do not include explicit religious instruction, but that the curriculum references several religious texts “when contextually relevant for historical and literary value.”
“These references create a strong background of knowledge for students with rich texts to further their understanding of our society, including our history, economy and culture,” said Jake Kobersky, a spokesman for the state’s education agency.
Many religious scholars, though, argue that the lessons too often subtly present Christian beliefs as the truth.
Texas created entire new lessons on Bible stories
The Texas curriculum also includes more extensive, complete lessons on Bible stories.
Fifth graders examine a psalm in a poetry unit. First-grade students discuss the parable of the prodigal son alongside stories like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Kindergarten children learn in depth about the Book of Genesis in a lesson on art exploration that notes that “many artists have found inspiration for creating art from the words in creation stories in religious books.”
None of these lessons were in the old Amplify curriculum.
Both versions, for example, teach young children about the British royal family and Cinderella in a unit called “Kings and Queens.” But the Texas adaptation includes a new 18-page lesson on King Solomon.
In both curriculums, second graders learn about Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks in a unit on ordinary people who fought for causes. The Texas version adds a two-part lesson on the biblical Queen Esther, whom some conservative Christians have turned to in recent years as a model of female leadership.
Christianity gets more space than other religions
Under the Texas curriculum, students will be exposed to Christianity far more often than other major religions. In teaching materials for second grade, for example, Christianity, the Bible and Jesus are referenced about 110 times. By contrast, Islam, Muslims, the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad are mentioned roughly 31 times in lessons spanning from kindergarten to fifth grade.
In the original Amplify curriculum, students are exposed to the three major monotheistic religions together in a first-grade unit. Children learn that Mecca was the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, and that praying five times a day in the direction of Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Texas cut that unit in its own adaptation of the lessons. State education officials and the curriculum’s supporters say that the new curriculum’s focus on Christianity will benefit children because of the religion’s outsize role in the nation’s development and modern culture.
In the new curriculum, one of the most robust lessons on Islam is about the ancient king Mansa Musa and “his special religious journey to a holy city called Mecca.” Students do not learn about the site’s relevance to Islam or about the Prophet Muhammad.
Scholars question the curriculum’s take on Christianity
Religious scholars say the Texas curriculum presents a partial picture of Christianity’s role in the nation’s development, especially during moments of conflict.
Some of the changes are small but meaningful, according to historians, including a wording change in a lesson on colonial America. The Amplify version tells students that “the Spanish also sent missionaries who worked to convert the native people to Christianity.”
The Texas adaptation notes that “the Spaniards sent missionaries who worked to introduce the Native people to Christianity.”
The Amplify version and Texas adaptation include many of the same descriptions on slavery in the early colonies for third graders. Both teach about trade routes like the Middle Passage and the exchange of enslaved people for goods like sugar.
But the Texas lesson includes a new line mentioning Christian resistance to slavery:
Even as the use of slave labor grew, opposition to slavery also grew, driven by colonists morally opposed to the practice, often based on their beliefs as Christians.
Similarly, the Texas curriculum tells fifth graders that leading abolitionists like Abraham Lincoln relied in part on their Christian faith to guide their opposition to slavery. Historians point out that it does not mention that other Christians leaned on the same religion to defend it.
A Martin Luther King Jr. lesson has drawn criticism
The Texas curriculum features a new fifth grade lesson on the well-known “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King, who was a Baptist, was often guided in his activism by his Christian faith and ministry. The new curriculum focuses on the letter’s reference to the biblical characters Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego — and asks students to compare it to the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament.
Some historians question the approach. Lerone A. Martin, the director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford, said he appreciated that the curriculum did not depict Dr. King as a “political activist who was moved by secular ideals.”
Still, he noted that the curriculum — and the sections of the letter it features — left out that “his is a particular kind of faith,” one that was opposed by many white moderate Christians.
“I thought, ‘My God, they’re trying to turn him into this sort of hero of religious freedom,” he said. “This whole letter is about racism in America. And the words ‘white’ and ‘Negro’ are, like, stripped from the excerpts.”
A long addition on ‘The Last Supper’
One of the most dramatic changes in the Texas curriculum comes in a fifth-grade unit on the Renaissance.
Both curriculums teach students about Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting “The Last Supper,” and much of the content is identical.
But the Texas version adds more than five new paragraphs on biblical background.
Students are taught in greater detail about the 12 disciples of Jesus and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. They are asked to read passages from the Gospel of Matthew. And they learn about the scene’s significance to the Christian rite of communion.
Bible study or American history?
Supporters of the Texas curriculum say that because concepts, references and ideas from the Bible are prevalent throughout American society, a robust understanding of stories like this are crucial to building students’ reading comprehension.
But religion scholars question whether the depth and detail are warranted for an elementary school lesson, or whether it is more appropriate for a Christian Sunday school.
David R. Brockman, a Christian theologian and religious studies scholar at Rice University who reviewed all of the Texas materials, said he believed the lesson “amounts to Bible study in a public school curriculum.”
Mr. Brockman said he worried that the state’s adaptation would send an implicit message to children “that Christianity is the only important religion.”
Texas education leaders have pointed out that the lessons meet all state standards for high-quality classroom materials, and that public schools are not required to teach them.
Some superintendents have been reluctant to adopt the lessons, reflecting a potent backlash to the curriculum in a state where a third of the population does not identify as Christian, and where even some Christian school leaders reject its religious content.
But districts receive a financial incentive to adopt it, meaning more could acquire the materials in the coming years.
Troy Closson is a Times education reporter focusing on K-12 schools.
