By Wilson                                             H.B. No. 1738
         76R6272 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 2000-2001
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, 2000.
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.