BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 146
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Date of Hearing: March 25, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Patrick O'Donnell, Chair
AB 146
(Cristina Garcia) - As Amended February 25, 2015
SUBJECT: Pupil instruction: social sciences: deportations to
Mexico
SUMMARY: This bill requires the State Board of Education to
consider including content on the deportation of citizens and
lawful permanent residents of the U.S. to Mexico during the
Great Depression in the next revision of the history-social
science framework and related materials. Specifically, this
bill:
1)Requires the State Board of Education, in the next revision of
the history-social science framework after January 1, 2016, to
consider providing for the inclusion in that framework,
evaluation criteria, and accompanying instructional materials,
instruction on the deportation to Mexico during the Great
Depression of citizens and lawful permanent residents of the
United States.
2)Encourages the Department of Education to incorporate into
publications that provide examples of curriculum resources,
age-appropriate materials that include the topic of the
deportation of citizens and lawful permanent residents of the
U.S. to Mexico during the Great Depression.
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3)Encourages the incorporation of oral testimony into the
teaching of the deportation of citizens and lawful permanent
residents of the U.S. to Mexico during the Great Depression.
4)Encourages state and local professional development activities
to provide teachers with content background and resources to
assist them in teaching about the deportation of citizens and
lawful permanent residents of the U.S. to Mexico during the
Great Depression.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes the Instructional Quality Commission (formerly
called the Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials
Commission) as an advisory body to the State Board of
Education on matters related to curriculum, instructional
materials, and content standards.
2)Requires the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) to
consider incorporating into the history-social science
framework content on specific historical events, including the
Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides and the
Great Irish Famine of 1845-1850.
3)Encourages the Department of Education to incorporate into
publications that provide examples of curriculum resources,
age-appropriate materials on the Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur,
and Rwandan genocides.
4)Encourages the incorporation of survivor, rescuer, liberator,
and witness oral testimony into the teaching of human rights,
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the Holocaust, and genocide.
5)Encourages state and local professional development activities
to provide teachers with content background and resources to
assist them in teaching about civil rights, human rights
violations, genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS:
Curriculum, standards, frameworks, and model curricula.
California's public school curriculum is based on content
standards in various subjects, including English-Language Arts,
Mathematics, Science, History-Social Science, Physical
Education, English Language Development, Career Technical
Education, Health Education, World Languages, and Visual and
Performing Arts. These standards are developed by the IQC
through a public process, and adopted by the State Board of
Education.
The IQC sets standards form the basis of California's curriculum
frameworks, documents which guide the implementation of these
standards. The frameworks establish criteria used to evaluate
instructional materials. These criteria are used to select,
through the state adoption process, instructional materials for
kindergarten through grade eight. Frameworks also guide district
selection of instructional materials for grades nine through
twelve.
Origin of this bill. This bill was the winning proposal in a
legislative proposal competition sponsored by the author. It
was submitted by a 5th grade class at Bell Gardens Elementary
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School.
Deportation of Mexican Americans and Mexicans during the Great
Depression. The historical event identified by this bill is
described by the Library of Congress in its resource materials
for teachers as follows:
The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Mexican immigrants
especially hard. Along with the job crisis and food shortages
that affected all U.S. workers, Mexicans and Mexican Americans
had to face an additional threat: deportation. As unemployment
swept the U.S., hostility to immigrant workers grew, and the
government began a program of repatriating immigrants to
Mexico. Immigrants were offered free train rides to Mexico,
and some went voluntarily, but many were either tricked or
coerced into repatriation, and some U.S. citizens were
deported simply on suspicion of being Mexican. All in all,
hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants, especially
farmworkers, were sent out of the country during the
1930s--many of them the same workers who had been eagerly
recruited a decade before.<1>
Draft History-Social Science Framework revision includes
references to this event. The draft revision to the
History-Social Science Framework released in September, 2014
includes some references to this event.
