School choice.
So, first of all, the simple solution to any controversy regarding curriculum in government schools is school choice. If you don't like it, take your kid out of the school and put your kid in a school that you like.
Since mostly Democrats don't like that idea, I guess we have to deal with government school curriculum.
Right now, the controversy is about Biblical displays and teachings in government schools. It wasn't too long ago that the major controversy was the teaching of Critical Race Theory in government schools. It's still a bit of a controversy that gender theory is being taught in government schools.
The thing is, in regard to all of these controversies, the question of what we mean by, "taught."
I'm particularly sensitive regarding the idea of government agents teaching captive audiences what to think. I would go so far as to say that we should be actively fighting how the distinctions between facts and opinions are taught in government schools. I don't think that it's mostly malicious that government schools teach that moral statements are never factual; but, intentional or not, we've been teaching kids a controversial way of thinking about morality for decades.
Still, what do people mean when we're talking about teaching the Bible or teaching CRT or teaching Nazism in government schools?
Yes, of course, if taxpayer money is going toward a government school that's found to be teaching the gospel as...well...gospel, I'm gonna have a problem.
Still, is it controversial to assign Shakespeare as a topic in an English literature class in a government school? If I hadn't read the Bible, I wouldn't understand a quarter of what Shakespeare was saying. Act Five of Hamlet, "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow." That's a Bible reference. Are you trying to say that we should be so against teaching the Bible in government schools that it should be forbidden for a teacher to explain that Shakespeare quote?
Granted, most of my government school teachers were too stupid to know what Shakespeare was referencing to begin with. But, let's put that aside.
Alarms should be raised when it comes to the prospect of agents of the state indoctrinating kids. I'm not denying that for a second. Still, there are some cases in which we've gotta evaluate legitimate curriculum.
Like it or not, you can't really grasp western culture without some understanding of the Bible. Teaching kids how to understand something isn't the same thing as teaching kids what to believe.
It's hard to find a good book that doesn't have a moral message. Of course I'm horrified by how many Zoomers seem to have skimmed through Brave New World and thought it was an instruction manual; but, that doesn't mean that the book shouldn't be assigned reading in any government schools while we still have government schools. How is that any worse than assigning the Bible or the Quran or whatnot if the context is that of comprehending some of the most influential books in human history?
Yeah, we should raise concerns if and when agents of the state are marking kids wrong for disagreeing with a normative statement. Yes, it's a massive problem that government schools have been covertly teaching kids that there's no such thing as a moral fact.
Also, yes, we should raise concerns if religious texts are being introduced in government schools.
Still, if we look at the reality of what's being taught, and we find that the religious texts are simply being examined as a means by which to understand civilization, we've gotta recognize the value in that.