300 Districts Are Signing Up for New Bible Curriculum.

More than 300 Texas school districts and charter schools have signaled plans to use a state-developed reading and language arts curriculum that attracted national attention last year for its heavy references to the Bible and Christianity, according to data obtained by The Texas Tribune.

That number represents about a quarter of Texas’ 1,207 districts and charters and could still grow before the state publishes official data in the early fall. But the preliminary numbers offer an early glimpse into demand for the elementary school materials narrowly approved by the Republican-dominated State Board of Education in November.

The Texas Education Agency asks schools to submit information on the instructional materials they plan to use each year to ensure their compliance with state learning standards. The Tribune obtained data through an open records request on the schools planning to use the TEA’s new Bluebonnet curriculum, which includes the religion-infused reading lessons as well as phonics and math materials.

According to the data, about 595 districts and charters signed up as of late June to use at least some parts of the curriculum, and about 317 said they would use the reading lessons. Adoption of the reading curriculum was most prevalent in the Kilgore, Amarillo and Victoria regions; it was least prevalent around Beaumont, Austin and El Paso.

Switching from one curriculum to another is a significant undertaking, and other schools could be taking a wait-and-see approach before deciding whether to use the state-designed materials.

Many had also criticized how the reading materials — which include social studies and historical topics — watered down America’s history of civil rights, racism and slavery.

For example, one lesson instructs teachers to tell students that Founding Fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson “realized that slavery was wrong and founded the country so that Americans could be free,” without mentioning they enslaved people. On the religion front, another activity requests that children memorize the order in which the Bible says God created the universe.