California Assembly Bill AB659 Amended / Bill

 BILL NUMBER: AB 659AMENDED BILL TEXT AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JANUARY 8, 2014 AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JANUARY 6, 2014 AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 19, 2013 INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Nazarian FEBRUARY 21, 2013 An act to amend Section 51226.3 of the Education Code, relating to pupil instruction. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 659, as amended, Nazarian. Pupil instruction: Armenian Genocide. Existing law requires the State Department of Education to incorporate materials relating to civil rights, human rights violations, genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust into publications that provide examples of curriculum resources, consistent with the subject frameworks on history and social science and other requirements. Under existing law, the Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness testimony into the teaching of human rights, genocide, and the Holocaust.  Existing law establishes the Instructional Quality Commission and requires the commission to, among other things, recommend curriculum frameworks to the State Board of Education.  This bill would also require the incorporation of materials related to the Armenian Genocide into those publications, and would require  the commission to consider  the Armenian Genocide  to be considered in the next cycle in which  for inclusion in  the  history/social   history-social  science curriculum framework  and its accompanying instructional materials are adopted   when the history-social science   framework is revised as required by law  . The bill would also specify that the Legislature encourages the incorporation of  an oral history component specifically related to genocide, including, but not limited to,   survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness oral testimony into the teaching of human rights, the Holocaust, and genocide, including  the  Armenian, Cambodian,  Darfur,  and  Rwandan  , Cambodian, and Armenian genocides, and the Jewish Holocaust, and   genocides. The bill  would  require   define oral  testimony  incorporated into an oral history component to consist only of   to mean  firsthand accounts of significant historical events presented in a specified format. Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: SECTION 1. Section 51226.3 of the Education Code is amended to read: 51226.3. (a) The department shall incorporate into publications that provide examples of curriculum resources for teacher use those materials developed by publishers of nonfiction, trade books, and primary sources, or other public or private organizations, that are age-appropriate and consistent with the subject frameworks on history and social science that deal with civil rights, human rights violations, genocide, slavery, the Holocaust, and the Armenian Genocide. (b) (1)    The Legislature encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator, and witness  oral  testimony into the teaching of human rights,  genocide,  the Holocaust, and  the Armenian Genocide   genocide, including, but not limited to, the Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides  .  (c) (1) The Legislature encourages the incorporation of an oral history component specifically related to genocide, including, but not limited to, the Darfur, Rwandan, Cambodian, and Armenian genocides, and the Jewish Holocaust.  (2) As used in this subdivision,  testimony incorporated into an oral history component shall consist only of   "oral testimony" means the  firsthand accounts of significant historical events presented in a format that includes, but is not limited to, in-person testimony, video, or a multimedia option, such as a DVD or online video.  (d)   (  c)  The Legislature encourages all state and local professional development activities to provide teachers with content background and resources to assist in teaching about civil rights, human rights violations, genocide, slavery, the Holocaust, and the Armenian Genocide.  (e)   (   d)  The Legislature encourages all state and local professional development activities to provide teachers with content background and resources to assist in teaching about the Great Irish Famine of 1845-50.  (f) The Great Irish Famine of 1845-50 and the Armenian Genocide shall be considered in the next cycle in which the history/social science curriculum framework and its accompanying instructional materials are adopted.   (e) When the history-social science curriculum framework is revised as required by law, the Instructional Quality Commission shall consider including the Great Irish Famine of 1845-50 and the Armenian Genocide in the history-social science curriculum framework.   (g)   (   f)  The Model Curriculum for Human Rights and Genocide adopted by the state board, pursuant to Section 51226, shall be made available to schools in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, as soon as funding is available for this purpose. In addition, the department shall make the curriculum available on its Internet Web site.