The Texas State Board of Education will likely allow elements of the Bible to be taught in elementary schools, following a close preliminary vote in Austin on Tuesday afternoon.
A final vote is expected at a board meeting on Friday and will likely have the same result, with the policy change to officially go into effect in August of 2025.
The 15 board members heard many hours of testimony and arguments Monday night before coming to the cursory vote that would allow teachers of elementary school students to include the new curriculum feature.
The vote for the change was reached by an 8-7 margin, with 3 Republicans joining the board's 4 Democrats in opposing the policy change.
The vote does not amount to an order by the board; Texas has not ordered the use of Bibles in schools.
Use of the Bible as a curriculum source will be considered optional, since individual districts have the right to make their own lesson plans, and is limited in this adoption to kindergarten through 5th grade, but there will be financial incentives for schools to use it, officials have said.
Advocates for the new curriculum, including Governor Greg Abbott, have argued that keeping Bibles out of schools deprived students of a time-honored reference book that has led to children hearing about the Golden Rule but not knowing where the concept of "Do unto others..." came from.
The intention of the board is apparently to allow school teachers to connect previously used lessons about the Good Samaritan, and other stories, with their Biblical sources.
At this week's meetings some board members expressed concern about the latest state school curriculum, called Bluebonnet Learning, and the Texas Education Agency is expected to submit board-mandated changes to the lesson plans tomorrow, giving the State Board of Education time to look them over before Friday's final vote.
They also argued that the Bible is an essential history book and is important in understanding the effects of religion on the development of societies for hundreds of years, including the United States.
Opponents to the curriculum plan have said it's just another attempt by Christians to link the development of America with Christian values, to the exclusion of other religions.
Other states may use the Texas curriculum plan as a model for their own limited use of the Bible in classrooms.
