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When curriculum standards and religion collide, students and faith traditions lose

On Rosh Hashanah, the shofar sounds, marking the beginning of the Jewish New Year. This year, Rosh Hashanah fell on Sept. 26 – the same day the Texas State Board of Education scheduled a public hearing to discuss religious freedoms and the social studies curriculum for students from kindergarten through grade 12.

There are certain ironies to this SBOE hearing. One, that a meeting to discuss freedom of religion was scheduled on one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar. Jewish community members were forced to choose between civic participation and attending prayer services, and inevitably, Jewish voices were missing at the special hearing. The more voices that are omitted from a democratic process, the less democratic that process becomes.

This High Holy Days season is a time for introspection and atonement, a time when the Jewish people recommit to living more honest, just and compassionate lives. As such, the second irony to this meeting is that some of the proposed changes to the social studies curriculum are exaggerated, if not outright fabricated, to promote a very narrow understanding of religion and the founding of our nation.

Teaching the truth doesn't violate faith

Telling the truth and acting with integrity are important every day of our lives, but for Jews, it matters even more during Rosh Hashanah and the 10 days leading up to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year.

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Even when promoted from a place of goodwill, encouraging falsehoods about religion and about the founding of our nation ultimately denigrates both. Certainly, religion shaped (and continues to shape) our history in many important ways.

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Our students – our children – should learn the profound influence religion has had in our history, society and the world. But even conservative organizations like the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have criticized the current standards for exaggerating religious influences on our government and laws. Scholars have repeatedly remarked that the board’s insistence on requiring students to learn this is historically inaccurate.

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In Texas, educators still must meet requirements that public schools teach that Moses was a major influence on the American founding documents. The state board also has a history of rejecting efforts to clarify that the separation of church and state was key to our constitutional framers.

Teachers and scholars alike did not think these exaggerations should be included in the curriculum. Scholars pleaded with the board not to add these ideas because of their lack of credibility. However, politicians who controlled the board consistently overruled these experts because they believed doing so would earn them something. Political points, maybe?

Including such exaggerations in the educational standards of our children promotes a narrow ideological agenda based on a superficial reading of sacred texts. It is not teaching the whole truth. It is not teaching our children, our students, that acting with integrity and honesty are more important than advancing political agendas. As adults and as leaders, we should strive to promote better examples to the youngest and most vulnerable in society.

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Politicizing religion goes against our founding

Our nation’s Founders recognized the dangers of politicizing religion. They recognized the importance of protecting religious freedom by barring government from favoring or restricting faith or any particular religion in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The standards in our great state of Texas should reflect that.

We can and should teach the significance of religion without resorting to aggrandizing. We have no business exaggerating religious influence on our government, law and nation’s founding. To do so would be a disservice not only to the students of our state, but also to people of faith across Texas – myself included.

Studying the Bible is meant to open us up to important questions of meaning, not to give us a shortcut to certitude. To trivialize a religious tradition by turning it into a political battleground is to demean its importance; it is to move from a God-centered perspective to a self-centered one. In my understanding, this is the opposite of what is intended with the proposed standards.

May the piercing sound of the shofar awaken us to injustice and enable each of us to change despair into profound hope. After this special hearing and Jewish New Year, may we pray our leaders act with integrity and prioritize telling the truth, for the sake of our students.

Neil Blumofe is a senior rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, Texas.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas school board's religious curriculum does students a disservice