How Can a Public School Start Offering Elective Courses on the Bible?
We have written recently about how Arkansas law lets public schools offer elective courses on the Bible — and these courses have grown this year.
The Arkansas Department of Education has published standards that spell out what high schoolers can learn from these elective, one-semester courses.
These courses have been available since 2013, when Arkansas passed Act 1440 letting public schools offer elective, academic courses that study “the Bible and its influence on literature, art, music, culture, and politics.”
The law says the course must be objective and nonsectarian, and it must meet the same academic standards as other elective courses in public schools. Anyone wishing to teach the course must be licensed to teach in the State of Arkansas.
In 2019, the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 1016 making technical clarifications to Act 1440 of 2013, and this year lawmakers passed Act 400, the Religious Rights at Public School Act by Sen. Mark Johnson (R — Little Rock) and Rep. Alyssa Brown (R — Heber Springs) affirming public school students’ and teachers’ religious liberties — including the freedom schools have to offer academic courses on the Bible under state law.
So how can a public school offer an elective course on the Bible? Here are a few points to consider:
- It’s up to the local school board. Local districts decide whether to offer the course and choose the curriculum. School boards may vote to offer the course and find a licensed teacher qualified to teach it.
- Courses must be nonsectarian. They must be taught objectively. They cannot include “sectarian interpretations of the Bible,” and they cannot “disparage or encourage a commitment to a set of religious beliefs.”
- The Arkansas Department of Education offers an academic framework schools can use for establishing Bible courses. The State of Arkansas does not have an approved curriculum for the academic study of the Bible, but the Department of Education has produced official standards that spell out what these courses should cover. School districts are free to offer courses and use curricula that meet this framework. School districts do not have to get their curriculum approved by the department before offering the course.
This year, 18 school districts in Arkansas offered academic courses on the Bible. Courts have said the U.S. Constitution does not prevent public school students from being taught about the Bible and its significance throughout human history, provided that the instruction is neutral and educational. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1980 Stone v. Graham decision went so far as to say, “the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like.”
Family Council fully supports public school districts that offer academic courses on the Bible to students across the state. After all, no single book has been more influential over our civilization than the Bible.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
Shattered Dreams: The High Cost of Reproductive Technology
A column published in The Wall Street Journal last Friday highlights the heartbreak and empty promises that assisted reproduction technology often brings.
Ruthie Ackerman writes,
I spent close to $15,000 to freeze my eggs when I was 35. I paid top dollar out of pocket at a well-respected clinic that had, as far as I knew, glowing statistics. The process allowed me to bank 14 eggs, a number my doctor enthusiastically told me could produce two children.
Yet when I returned to use my eggs six years later, none was viable. Only eight survived the thaw, and only three became embryos after being fertilized. I then waited to see if any would reach the blastocyst stage necessary for pregnancy.
None of them did.
Ackerman goes on to note how egg freezing simply isn’t the “slam dunk” or parenthood “insurance policy” that many people make it out to be. Egg freezing and in vitro fertilization can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and there is no guarantee that the eggs — or the unborn children created from them — will survive.
We have written before about the ethical problems with human egg harvesting, in vitro fertilization, commercial surrogacy, and other assisted reproductive technologies. Fertility clinics often fail to give women all the information about the risks, consequences, and alternatives associated with these processes.
Two bills filed earlier this year would have helped address this problem.
H.B. 1554 and H.B. 1795 by Rep. Alyssa Brown (R — Heber Springs) would have required fertility clinics to be licensed by the State of Arkansas and report key data related to assisted reproductive technology. Unfortunately, neither of these bills passed.
Family Council has worked for years to bring better accountability and oversight to assisted reproduction technology. We remain committed to doing exactly that.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.