The Bible in TX Public Schools

I am originally from Ector County, TX and my understanding is that they are trying to get a bill passed to offer an elective bible class in the public school system in the Odessa area. Elective is supposed to mean that they can vote on it? But I guess that's not allowable. You see, if the right tried to say, "We're GOING to teach the Bible, the CUARTO crowd says, "Oh no you're not that's a violation!" But then they say, "Wait, we'll offer it as an elective and students can decide if they want to take it and then vote on it."
Um...oh no you can't!!! That's also a violation, and we're going to make it so!
So any way they try to go about it, they are totally screwed, am I right on this?
If the TX public school system wanted to integrate comparitive religion courses like they do at community colleges, would that be okay?
For some reason, if they did, I kind of think that the CUARTOS would not try to impose such strict guidelines for teaching the Bhagavad Gita as they would on teaching the Bible, as I will illustrate in the following point:

From bibleinschools.net:


The Texas Freedom Network, a self-admitted adversary of any biblically conservative movement, calling themselves "a mainstream voice to counter the religious right." The TFN, for example, is requesting five unnecessary changes to the Texas bill, which is intended to assure students are taught this classic text:
Mandate that teachers have appropriate academic qualifications and sufficient training on legal and constitutional issues surrounding instruction about the Bible in public schools.
Require rigorous, scholarly reviewed textbooks and other curriculum materials for all courses.
Include strong and specific language that protects the religious freedom of students and their families by barring the use of Bible classes to evangelize or promote personal religious perspectives.
Require the Texas Education Agency to regularly monitor and report on the content of public school Bible courses to ensure that they are academically and legally appropriate.

Uh huh. Interesting. I see the writing on the wall there. Okay, so here is what I want to know:

This is just a side point, but if the CUARTO crowd is so concerned about the quality of education that's going into teaching the bible in public school, then answer me this:

Why in the HELL does Texas go to Mexico to recruit Spanish teachers when there are plenty of Spanish speakers in the United States that can teach the language????? I'm sure there are UTA, TT, Sam Houston U, A&M, etc. graduates (some that have even spent a year abroad in a Spanish speaking country or more) that would give their right arm for a job teaching Spanish somewhere in the school districts listed below. I'm still trying to connect the dots here. If I wanted to teach Spanish where I live, I'd have to fork out several thousands of dollars for a teaching certificate. (I don't have one.) They won't even take me on a conditional basis without a certificate. I fail to understand, if there is such a shortage of "qualified candidates"among U.S. Citizens, why can't they just assist these people, take them on a conditional basis, let them get certified and that be it? Why do they have to go to Mexico and spend all that money to get people to come here? My theory: V-O-T-E-S. Excellent pool of voters for the next round of elections! These people get way more money than they'd ever get in Mexico, so it's a win-win deal for them, and a win-win deal for our policitians.

TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: For most school kids, this is the best of time of year. I mean, there's no school. But while the kids are out, the adults who run the schools are probably not.
School administrators spend their summers looking for teachers. People who teach math and science are always in short supply — and in Texas, so are bilingual teachers. Joy Diaz reports from KUT in Austin.

Joy Diaz: The Lone Star State has more than 4 million students in grades K through 12. Some 700,000 are English learners.
Georgina Gonzales leads the Texas Department of Bilingual Education. She says more than 90 percent of students learning English in the state have Spanish as their first language.
Georgina Gonzales: Our whole goal is the minute that a student walks into a classroom here in Texas, they must start learning English. So while they're learning their oral language proficiency skills in English, their content area will not be behind. So based on that, the bilingual teachers are needed everywhere.
That need is more evident in the state's fastest-growing areas such as Dallas, Houston, Austin and along the U.S.-Mexico border. These places attract a lot of Latin American immigrants.

Richard Batlle is principal of Bluebonnet Elementary School about 25 miles East of Austin. He says more than half his students are Hispanic. Most are English learners.
Batlle says it's so tough to find bilingual teachers that this year, he went south of the border and hired some teachers in Monterrey, Mexico.
Richard Batlle: We're looking for fluent bilingual teachers. I mean, because our assessments are so rigorous and the Spanish is so formal, we require teachers that have a very good vocabulary and the literature. (University of Texas at Austin has one of the BEST Spanish language immersion programs in the U.S.! And the labor pool is right there dude!)
Those teachers can help students pass the state's standardized tests since for the first two years students can be tested in their native languages.
Teacher Reyna Araceli Perez preps fourth grade English learners at Blue Bonnet Elementary for the state's math test.
[Sound: Perez instructing students]
Perez and Batlle were connected through Region 4, one of the 20 state-approved organizations that recruit bilingual teachers. Most come from Mexico.
Luz Maria de Los Angeles Loyola teaches in Mexico City, but is gearing up to move to Texas later this summer.
At a Starbucks in the Mexican capital, Loyola, her husband and their three teenage girls pile out of their SUV. Loyola says she views her move to Texas as a mission.


Angeles Loyola: It's a very worthwhile challenge. I think these children deserve the opportunity to get an education. If they couldn't have it here in their own country, it is really nice that some other country's offering them the chance.
Bilingual teachers have different reasons for coming to the U.S., but they all pay a hefty price out of their own pockets. The cost of immigration procedures, remedial courses and taking the test for a Texas teaching license comes to around $8,000. Loyola also has to pay for her entire family to move.
But salaries are higher in Texas than in Mexico. Teachers start out earning around $40,000 a year — and most districts offer $5,000 stipends to bilingual teachers. That's about three or four times what they made back home.
In Austin, I'm Joy Diaz for Marketplace.

Not that it's any comparison, but even if I wanted to get a high paying job as an Events Coordinator for the Ritz Carlton in Cancun on a contractor basis, I couldn't. I'm not a Mexican Citizen.
When I lived in Guadalajara years ago, I was approached about "working under the table" for extra money teaching English. I wouldn't do it because it's not fair to the Mexican labor pool, and it's not fair to the U.S. Plus it's illegal!
From what I understand, these people also get grant money as part of their salaries. From our taxpayer pool. Money that could be used to pay U.S. Citizens to do the same job. The same thing has happened in Georgia too.

Now I understand that teaching Spanish and the Bible are two very separate curriculums. But my point is that the CUARTO crowd wants to impose all these restrictions on teaching the bible class when they really could care less about it to begin with (most of them believe that the bible is greek mythology anyway) but it's OK to go and recruit non citizens and just pay them a liberal salary to teach a foreign language when we have border issues that need to be addressed first. Sounds to me like the priorities aren't exactly in order there. You may think my argument is weak, and without any merit, but there it is and I'm sticking to it. Oh yeah, and just so we don't lose perspective on this, please see my post from September 1 on "Russian Christians in a Godless Society."