Last week, the Fort Worth Independent School District became the second-largest school district in Texas to adopt Bluebonnet Learning, a state-developed collection of instructional materials that has been criticized for its selection of Bible-influenced lessons. The materials are not required by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), but adopting them carries a significant cash bonus, several million dollars, depending on the district’s enrollment. The school board of trustees’ vote comes on the heels of approving a 2025-26 fiscal budget that comes with a $43 million deficit.
The Bluebonnet Learning materials, which use stories and parables from the Bible in reading materials, starting in Kindergarten, have been heavily critiqued for their lack of secularism. But at an additional $60 per student, the price of Christian-influenced learning may seem worth it to districts struggling under cost burdens. The TEA maintains that the boost in financing is to negate printing costs for the materials, but free digital versions are available for parents, teachers and students to access online.
“All that is saying is state-sanctioned indoctrination,” one of the three nay voters, Trustee Quinton Phillips, said at the board meeting…