In the chapter of course descriptions for grades Kindergarten
---------------------------
<1>
Immigration: Depression and the Struggle for Survival. Library
of Congress. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandac
tivities/presentations/immigration/mexican6.html
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through Grade Five, the following reference is included in a
section on Modern California: "Students can also learn about
other important events in California's civil rights history,
such as ? the forced repatriation of Mexicans and Mexican
Americans to Mexico that took place during the Great
Depression." One novel for elementary grade students on the
CDE's Recommended Literature list, Esperanza Rising (Pam Munoz
Ryan, 2000) also includes content on this topic.
In the chapter of course descriptions for grades nine through
twelve, the following reference is made in a section on the
Great Depression: "The economic crisis also led to the Mexican
Repatriation Program, in which the Secretary of Labor directed
government agents to force nearly 400,000 Mexican migrants (both
legal and illegal) out of the country."
History-social science framework adoption delayed. The
History-Social Science standards currently in use were adopted
in 1998, and the most recent framework was published in 2005.
The Curriculum Commission (now the IQC) began work revising the
History-Social Science Framework in January of 2008. A
significant amount of the process had been completed (focus
groups, selection of evaluation criteria committee members, five
drafting meetings) when in 2009 the state's fiscal emergency led
to a statutory suspension (Chapter 2, Statutes of 2009, Fourth
Extraordinary Session) of instructional materials adoptions and
framework revisions until the 2013-14 school year. That
suspension was later extended until the 2015-16 school year
(Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011).
The IQC began work again on the revision in July, 2014, and
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released the draft History-Social Science framework for field
review in September, 2014. The draft generated extensive public
comment it generated (nearly 700 comments). The IQC also
determined that more subject matter expertise was needed certain
areas (including some mandated for inclusion by legislation),
and submitted a budget request for $124,000 to hire experts
through an interagency agreement.
These events have caused significant delays in the production of
the revised framework. Originally scheduled for adoption in
May, 2015, this framework is now set to be recommended to the
State Board by March 2016, with final publication in fall, 2016.
Prior legislation. SB 1575 (Dunn) of the 2005-06 Session was
substantively similar to this bill and was vetoed by the
Governor. SB 551 (Cedillo) of the 2007-08 Session was also
similar and was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Both proposed to add the topic of Mexican American deportation
to the required course of study for grades 1-12. SB 1214
(Cedillo), also of the 2007-08 Session proposed similar
requirements. That bill was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger,
who stated:
I vetoed a substantively similar bill two years ago on this
issue, and I have consistently vetoed legislation that has
attempted to mandate specific details or events into areas of
instruction. The State Board of Education adopted content
standards are developed by a diverse group of experts and are
intentionally broad in order to allow coverage of various
events, developments, and issues. I continue to believe that
the State should establish rigorous standards and frameworks,
but refrain from being overly prescriptive in specific school
curriculum.
View of this Committee on curriculum mandates. It has been the
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view of this Committee that bills which seek to mandate the
inclusion of specific historical events in state curricula
should be amended to instead "require consideration" or
"encourage consideration" of these topics, and that this occur
at the next scheduled revision of a framework. This has
reflected the view of the Committee that matters of curriculum
are the purview of the agencies named in statute as responsible
for developing and adopting state curriculum (the Instructional
Quality Commission and the State Board of Education). The
Committee has recognized that these agencies engage in an
extensive and public process, employing expertise in matters of
content and instruction. Staff recommends that this remain the
view of this Committee, and notes that this bill meets those
criteria.
The Committee may wish to consider that, even given this policy,
the increasing number of statutory requirements on the IQC,
particularly in the area of History-Social Science, has resulted
in significant delays in needed revisions as well as increased
costs to the state.
Questions the Committee may wish to consider:
1)Outside of setting broad requirements such as courses of
study, are matters of curriculum most appropriately decided by
the Legislature or the IQC and the State Board of Education?
2)Are statutory curriculum requirements causing delays the
process of developing and revising curricula?
3)Are statutory curriculum requirements resulting in increased
costs to the state?
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
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Support
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
California Communities United Institute
California Immigrant Policy Center
California Teachers Association
Council of Mexican Federations
Montebello Unified School District
Opposition
California Right to Life Committee, Inc.
Analysis Prepared by:Tanya Lieberman / ED. / (916) 319-2087
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