Welcome to the nonprofits. Our second story this week comes from the lone Star state where the educational system may be losing some of its shine. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath introduced a new elementary reading curriculum that includes Bible stories emphasizing Judeo Christian traditions. Democratic Representative James Tallerico criticized its Christian focus and lack of attention
to other religions, arguing that it marginalizes many Texans. The curriculum, part of a classical education model, integrates ancient texts like the Bible to build students cultural vocabulary, which Morath claims is crucial for tackling complex subjects. Later critics, including scholars and former education officials, argue that it presents a Christian bias
history and neglects other faiths and significant historical movements like the Enlightenment. They warrant of potential First Amendment violations and the challenges teachers might face in discussing religious content appropriately. Supporters, however, see it as a move towards a more rigorous education, with so conservatives even dismissing concerns about the biblical emphasis. The story is from the seventy four by Linda Jacobson on June seventh, twenty twenty four.
So let's go straight to Helen here. Proponents of these changes claim that they're focusing on improving education. Right, that's the big, the big banner here, we're making education better in Texas. What are some of the areas
these changes are intended to address. So basically, what they're doing under the guise of you know, promoting you know, higher reading scores, educational scores for you know, the K through five group of you know of the Texas you know school Texas schools, Populous is basically introducing curriculum that will introduce biblical study and to the curriculum to raise scores and using this as a as a as a as an excuse to raise the standard levels for the student body in
the state of Texas. Now, I got some problems. I know, weird, Okay, listen. I like the line the Witch in the Wardrobe as much as anybody else. It's it's when I was, you know, ten years old, it was a wonderful fantasy story. It's it's fine, But when you automatically admit that mare did that is biblical algory. And then you are encouraging biblical study in children. I have some problems because why aren't we studying other acts of literature? Why are we studying law at the rinks?
Why aren't you having kids read other classics works of literature? You know that I remember reading when I was a young and back in the eighties and nineties in you know, public education, where we are looking more at the literacy level and using what educators do to say, like, you know,
this is for this particular age group. You know, this is a reading level that it is, and they gauge what child based on the literature that is being presented, to gauge what the reading level is, regardless of context. Now, I have no problem with the Bible of being taught in schools, but as a in a like you know, history of religion, you know, as a you know, guy, not a guidebook, but like a book about religious beliefs and histories of the people that lived at that time,
not as truth. And they're trying to slide this in not as an educational in text to get these kids, you know, pumped up for Jesus and drink the Jesus juice right exactly. And that's the problem so you think so, So Aaron, let's let's hop over to you for a second. Helen is saying that maybe, yes, it's it's a noble goal to try to include, try to increase their their standards for these students. But these are some drastic changes and it calls into question whether or not the new material
should be religious material. Do you think this kind of thing is appropriate for K five curriculum? Absolutely, the way it's described this article, absolutely not. I'm fine with teaching the Bible that it exists and that they are religious that believe it, and maybe so that some of the history around it, but teaching the doctrines that are in it absolute this is this is not okay.
And my main objection is because children believe what adults tell them, and especially the younger younger child is, the more they're going to trust and believe what people, what adults say. And it's really easy to take advantage of young kids and get them to believe what you want them to believe. They're
like little sponges. They're really easy to indoctrinate. And so when you start teaching the from the Bible, not teaching about teaching from the Bible, what you're doing is you're implicitly teaching that the Bible is true, that it should be accepted, and that you should follow what's in it and that. So that's that's my fundamental problem with with what's going on here. Uh, what we teach kids needs to be secular and evidence based. That makes it as
true as possible, and it also makes it as inclusive as possible. If we were to change this curriculum a little bit and maybe teach things from the Quran and Karan adjacent t jings, I don't think it would be getting the support that it's gonna that it's getting in Texas. Are you sure about that? In the Kuran big in Texas, I mean everything big in Texas. I'm not a prophet. I'm not a prophet, but I'm pretty sure that
would that be resoundingly uh struck down. All right, Well, let's let's jump over to Jason for a second, because these curriculum changes just reek of religious and political influence in here. If we were to put on our GOP colored glasses, how would this look to us? What what do you see here? So? Look, this is this is a dense article did just for one so I encourage anybody who's who's watching or listening to really go back and read through this article. Theres a lot of information. But look,
the Texas GOP had already released their mission statement a few years back. Uh so, a renewed, revised one. So this drive for preaching Christianity in public classroom is not surprising to me in the least. It's exactly what they said they were going to do. And it's crazy. Guy. I took some notes, you know, from their own platform statement on their own website. Let's hear it. Look, look, okay, So the problem I have here, my little preamble I have here, is that the ship that
they're promoting is anti scientific. It's it is been shown to these views and ideas and instituting things based on these views and ideas increase harm. You know, they decrease well being. We see this time and time again. So and their language they're using as traitorous and treason us. So to me, it's just disgusting all around, all right. So before before I go on and on, so okay, they have they have a section of there called
family and defensive Marriage. We support the definition of marriage as a quote God ordained Eagle and moral commitment only between one natural man and one natural woman. Yeah, that's a fucking that church state separation. No, I mean, come on, So they want to overturn oberg Fell versus Hodges, which is same sex marriage. They said, we believe this decision overturning into Texas law prohibiting same sex marriage in Texas has no basis in the Constitution. It should
be reversed. They go on to say, homosexuality is a chosen behavior contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nation's founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Which is insane to me because I live in fucking Houston, Texas, and the street I used to live on in the fucking middle of Houston, Texas
was painted with rainbows. We have one of the biggest pride parades in the world, if not the biggest pride parade in the world, and we make up a good amount of the population of fucking Texas. So what they're saying is a fucking lie. We are a very queer city that have had openly queer people in charge, and I just dit So yeah, fuck him, what else, whoever wrote this and anybody you know, whatever. So we're right to life, all innocent human Listen to the language in this right here,
okay, here it is abolish abortion. We call upon the Texas legislature to enact legislation stopping the murder of unborn children. These are people who understand the gravity of that term in a legal sense, and they're fucking have the audacity to use it here. It's disgusting funding. We support the elimation of public funding or use of public funding facilities advocate, perform, or support elective
abortions as terrible. We support completely eliminating public funding for planned parenthood abortion legislation. They go on and on prohibition of abortion due to results of a genetic diagnosis. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? This is heartless shit. And the thing that blows my mind is that, And again I'm not saying this is suain. What really boils way if you look at the demographics of the people who are voting for people who support this type of bullshit.
