By Wilson                                               H.B. No. 64
       74R991 KKA-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to human rights instruction in public school classes.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Sections 21.101(a)-(c), Education Code, are
    1-5  amended to read as follows:
    1-6        (a)  Each school district that offers prekindergarten through
    1-7  grade 12 shall offer a well-balanced curriculum that includes:
    1-8              (1)  English language arts;
    1-9              (2)  other languages, to the extent possible;
   1-10              (3)  mathematics;
   1-11              (4)  science;
   1-12              (5)  health;
   1-13              (6)  physical education;
   1-14              (7)  fine arts;
   1-15              (8)  social studies;
   1-16              (9)  economics, with emphasis on the free enterprise
   1-17  system and its benefits;
   1-18              (10)  business education;
   1-19              (11)  vocational education; <and>
   1-20              (12)  Texas and United States history as individual
   1-21  subjects and in reading courses; and
   1-22              (13)  human rights issues, with particular attention to
   1-23  the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, and the
   1-24  Holocaust.
    2-1        (b)  The State Board of Education by rule shall designate
    2-2  subjects comprising a well-balanced curriculum to be offered by a
    2-3  school district that does not offer prekindergarten through grade
    2-4  12.  The rules must require that a school district that offers
    2-5  grade six or above offer instruction in human rights issues, with
    2-6  particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide,
    2-7  slavery, and the Holocaust.
    2-8        (c)  The State Board of Education by rule shall designate the
    2-9  essential elements of each subject listed in Subsection (a) <of
   2-10  this section> and shall require each district to provide
   2-11  instruction in those elements at appropriate grade levels.  The
   2-12  rules must require that each district offer instruction in human
   2-13  rights issues at the sixth grade level or above.  In order to be
   2-14  accredited, a district must provide instruction in those essential
   2-15  elements as specified by the state board.
   2-16        SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1996-1997
   2-17  school year.  The State Board of Education shall adopt rules for
   2-18  the implementation of this Act not later than January 1, 1996.
   2-19        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-20  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-21  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-22  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-23  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.