Opinions around the state
Teaching the Bible in Texas schools

-- Dallas Morning News

Suppose your teenager's sitting in a course Ms. Jones is teaching on the Bible, which Texas legislators recently said was OK for schools to offer as an elective.

You probably hope he or she is discovering how the books from Genesis through Revelation have influenced our culture, language and arts.

What you probably don't want is any explicit religious teaching, like how your child should follow Jesus' commandment to make disciples of all nations. That instruction should come from the church or the family, not Ms. Jones.

Bible courses could get just that explicit, though, unless the State Board of Education clearly defines what the elective should cover.

Board members have taken a pass on clarifying standards for the moment, but Texas parents should challenge them to return to this issue before summer.

We encourage Republican board member Pat Hardy to continue pushing for precise standards.

As she says, we have them for social studies and other subjects; why not Bible classes?

A number of good guides are available to assist in this work.

For example, the American Jewish Congress, the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Education Association have approved the broad curriculum created by the Bible Literacy Project. Various districts use it, including the one in Leander, Texas, where the Leander school district has drawn on it to help students put into context the Bible's influence through the ages.

There's certainly value in learning about that influence.

For instance, cultural critic and atheist Camille Paglia once told this newspaper that she's astounded how few of her students, except for African-Americans and working-class whites, understand biblical references in literature and the arts.

What we don't need, though, is Ms. Jones instructing your child - or any Texan's child - in a catechism.

Take-away should't be that home ownership is not for everyone

-- Houston Chronicle

David Frum, an author, former speechwriter for President Bush and an American Enterprise Institute resident scholar, made the case last month on American Public Media radio that the recent meltdown in the subprime mortgage market is evidence that owning a home might not be the best thing for lowerincome Americans.

Owning a home makes it hard for poorer people to move to find better jobs, Frum mused.

He said maintenance expenses are too unpredictable for the badly off.

They can lose their shirts, he worried, if they can't make their mortgage payments, while a renter is merely evicted.

Then Frum pondered further: "Maybe we should also question the great American home ownership ideal for middle class people as well."

What?

These are sentiments that for decades have been so opposed to the prevailing wisdom that they rarely were uttered as part of reasonable public discourse.

Public policy that encouraged home buying tended to follow that accepted line of thinking.

But with foreclosures mounting across the country - according to Texas Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, January saw 14,698 foreclosure filings in Texas, making this state third in the nation for failed mortgages that month - there seems to a sea change in thinking on the American Dream.

Now everyone from real estate market analysts and think tank fellows to highranking government officials say they have doubts about whether promoting home ownership is a good idea for many Americans.

What a shame.

After all, the fundamental principles behind the concept have not changed - that home ownership is good for families, strengthens local tax bases, improves neighborhoods and turns renters into community stakeholders.

What Americans need now is not lectures about how they lack the wherewithal to own a home, but sound banking and lending practices that give credit-worthy consumers access to mortgages under terms allowing repayment over time at reasonable rates.

The result of the current subprime mess should be an overhaul of irresponsible lending - not putting the American Dream beyond the reach of responsible, hard-working families.