Texas leads counterrevolution in education
A historic counterrevolution in public education is occurring in Texas. In an 8-7 vote, with three Republican members voting no, the Texas State Board of Education approved a new reading/language arts curriculum that jettisons Marxist ideology and returns to the traditional model that was highly successful in educating our ancestors and founders. Dubbed Bluebonnet Learning, the printed curriculum for grades K-5 is integrated with history, science, literature, art, culture and religion as a foundational tool for history and literature.
For decades a quiet American revolution has been waged with education as a primary change agent. Public schools gradually dumbed down the curricula, normalized radical sex, discredited the family, banned all religious expression that supposedly violates the principle of “separation of church and state,” discredited our founders, discouraged the teaching of American history and discredited American culture. The result has been ignorant, violent and mentally destabilized students who loathe America and support socialism.
The communist attack on public education has had a devastating effect on academic achievement. From colonials who were the most literate people in the world, today our workforce is the dumbest in the industrialized world. In Texas, 19% of adults are lacking in literacy skills, placing the state at 46th out of 50. Nationally, 21% of Americans are lacking in literacy skills. The low literacy rate has impacted personal lives and income while annually costing our national economy $2.2 trillion.
Critics charge that Bluebonnet is too rigorous. With the dumbing down of academic content has come lowered public – including teacher – expectations for student achievement. Critics claim Bluebonnet’s engaging stories in listening, spelling and reading lessons are not age appropriate – 7 and 8-year-old children apparently should be reading about “puppies, kitties and birds.” Compare this low level of expectation for public school students with private classical schools in Texas where children begin the study of Latin at age 6.
The problem of Texas illiteracy can be reversed by the rigorous lessons in Bluebonnet Learning. As Texas goes, so goes the nation. With 22 states already having expressed an interest in the free open source curriculum, America again can become a highly literate nation – critical if we are to Make America Great Again.
The most intense opposition to the new curriculum has been over the inclusion of religion. Critics charge that the lessons violate the “separation clause” of the Constitution, except that the phrase does not exist, only a ban on an official state-sponsored church.
Under U.S. law, public schools cannot endorse a specific religion or provide religious instruction, but they can teach religion in the context of history and other related subjects. Under Texas law, school districts must teach “religious literature, including the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and New Testament, and its impact on history and literature.”
Opponents claim that lessons proselytize for Christianity and devote more time to it than to other faiths. They ignore that America’s founding documents were Judeo-Christian. Do they believe that countries where Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, or Islam are predominant would allow Christianity to be included in their school curriculum?
Although critics claim the “Bible-infused” lessons are unconstitutional, they miss the point that the Bible is the most widely read book in the world with the English language and Western thought and culture infused with concepts, phrases and allusions directly from the Bible.
Even Ivy League professors who tend leftward admit that, without some knowledge of the Bible as a foundational text, students are at a great disadvantage in comprehending Western and American literature. Learning to read is more complicated than whether phonics or whole language is employed. If students are to comprehend what they are reading, they must possess some background knowledge and context of the reading passage. People of all faiths daily use biblical references – see eye to eye, sour grapes, feet of clay, writing is on the wall, go the extra mile, to cast pearls before swine, straight and narrow, wolves in sheep’s clothing, a house divided against itself cannot stand, salt of the earth, fall by the wayside, the blind leading the blind, flesh and blood, sign of the times and many others.
Although the fight over religion curriculum is supposedly that it is a constitutional violation, advocates of “religious freedom” are saying out loud what they fear most – that a conservative Christian movement is sweeping the nation. Texas was the first state to allow public schools to hire religious chaplains as school counselors. The Republican-controlled legislature has tried to require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments and likely will try again.
At the national level, the conservative Christian coalition will have power at the highest levels of all three branches of government. Alongside Trump in the White House, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, a Catholic, will elevate the traditionalist vision of family life. In Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s political vision is through an evangelical lens. The Supreme Court, with Trump’s three nominees, is expected to further strengthen religious rights.
To understand why revolutionaries for the overthrow of the U.S. have targeted education and religion, one must consider the vision of our founders. John Adams thought that education was vital for the preservation of rights and liberties. Thomas Jefferson held that the surest prevention of tyranny was to educate the masses. With Bluebonnet Learning, students will learn about our founding – that “all men are created equal,” found in our Declaration of Independence, is related to the Magna Carta that was inspired by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. They will learn why the Sermon on the Mount is the key building block of Western civilization.
John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.” Through classroom activities and biblical stories about the Golden Rule, the Good Samaritan and the Sermon on the Mount, students are taught moral values and positive character traits.
Those who clamor for the downfall of America have much to fear with Bluebonnet Learning and the rigorous traditional education it will restore to our public schools.