Michael Karlis
The Texas House Committee on Public Education met on Monday to discuss, among other things, the benefits of school vouchers.
The revelation came during a tense meeting of the Texas House Committee on Public Education, which met to conduct hearings on new school vouchers in addition to new lesson plans and programs for the state's public schools.
During the hearing, State Rep. James Talarico, an Austin-area Democrat, grilled Morarth on new educational materials revised under House Bill 1605.
Among other things, HB 1605, passed last year by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature, was designed to provide teachers with state-approved lesson plans and make those materials available to parents via an online portal. However, critics charge that Christian evangelicals have used the bill to insert Christian-centric lessons into the approved lessons.
Texas bought an elementary school reading curriculum from a national publisher last year, and a "small group" at the Texas Education Agency was tasked with removing large sections on other religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and all mentions of the Islamic prophet Muhammed, according to Talarico. Those omitted materials were replaced with stories from the Bible, he added.
Morath verified Talarico's assertions during his testimony in front of the committee.
Although the new lesson plans were released four days after the Texas Republican Party passed a platform calling on the Texas Legislature and the State Board of Education to require instruction on the Bible, Morath maintains the timing was coincidental.
"Are you worried that if Texas Public School teachers use this new state curriculum, they will violate the Establishment Clause by teaching Bible stories in public schools?" Talarico asked Morath, who shook his head in disagreement.
"Then why does the bill, at the bottom of page 5, explicitly give teachers who use this new curriculum immunity for violating the Establishment Clause in the United States Constitution?" Morath deflected, saying he didn't understand Talarico's question.
If the Texas State Board of Education approves the new theocratic curriculum, then schools that adopt and implement it into their reading classes will receive extra state funding. It's worth mentioning that Texas ranks at the bottom when it comes to public school spending per pupil.
Talarico also questioned how equipped Texas teachers are to deal with tough theological questions from students who ask questions about the resurrection of Jesus Christ or the Sermon on the Mount — both of which are included in the new curriculum.
"When you're talking about religion, when you're talking about faith, you're talking about theology, you're working with fire," said Talarico, who's also a student of Austin's Presbyterian Theological Seminary. "These are serious topics — the most serious topic in many of our lives. And so, to me, this seems not only reckless, but it seems it could do great harm to students, whether they're Christians or not."
Even so, Republican state Rep. Matt Schaefer, also a member of the House Committee on Public Education, said he had no problem with the proposed lesson plans.
"The world's major religions did not have an equal impact on the founding belief systems for our country," said Schaefer, who represents the Tyler area. "I don't think we should ever be ashamed of mentioning the name Jesus in our curriculum or shying away from the role of Christianity in developing this country, developing Western civilization."
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