Georgia legislature approved a bill that would allow high schools to offer courses on the Bible
The Georgia state legislature has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow public high schools to offer state-funded courses on the Bible, and the bill now awaits Governor Sonny Perdue’s signature. The measure requires the State Board of Education to adopt curricula for two electives, "History and Literature of the Old Testament Era" and "History and Literature of the New Testament Era," by the middle of next school year. No other state has a law specifically sanctioning Bible-related classes, but similar courses have been created elsewhere. The Florida Department of Education, for example, has offered two Bible history electives since at least the 1990s, while two other states, Alabama and Missouri, are considering legislation similar to Georgia’s. “It's just unusual, if not unprecedented, to single out the Bible,” says Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center. While supporters of the bill insist it is not a religious issue, critics are concerned that the courses will be slanted toward Christianity because the bill requires that the Old and New Testaments be used as “basic text.” According to Judith Schaeffer, deputy legal director of the People for the American Way Foundation (PFAW), “You can't just hand it to an English teacher and expect them to teach it as Charles Dickens.” Both the Georgia School Boards Association and the Georgia School Superintendents Association (GSSA) say they are unaware of any school districts planning to offer the classes. “We don't favor the General Assembly mandating curriculum,” says Herb Garrett, executive director of GSSA. “But this doesn't really mandate that local school systems do it. It only mandates that the Department of Education create a curriculum. So we just sort of stayed out of it.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Nancy Badertscher and Bridget Gutierrez
[Full story]
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Bridget Gutierrez
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: For background on the proposal, see below. See also a report by PFAW highlighting examples from Florida of what the group argues are the perils of such courses if not implemented with care.]
[NSBA School Law pages on Georgia Bible course bill]
[“The Good Book Taught Wrong”]