HOUSTON: In a coup likely to shift what millions of American children learn at school, a clutch of Christian evangelicals and social conservatives who have grasped control of the Texas Board of Education are expected to force through a new state curriculum this week.

The board is to vote on a purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school books in favour of what board member Cynthia Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world.

''We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future,'' Ms Dunbar said. ''In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system.

''There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections.''

Those corrections prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting right-wing views on religion, economics and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement and the horrors of slavery.