Education Week Blog, Curriculum Matters
Originally Posted: March 17, 2016
New bills on the table in Kentucky and Idaho would pave the path for more study of the Bible in public schools.
In Idaho, the state’s senate approved a bill that would “expressly permit” schools to use the Bible for academic study, the Associated Press reports. It specifies that the Bible can be used in studies of history, literature, and the arts.
The bill in Kentucky would allow schools to offer Bible Literacy classes as an elective passed the state senate’s education committee earlier this month, the Courier-Journal reports.
According to Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University who has studied the use of the Bible in public schools, the bills won’t likely permit anything that’s not already technically permissible under state and federal law.
A 1963 Supreme Court ruling affirmed that, while public schools cannot teach devotional practices, they can teach about the Bible “when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education.” READ MORE