80th Legislature: Chisum Bill That Would Require Schools To Teach Bible Courses Before Comittee Tuesday

Tomorrow at 1 p.m. (or upon final adjourment), the House Committee on Public Education will consider a bill which would require public high schools in Texas to offer courses on the Bible.

The legislation, HB 1287 by Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa), would require school districts to offer students in grades 9-12 elective courses in “the history and literature of the Old Testament era and…the history and literature of the New Testament era.”

Chisum, as you may recall, is the same Texas legislator who earlier this year circulated an incendiary memo authored by Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges that declared evolution science a Kabbalist conspiracy (memo here).

According to the bill, its purpose is to:

“accommodate the rights and desires of teachers who wish to teach and students who wish to study, as applicable, the Old or New Testament; and familiarize students with, as applicable…the influence of the Old or New Testament on law, history, government, literature, art, music, customs, morals, values, and culture.”

There are a multitude of problems with this legislation. First and foremost, Texas public schools aready have the local option of offering such courses and some have done so for decades.

Second, mandating Bible curriculum will further blur the line between teaching the Bible as literature and holding organized religion classes in public schools. Even courses already offered by Texas public schools on the Bible are plagued with such problems and there is no evidence that more widespread institution of such courses would make the situation anything except worse.
In addition, though there is no fiscal note for the legislation yet, this represents a giant unfunded mandate for Texas high schools. Consider that every high school will have to offer the class for at least one period a day. This means that someone will have to teach it. Therefore, a teacher will be removed from one subject matter to teach the course in Bible “literature.” That means some class somewhere—likely another elective for which an actual demand exists—will go untaught.

Further, it appears that any teacher can be assigned to teach the class regardless of their desire to do so:

the board may not assign a person to teach a course under this section based in whole or in part on any religious test, profession of faith or lack of faith, prior or present religious affiliation or lack of affiliation, or criteria involving particular beliefs or lack of beliefs about the Old or New Testament.

Since the bill adds these courses to the so-called “Foundation Curriculum” found at 28.002(a) of the Texas Education Code, and most teachers’ contracts in Texas don’t allow them to refuse additional classroom duties so long as they fall within the regular school day, we could also see these courses getting dumped on teachers who have no interest or desire to teach them.

In short, this is going to force many school districts, especially small districts where teachers are already pushed to the limit, to increase staff sizes or drop electives. Since many small districts are limited in electives already, it’s likely they will have to hire new staff simply to follow this state mandate. It is an unfunded mandate, in addition to everything else.

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