Bible School, SuperS’cuse Me, and Freedom for Fidgeters

Teacher Magazine ’s take on education news from around the Web, March 23-March 29.

Redefining forever that old trope about a "textbook case," Georgia is about to become the first state to make the Bible an approved text in public schools . If Governor Sonny Perdue, as expected, signs the bill approved in recent days by the legislature, Peach State students will soon be able to take electives on the history and literature of the Old and New Testaments. The idea of treating the perennially best-selling tome as a school subject isn't new, but the Georgia law would break new ground by requiring that the Bible be the core text. Without the classes, said Tommie Williams, the state senate majority leader who sponsored the measure, "If we're teaching a kid what the Good Samaritan law was about, they wouldn't know." Though the bill requires that the subject be taught "in an objective and nondevotional manner," state legal scholars are already doubting whether the notion is constitutional. The class might, however, suffer from an even more fundamental defect: lack of attendance. "Nobody has come to us requesting it," said state education...