These are people who need these services. These are working class people. These are people who are suffering because of lack of these services, a lack of their availability. It blows my mind, because what blows my mind is anybody being surprised that this is happening because they issue this statement and they went full force, and all the people behind it here into that being a textant. This pisses me off because this doesn't represent me, This doesn't represent the majority
of Texans. So I'm sorry. I could ran on and on about this. All I'm saying is this is not a surprise, and it's another way that the Republicans and conservative people and other people the right wing, they played the long game and they've been whittling away and doing it in their fucking faces. Sorry, no, it was It was interesting hearing you talk about all that. I love it. I think all that information needs to get out.
But I think if we look at like neurology and the evolution of our brain and our nervous system, we know that our thinking processes rely heavily on language, and so this might be a way that you know, they can
get in early and control the language. We heard a lot of that language and what you were saying when you were quoting from their from their platform, and so if you if you control the language, if you control the schools that are teaching the language that they said specifically that they wanted to uh that they wanted to build. They wanted to make a foundation that they could build on in other in other subjects, and and so so that's definitely getting in
at the ground floor. Helen, let's jump to you for a second. We just heard Jason talk about the GOP and how these changes fit into their over overall political agenda. What if we step back and look at it from the perspective of separation and church of state. What are some of the specific problems that are we're seeing with these changes. Well, as a natural born woman and as a person that makes all the fun choices, I guess I'm
stuff to say, so rich there is this is now. I know that my fel Panels and all of you that watch the show are very intelligent people. I know that you're selling religious bias all over the fucking place with this, because though they say they're going to have equal time for other religions to be taught under the same umbrella, because we're raising reading standards and everybody,
we're not. We're not preaching religious doctor and a week that much. So I have some quibbles because if you actually read this article and what the GOP is saying, no, they have no intention of allowing you know, the Quran to be taught or the Tora, or you know, anything in like Hindi text or even like can we do some origins of species maybe that'd be fine. You know, you don't see any of this is all based on
Bigiblical curriculum. It is using the Bible and saying that, oh no, we're just going to raise reading levels, We're gonn to teach it as an academic you know, as a part of an academic curriculum, not as something that should be taking this truth. But they're talking out both sides of their mouths because, as Jason pointed out, this is a lie. It's a
lie. But that's the story that they're spinning. And for people that you know, don't have access to certain types of education, education, this information, you know, people that aren't you know, they're voting with their feelings, not with what is actually a part of what is being presented to the school board. Like because if you are a you know, someone that believes in God, isn't against other religions, you know, just you know, live and live, and they go to church. But they're not educated on
the subtext of this. They're going to say, oh, you know, Oh, they're teaching the Bible as you know, a part of the literacy program. Oh they're going to give equal time to other religions. Oh that's good. You know, that's not happening. It is spinning the story to get those people that are not going to think about it anything deeper. They are not going to look at the legislation. Now, look at what they're presenting to get them in the voting booth. Right, So it's almost like,
don't pay attention to what's going on behind the curtain over there. It's all good, it's all in the Nate. We're just improving the educational system. Aaron I wanted to jump over to you for a second. There was there're some financial enticements that are involved with these changes that's being offered for districts that will embrace the new curriculum. What do you think that says about those changes, The fact that they're offering cash for that, How do you think
that What kind of picture do you think that paints. Yeah, they're offering sixty bucks a student for any district that will start using this curriculum, and that really shows me that they don't have a leg to stand on that the only way they know they can really get this into schools is to entice people with money that if they just presented it to the schools, the schools will say, well, no, we're not going to teach religion in our schools
were a public school. But as soon as the attached attached money to it, well, of course the schools now they have to say yes, because our schools are funded awfully horribly in this in this country, we do not give schools and teachers the money that they need to educate our kids properly and
appropriately. And so this is on its face, it's just it's a bribe, is what it is to me. It's just a bribe to school districts to adopt this curriculum that everybody knows is it should has nothing has should not be in public schools, right right, yeah, I agree completely. Let's
look for let's look at the Supreme Court for a second. Here. We currently have a pretty conservative, well very conservative US Supreme Court, and we're we're facing the possibility of becoming even more conservative over the next few years. So if the public school change, public school curriculum changes like these are enacted without challenge or worse, are enshrined into constitutional law. How will that affect the education of our children in the United States, in Texas and the United
States as a whole, in our place in the world. Let's go to Jason first there. What do you if this gets pushed maybe pushed to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court says thumbs up. I mean, we're kind of stuck with it. What is that? How is that going to affect us? And as we move on, well to to answer your question,
but kind of but not, but kind of. We see the same shit going on in Florida right now, right We did a story about this recently about DeSantis incentivizing teachers directly to take part in education type programs about you know, with religious fundamentalist stuff. You know. So we're seeing a general push of this kind of across the board with these hyper conservative states. So I say that to say that I don't think that it's not not a calculated move.
