Separation of Church and State Curricula? Public Standards, Private Values, and Textbook Content

June 2026

Curricula are a critical site of cultural transmission, yet we know little about the values conveyed in textbooks across educational settings or the forces that shape them. We examine textbooks from Texas and California public schools and religious-private and home schools spanning 1980-2022, using computational and AI tools to measure presence and portrayal of people, topics, and values over time. Despite narratives of political polarization, Texas and California textbooks show substantial similarity. In contrast, religious private-school textbooks place greater emphasis on religious and character values and depict characters with lighter skin colors; we show these differences align with preferences and demographics of target markets. To explain public-school convergence, we develop a framework in which publishers serve a national market constrained by state standards and provide evidence consistent with cross-state spillovers in textbook content following standards revisions. Conversely, private-school publishers serve a more segmented, less regulated market, leading to greater differentiation.

Keywords

Curricula, education policy, religious education, public school education, diversity and inclusion in education, artificial intelligence tools, computational social science, content analysis

Education level

K-12 Education

Topics

Standards, Assessment, and Curriculum