This story was originally published by Chalkbeat.
DENVER | A small southwestern Colorado school district will remove or modify any biblically infused content in its new elementary reading curriculum, a district official wrote in an open letter Saturday.
“Our schools will not use the curriculum as a vehicle for religious instruction,” wrote Eddie Ramirez, superintendent of the Montezuma-Cortez district, in a letter addressed to parents, elementary staff, and community members.
The announcement came two days after a Chalkbeat story about the district’s plan to use the Bluebonnet reading curriculum, which was developed by the state of Texas, aligns with Texas academic standards, and contains some lessons based on the Bible.
Also on Saturday, Montezuma-Cortez officials scheduled a special school board meeting for Tuesday to adopt the Bluebonnet curriculum. Although administrators announced in July the district would use the reading curriculum this year, the school board never voted on it.
Monday was the district’s first day of school.
Saturday’s four-page letter was an unusual effort to explain why the 2,200-student district adopted the Texas-centric curriculum and reassure parents and the public that reading instruction will match Colorado academic standards and avoid religious content.
Montezuma-Cortez administrators picked Bluebonnet because the district in May adopted a school improvement model borrowed from the Houston school district, which switched to Bluebonnet in June. The model, spearheaded by Houston Superintendent Mike Miles, a former charter school founder in Colorado, is called the New Education System.
Justin Schmitt, Montezuma-Cortez’s executive director of academic success, said in a phone interview Friday that using the same curriculum materials as Houston will help his district implement Houston’s improvement model.
“We don’t want to piecemeal the model,” he said. “We wanted to embrace the model in its entirety.”
The model is highly structured and includes teacher-led instruction, a focus on student engagement, and training for teachers and principals. Students in Houston schools using the New Education System made significant gains on state tests in the last few years.
In Montezuma-Cortez, two district-run elementary schools perform far below the Colorado average on state math and literacy tests. A third one, the 128-student Lewis-Arriola Elementary, performs far better.
The Bluebonnet curriculum has drawn criticism from advocates of church-state separation and some parents and religious scholars since it was unveiled in Texas two years ago. Among their critiques are that Bluebonnet mischaracterizes some Bible stories, presents some too literalistically, and gives scant attention to religious traditions outside of Christianity.
A kindergarten lesson discusses the days of Creation in the Book of Genesis, a first grade lesson contains the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and a two-lesson second grade sequence shares a Bible story about Queen Esther. A 14-lesson fifth grade unit discusses Biblical allegories in the “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis.
Schmitt said Houston repackages the Bluebonnet curriculum into slide decks and other materials that are ready for use in the classroom, which will take some of the load off Montezuma-Cortez teachers.
“We don’t have capacity in our district to build that,” he said of the specially tailored curriculum materials.
Schmitt said Montezuma-Cortez is paying for copying costs and some book purchases, but Houston isn’t charging the district to use the New Education System model or for the repackaged Bluebonnet curriculum.
Ramirez’s letter doesn’t mention the name Bluebonnet, but said the district “carefully reviewed” the new reading curricular resources and found “approximately 95% alignment with the applicable Colorado standards.”
Schmitt said Monday that Ramirez wasn’t referring to a district review of the curriculum, but rather an estimate by district officials that Texas and Colorado academic standards are about 95% the same.
Bluebonnet isn’t a Colorado-approved reading curriculum, but it was derived from a state-approved curriculum called Core Knowledge Language Arts. A spokesperson for the company that publishes Core Knowledge Language Arts said the two reading programs are different, and Core Knowledge’s state approval doesn’t guarantee Bluebonnet would win approval too. Colorado school districts don’t have to use state-approved reading curriculum, but they must ensure their curriculum meets state academic standards.
Ramirez wrote in the open letter, “Any content that is inconsistent with the district’s educational purpose, Colorado Academic Standards, or our expectations for a public-school instructional program will be reviewed and, where appropriate, removed or modified.”
Schmitt said the Houston team has provided Montezuma-Cortez with four weeks of reading curriculum materials so far and told district staff there are no faith-based teachings in that content.
“We’re going to trust that, but we’re also going to verify it on our own,” he said.
Teachers and principals will provide further checks to ensure religious content is removed, he said.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.