By Wilson H.B. No. 154
75R1938 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 28.002(a), (b), and (d), Education Code,
1-5 are amended to read as follows:
1-6 (a) Each school district that offers kindergarten through
1-7 grade 12 shall offer, as a required curriculum:
1-8 (1) a foundation curriculum that includes:
1-9 (A) English language arts;
1-10 (B) mathematics;
1-11 (C) science; and
1-12 (D) social studies, consisting of Texas, United
1-13 States, and world history, government, and geography; and
1-14 (2) an enrichment curriculum that includes:
1-15 (A) to the extent possible, languages other than
1-16 English;
1-17 (B) health;
1-18 (C) physical education;
1-19 (D) fine arts;
1-20 (E) economics, with emphasis on the free
1-21 enterprise system and its benefits;
1-22 (F) career and technology education; [and]
1-23 (G) technology applications; and
1-24 (H) human rights issues, with particular
2-1 attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, and
2-2 the Holocaust.
2-3 (b) The State Board of Education by rule shall designate
2-4 subjects constituting a well-balanced curriculum to be offered by a
2-5 school district that does not offer kindergarten through grade 12.
2-6 The rules must require that a school district that offers grade six
2-7 or above offer instruction in human rights issues, with particular
2-8 attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, and
2-9 the Holocaust.
2-10 (d) The State Board of Education, after consulting with
2-11 educators, parents, business and industry representatives, and
2-12 employers, shall by rule identify the essential knowledge and
2-13 skills of each subject of the enrichment curriculum that all
2-14 students should be able to demonstrate. Each district shall use
2-15 the essential knowledge and skills identified by the board as
2-16 guidelines in providing instruction in the enrichment curriculum.
2-17 The board by rule shall require each district to offer instruction
2-18 in human rights issues at the sixth grade level or above.
2-19 SECTION 2. This Act applies beginning with the 1998-1999
2-20 school year. The State Board of Education shall adopt rules for
2-21 the implementation of this Act not later than January 1, 1998.
2-22 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the
2-23 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-24 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-25 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-26 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-27 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
3-1 passage, and it is so enacted.