Texas Adopts the Nation’s First Statewide Reading List, Featuring Anne Frank and the Bible

Texas has established the nation’s first statewide K-12 required reading list for public schools, mandating that students read Anne Frank’s diary, a range of Bible passages, and a host of other Jewish- and Holocaust-related texts. The Republican-controlled state board of education approved the list on Friday, June 26, in a nine-to-five vote. The curriculum will take effect in 2030 and will apply to roughly 5.5 million schoolchildren across the state. It marks a significant assertion of state authority over reading selections traditionally left to individual schools and teachers.

The list spans more than 150 titles, among them Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir “Night,” Lois Lowry’s young-reader novel “Number the Stars,” and George Washington’s celebrated 1790 letter to a Rhode Island synagogue. Beginning in the fourth grade, students will also read numerous passages from both the Bible. Other selections include classics such as E. B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” and George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” The original edition of Anne Frank’s diary was chosen over a graphic-novel adaptation that some had criticized.

The measure drew objections from some Jewish leaders, several of whom raised concerns during the public comment period about incorporating Christian content into public-school lessons. The vote follows a broader push by the state’s education leaders to reverse a decline in the number of books read in class and to shape the texts students encounter. Because of Texas’s vast student population, decisions by its education board have historically influenced curricula well beyond the state’s borders. The inclusion of Scripture and Holocaust remembrance places enduring questions of faith and memory before a new generation.

(TOI/VFI News)

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” – Proverbs 22:6