A Bible-infused curriculum approved for public schools in Texas in 2024 will be corrected to fix hundreds of errors identified by teachers and education officials after the material was introduced to classrooms. The curriculum, known as the “Bluebonnet” textbook, is part of Republican-led efforts in the United States to incorporate more religious teachings into classrooms. Although optional for schools, adoption comes with additional funding.
The curriculum faced criticism from religious scholars who argued the reading lessons favoured Christianity over other faith traditions, and from advocacy groups that said the materials prioritised preaching over teaching. Despite this, the state board of education voted 8-6 on Wednesday to approve changes that include correcting factual errors, fixing punctuation, and replacing images with licensing or copyright issues.
Board member Tiffany Clark, a Democrat, expressed concern that students had been failed by the curriculum. “My concern is that we have failed students this school year who have been utilising this product,” she said. Republican board chair Aaron Kinsey questioned whether minor issues such as copyright could mean students would not pass the state’s standardised test. Clark retorted that typos, especially in maths equations, can have consequences: “If we have been teaching incorrectly, this is going to have an impact.”
Pam Little, a Republican board member, said: “I understand that some of these errors are minimal, some of them are for clarity and some of them are for accuracy. But still, an error is an error.” Colin Dempsey, a Texas education agency official, acknowledged the “high number of updates” but insisted factual errors were “minimal”, though he did not provide an exact figure.
Board members said more than 4,000 corrections were needed, but agency spokesperson Jake Kobersky told the Associated Press that approximately 1,900 changes were made, including duplicate corrections across teacher guides and student workbooks. He said most changes were “proactive in response to teacher feedback or grammatical fixes, not a result of factual errors”.
It is unclear how many districts adopted the curriculum for this school year, but as of August, more than 300 of Texas’s 1,207 districts and charters had indicated they would use it. After Wednesday’s approval, the agency said online materials would be updated within 30 days, but did not specify how long it would take to replace physical materials or the cost. Little said she worries the board has “set a precedent for sloppy publishing”. Dempsey said the agency has increased the number of reviewers from five to eight to catch errors earlier.
