|
House Bill 3979 |
House Author: Toth et al. |
|
Effective: 9-1-21 |
Senate Sponsor: Creighton et al. |
House Bill 3979 amends the Education Code to require the State Board of Education, in adopting state social studies curriculum standards, to include specified essential knowledge and skills that develop each student's civic knowledge. The bill prohibits compelling a teacher for any social studies course in the required curriculum to discuss a particular current event or widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs but requires a teacher who chooses to do so to strive to explore the topic from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective. The bill sets out additional prohibitions relating to social studies curriculum and instruction, including the following:
· prohibits a public school district, open‑enrollment charter school, or teacher from requiring, making part of a course, or awarding a grade or course credit for a student's engagement in certain activities relating to lobbying or policy advocacy;
· prohibits an employee of a district, charter school, or state agency from requiring or making part of a course certain concepts relating to race and sex;
· prohibits requiring an employee of those entities to engage in training, orientation, or therapy that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or blame on the basis of race or sex; and
· prohibits those entities from accepting private funding for applicable curriculum, teacher training, or professional development.
The bill provides for certain protections for applicable student speech. The bill's provisions apply beginning with the 2021‑2022 school year, except that required changes to state curriculum standards apply beginning with the 2022‑2023 school year.