Pro-Family Attorney Applauds Texas School District's Adoption of Bible Curriculum
by Jim Brown
January 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A West Texas school board is being praised for ignoring lawsuit threats and voting to allow a course on the Bible's influence on culture to be taught as an elective for high school students in the district.Last week the Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, Texas, voted 4-2 to adopt a course put out by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) called "The Bible as History and Literature." However, one trustee with the Ector County school board says two groups have already threatened to file a lawsuit over the newly approved course.
Opponents of the NCBCPS, including members of the Austin-based Texas Freedom Network, have challenged both the academic validity and the constitutionality of the National Council's curriculum, claiming the course materials contain factual errors, examples of extensive plagiarism and other indications of poor scholarship. Critics, some Christian groups among them, have also charged that the Bible course promotes a single, narrow religious viewpoint.
However, Steve Crampton of the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, has been an outspoken champion of the NCBCPS course. He serves on the National Council's board and believes the decision in Odessa will have a ripple effect across the United States.
Crampton points out that students in the Texas school district joined parents and concerned community members for a total of 6,000 petitioners who combined their efforts to see the NCBCPS curriculum implemented. He feels it is significant that so many members of the Odessa community turned out in force to support the idea of instituting the "Bible and History and Literature" elective in the district high schools.
An overflow crowd showed up for an Ector County ISD school board meeting to voice their approval of the proposed Bible course, Crampton notes. Members of a local Pentecostal church were outside the building rallying in favor of the class as well. And now, he says, thanks in large part to the strong outpouring of support from members of the Odessa community, Ector County students can "actually take a bona fide academic course in Bible right there in their high school."
And now, the pro-family attorney adds, not only will the high school youth who played a part in the petition drive be able to benefit from the new elective, "but students for years to come will have an opportunity to really study the Bible in the context of a public school."
Crampton says the NCBCPS curriculum was designed according to rigorous academic standards and will also withstand any legal challenges from those who might question the constitutionality of its use in a public school setting. Also, he emphasizes, the National Council -- unlike the Bible Literacy Project (BLP), a rival Bible curriculum group that has criticized the NCBCPS course -- only brings the "Bible as History and Literature" to communities that have invited and approved it.
"The Bible Literacy Project, by contrast, comes in in a top-down sort of fashion," Crampton asserts. "They do not wait for community invitations. They simply come in and ... sort of try to force their way in." Although the AFA attorney prefers not to comment on the quality of Bible Literacy Project's curriculum, he gives the NCBCPS's "Bible as History and Literature" curriculum his strongest recommendation, and serves on that group's board confidently and without reservation.
About BLP's product, Crampton remarks, "What I will say is, I think there's a dramatic difference between these curricula and the way they're implemented. And, frankly, if people don't want a curriculum, I'm hard pressed to see a good reason for trying to force it upon them."
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