Like it's obvious that the people are talking together and organizing these things, and you see a lot of the stuff, like the pro voucher stuff here in Texas being funded by people from Philadelphia or Pennsylvania. So there's a whole thing going on. So that said, sorry, Whenever it does go to the Supreme Court, and if it does pass, I think we're gonna see the same type of broad, quick sweeping change that we saw with Roe v.
Wade. I think it's I think it's just gonna fucking hit like right then and there there's people waiting right now who use Texas and Florida as more or less they're bully big brothers, right, They're like, let's see if they can get away with this shit first, and if these motherfuckers can get away with it, we're going to slip on in right behind them. Because Texas and Florida have huge influence on the United States and the policies here Texas
especially, it's like a country within a country. So I think that if this does pass, and this ship in Florida starts passing and this starts becoming normalized, we're going to see the same thing happened with Roe v. Wade, And we're going to see a very dramatic shift in education in the more conservative states, and we're going to see a lot of violations of church state separation, right, Helen, did you want to jump in on this sound
like you wanted to? Oh yeah, I got opinns all right, because also the article mentions of the issues of both sides of debate and goes into the actual that this is kind of racist, which is something that which goes because what happens is is that if you only have one type of education, you are limiting access for all people to get access to different information, but especially in white run schools for people of color, if you're only giving them
one thing, where people that our white have might have better access to money to upper education versus you know, a poor person of color, They're not going to have the same opportunities. And I really wanted to mention this.
We are recording this on Jane teenth, so I didn't want to be remased on how like this will affect, you know, people of color, especially in the state of Texas, where Martin Luther King points to from when he wrote the letters to Burringham, Jill placed the fifth graders to Martin Luther King, this that some of the criculum points to, you know, the marking to oh my god, I can use words King, Martin Luther King to
use biblical allusions, including the persecution of early Christians and Jews who refuse to worship false idols, but it ignores King's intended audience, white moderate preachers who have never felt the sting darts of segregation darted. King's focus was the incompatibility
of racial segregation with Judeo Christian values in the Christian faith. So Bryanman Pierce, President CEO of the Southern Education Foundation, a non profit focus on equity, because this is also quote mining, where white evangelicals will use King and other black leaders to support a position that they want to hold. So this is another thing that also leads into the racial equality that's already happening in schools,
and this is just going to intensify it. Yeah, I mean, one of the one of the important best practices I guess we would say in the education system is diversity. If students can if students can find personal connections and personal can relate personally to the content, they're much more likely to be successful. They're much more likely to become a better reader, to become a better math student, to become a better science student. If they can see
their own faces in the dialogue. Then there it makes them more interested in the dialogue. And I think that anything if we're if we're going to be concentrating things to just the Christian perspective, just the religious perspective, just the white man's perspective, and that kind of thing. Anytime we do anything like that, it's just it can't help but decrease the quality of the education that we're going to see. And then of course that's the opposite of the main
goal. You know, they start out by by uh uh, you know, cheering on how they're gonna how they're going to increate improve the educational system, and then they're doing steps that are doing the exact opposite of that. Aaron, I want to give you a chance for a last thought here before we wrap this up here, any anything, any takeaway you want to give us here today. Yeah. I think the root of all these changes is
fear. People are trying to push religion down other people's throats because religion doesn't hold up to modern day scrutiny, scrutiny to modern day morals, to modern day scientific methods, to modern day skepticism, and so people are scared of the religion, so they have to throw it. They have to put it into schools, and they have to scram it down, shove it down your throat. And it's because they're scared of actually facing the problems in their religion.
Right, just like what you were saying before about the sixty dollars a student, right, if it was, if the curriculum was good, it would sell itself. And so it seems like this is kind of a last ditch effort to force all of that onto the plates.