The Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 school district in southwestern Colorado will remove or revise all religious content from its elementary reading curriculum, after public scrutiny revealed the Texas-sourced program includes Bible-based lessons such as a kindergarten unit on the Genesis creation account and a 14-lesson fifth grade sequence on biblical allegories in C.S. Lewis's 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.'
Superintendent Eddie Ramirez issued an open letter on August 8, 2026, stating the district would edit the curriculum materials to remove or modify any content inconsistent with Colorado Academic Standards or the district's educational mission. The letter said the district would not use the curriculum to provide religious instruction. The 2,200-student district had adopted the Bluebonnet curriculum through a school improvement partnership with Houston ISD's New Education System (NES) model, which was created by Houston Superintendent Mike Miles, a former Colorado charter school founder.
How the adoption unfolded
The district's path to Bluebonnet began in May 2026, when the school board approved a curriculum-use agreement with Houston ISD that originally referenced Core Knowledge Language Arts, a Colorado-approved reading curriculum. According to Chalkbeat, administrators quietly switched to Bluebonnet over the summer with little public discussion and no school board vote. A special board meeting was scheduled for August 11, 2026, to formally adopt the curriculum after the controversy.
A district board agenda document shows the cost breakdown for implementing the NES model: the original CKLA-based plan totaled $114,810.00, while the revised Bluebonnet-based plan totaled $60,472.90. The document explains that materials would be derived from Bluebonnet because Houston ISD had adopted it for the 2026-2027 school year. Houston is not charging Montezuma-Cortez for the NES model or the repackaged curriculum; the district pays only for copying costs and some book purchases.
Bluebonnet is not a Colorado-approved reading program, though it was derived from Core Knowledge Language Arts, which is approved in Colorado. Amplify, the publisher of CKLA, told Chalkbeat that the two curricula are different and CKLA's approval does not guarantee Bluebonnet would meet Colorado standards. State law does not require districts to use approved programs, but curricula must be evidence-based and aligned with state academic standards.
Three district-run elementary schools exist in Montezuma-Cortez. One performs well above the state average on literacy and math tests; the other two perform far below, according to Chalkbeat. The district adopted the NES model to improve elementary performance.
Texas precedent and legal challenges
The Texas State Board of Education narrowly approved Bluebonnet Learning in November 2024 by an 8-7 vote, after religious scholars raised concerns that the lessons favored Christianity over other faiths. Texas districts are not required to adopt the curriculum, but those that do receive $60 per student in financial incentives. As of August 2025, about 595 Texas districts and charters signed up to use at least parts of the curriculum, with about 317 committing to the reading lessons, the Texas Tribune reported.
In January 2025, a coalition including the ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Center for Inquiry, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation urged Texas superintendents not to adopt Bluebonnet, arguing it would unlawfully impose religious beliefs on students. The Texas Education Agency responded that public schools may not provide religious instruction and that Bluebonnet contains none, describing the biblical content as literary and historical material used to build background knowledge.
Houston ISD adopted Bluebonnet in June 2026 despite opposition from some parents and faith leaders. Schools using Houston's NES model have made significant gains on state tests in recent years, Chalkbeat reported. In June 2025, the Texas Education Agency announced it was spending $8 million to fix thousands of errors in the Bluebonnet curriculum, including typos, formatting problems, and copyright violations.
What research says about the curriculum
A peer-reviewed analysis from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy found that Bluebonnet does not adequately balance coverage across religions and frequently presents religious material in a way that is not sufficiently objective, neutral, or nonconfessional for a public-school setting. The paper said the curriculum comes close to promoting Christianity, overemphasizes Christianity at the expense of other religious communities, and covers Judaism almost exclusively in its biblical period, with only brief mentions of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The analysis also noted the curriculum could provoke a court challenge that might revisit Establishment Clause precedents.
Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, critiqued Bluebonnet for mischaracterizing some Bible stories. He pointed to a second grade lesson on Queen Esther that suggests she acted on faith in God, even though the Book of Esther famously does not mention God, and fails to note that Esther promotes killing enemies of the Jews at the end of the story. He also said some biblical content is not appropriate for the grade at which it is introduced.
Brent Strawn, a religion and law professor at Duke University, offered a partial counterpoint, saying that knowing Bible stories can give students a more nuanced understanding of cultural references from Shakespeare to common idioms. But he also expressed concern that the cultural-literacy rationale could be used to bring biblical content into public schools when the real goal is to instill Christian values and beliefs.