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Texas Board Gives Initial OK to K–12 Reading List That Requires Bible Passages

A June up-or-down vote could lock in the selections for statewide testing in 2030.

Books line shelves at the Walsh Middle School library in Round Rock on July 11, 2022.
People hold signs reading "Teach the Truth" and "Don't erase our history" during a rally on the Capitol Mall outside the Barbara Jordan State Office Building, where the State Board of Education meets, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Austin, Texas. 
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Texas State Board of Education Chair Aaron Kinsey listens to public testimony on proposed revisions to the social studies curriculum during the board meeting at the Barbara Jordan State Office Building in Austin on April 7, 2026.

Overview

  • The State Board of Education gave initial approval to a first-of-its-kind mandatory K–12 reading list in a party-line vote that kept Bible excerpts in place.
  • The draft assigns specific passages such as Psalm 23, Jonah, Matthew’s Beatitudes, David and Goliath, and Job to set grades as literature.
  • Members can still revise the list before a final vote in June, and if it passes the readings would take effect in 2030–31 and appear on state tests.
  • The project stems from a 2023 law directing the Texas Education Agency to propose titles, and the board trimmed about 100 works from the agency’s longer draft, including Frankenstein and a Frederick Douglass speech.
  • Teachers and civil-liberty advocates warn of First Amendment lawsuits, underrepresentation of women and Black and Hispanic authors, and class time limits that a statewide teacher survey called “mathematically impossible” to meet.