COMMENTARY: If public schools expose students to Scripture as one of the foundational texts of Western civilization, Catholic families should welcome the chance to build on that foundation.
On June 26, the Texas State Board of Education approved a required reading list for the state’s 5.4 million public school students, kindergarten through 12th grade. Alongside classic literature, students will encounter selections from Scripture: Jonah and David and Goliath in the early grades, building later to Job and the Sermon on the Mount, most drawn from the King James Version.
The move follows, by less than a year, Texas’ own law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom, a law recently upheld by the entire Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Nathan v. Alamo Heights ISD. Together, the two make Texas the state farthest along in welcoming back the presence of religious texts in public education.
Critics have rushed to compare the reading list to Mahmoud v. Taylor, the case in which the Supreme Court held that Montgomery County could not compel young children to sit through LGBTQ-themed storybook instruction without giving parents notice or an opportunity to opt out.
This obscures what
