Texas State Board of Education mandates Bible stories as required reading
Beginning in the 2030 school year, public school students will read biblical passages in their classrooms from Kindergarten to 12th grade.
The State Board of Education voted Friday, June 26, to implement a required reading list with over 200 new literary works, including Bible passages, for public school students. Next, the board will decide if social studies courses across all grade levels will include instruction about the Bible’s impact on history and literature.
The Exodus from Egypt, the Ten Commandments and David and Goliath are of about a dozen Bible stories students will learn.
Board member Evelyn Brooks, who represents parts of Central and North Texas, believes teachers should have more autonomy over the books than what the board is allowing with the mandated reading list.
“We were mandated to select at least one literary book, one literary text, and it’s snowballed into this, where we are now the book club Gestapo,” Brooks said.
Board member Julie Pickren, of Pearland, pushed for the mandated reading list to be implemented in the 2027-2028 school year. Other board members agreed that the books be put into the curriculum as soon as possible.
Shannon Trejo, TEA deputy commissioner of school programs, explained that the reading list can be used by schools as early as school districts would like, but supplementary instruction materials won’t be available from publishers for a few years.
The new curriculum was enacted by a vote of 9-5-1. The votes in favor came from board members Pickren, LJ Francis, Will Hickman, Audrey Young, Keven Ellis, Tom Maynard, Brandon Hall, Pam Little and Aaron Kinsey. The opposition included board members Brooks, Gustavo Reveles, Marisa Perez-Diaz, Staci Childs and Tiffany Clark. Board member Rebecca Bell-Metereau was not present to vote.
On Monday, hundreds of Texans spoke during public comment regarding the new curriculum. They were largely split.
One supporter applauded the board for teaching the Bible in classrooms and keeping Sharia law, the Islamic moral code, out of public schools. Another agreed that Judeo-Christian values should be upheld in the curriculum.
An opponent said some of the reading materials were meant for Sunday schools, not public schools. Another condemned the preference shown for evangelical Christian translations of the Bible instead of a diversity of translations that are inclusive of many denominations.
This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 2:50 PM.