BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 137 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 137 (Buchanan) As Amended June 19, 2013 Majority vote ----------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |75-0 |(May 9, 2013) |SENATE: |37-0 |(August 19, | | | | | | |2013) | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Original Committee Reference: ED. SUMMARY : Amends the requirement that American government and civics be included in the framework in all history social science courses, as appropriate, and encourages the application of this content to promote civic engagement. The Senate amendments add a reference to the Common Core State Standards, in addition to all other academic content areas, as the standards into which the civics learning is to be integrated. FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs. COMMENTS : While the intent of any civic education is to provide students with an understanding of our national and state governments, civic education goes far beyond an academic understanding of democracy. The ultimate goal of any civic education program must be to encourage individuals to actively engage in the practice of democracy in the United States and other countries. When using voting as one measure of political participation it is important to note that in January 2013, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), released a survey that showed a clear relationship between respondents' high school civics education experiences and their knowledge of campaign issues and political participation in the 2012 presidential election. Civic education in our K-12 schools is a critical first step to ensure that the principals of democracy continue. The history-social science standards were developed in 1998 and the History-Social Science Framework was last revised in 2005. A review and update of this framework was underway and nearly AB 137 Page 2 complete when the state suspended the process on July 28, 2009, due to fiscal constraints. The State Board of Education (SBE) is specifically prohibited from reviewing frameworks and adopting instructional materials until the 2015-16 school year. SB 1540 (Hancock), Chapter 288, Statutes of 2012, authorizes the SBE to consider the adoption of a revised curriculum framework and evaluation criteria for instructional materials in history-social science, but prohibits the CDE from conducting any work until after CDE has completed work related to the development of curriculum frameworks for the common core content standards. Analysis Prepared by : Jill Rice / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0001391