BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1922
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 7, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 1922 (Davis) - As Introduced: February 16, 2010
[This bill is double referred and will be heard by the Assembly
Business and Professions Committee as it relates to the issues
under its jurisdiction.]
SUBJECT : Civil rights education: California Civil Rights
Education Commission
SUMMARY : Establishes the California Civil Rights Education
Commission (CCREC) in state government, and requires the CCREC
to provide or assist education officials and community
organizations with providing information and coordination and
facilitation services with respect to courses and programs that
relate to the civil rights movement. Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes findings and declarations relative to the importance of
the civil rights movement in the lives of African Americans
and the importance of teaching about the civil rights
movement.
2)Assigns the CCREC to the office of the Secretary of State for
administrative purposes only.
3)Establishes a 15-member CCREC and requires that 11 members
shall be chosen from applicants who apply to a four-member
joint committee that shall also be members of the CCREC and
shall represent the following:
a) California State Conference of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (CA NAACP);
b) University of California (UC);
c) California State University (CSU); and,
d) California Community Colleges (CCC).
4)Specifies the procedure for the appointment of the joint
committee, sets parameters for the selection of the members of
the CCREC, and establishes a two-term limit on the appointment
of members.
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5)Provides that members of the CCREC shall receive no
compensation for their services, but shall be reimbursed for
the expenses they incur while performing their duties.
6)Authorizes the CCREC to hire employees and enter into
contracts for goods and services; and authorizes the CCREC to
apply for, and receive, gifts, grants, and donations from any
public or private sources, including, but not necessarily
limited to, federal funds and private foundation grants.
7)Requires the State Board of Education (SBE) to make civil
rights education a mandatory part of the curriculum in public
elementary and secondary schools and requires the SBE to work
with the CCREC in:
a) Providing assistance and advice to public elementary and
secondary schools with respect to civil rights movement
education and awareness programs;
b) Surveying and cataloging the extent to which civil
rights education exists in statewide curricula;
c) Creating an inventory of civil rights memorials,
exhibits, and resources that could be used in classrooms
and for other educational programs;
d) Compiling a list of volunteers who are willing to share
their knowledge and experiences concerning the struggle for
civil rights; and,
e) Preparing reports for the Governor and the Legislature
on the inclusion of civil rights studies into the
educational systems of the state.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to
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, and the
Holocaust.
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2)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, and the Holocaust.
3)Provides that instructional materials adopted by the SBE for
social science shall include information designed to instruct
pupils on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights
movement, and contributions made by ethnic minority groups to
the history of the United States, and requires the SBE to
ensure that the materials present the information in a manner
consistent with the instruction provided in each grade level,
and requires the SBE to endeavor to see that this objective is
accomplished in the evaluation of instructional materials for
educational content.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : No background information was provided by the
author's office in time for the writing of this analysis.
This bill establishes the CCREC under the Secretary of State to
provide or assist education officials and community
organizations in providing information and coordination and
facilitation services with respect to courses and programs that
relate to the civil rights movement. It is unclear as to why
this commission is set up to be administered by the Secretary of
State considering that it is a commission with a focus on
education.
The language in this bill is vague in several areas such as in
outlining the role of the CCREC. In some parts of the bill, it
appears that the role of the CCREC is advisory but in other
parts of the bill, the CCREC is authorized to enter into
contracts for goods and services and also to provide services,
but it does not mention what type of services this commission
would provide nor does it clearly outline what goods and
services it will need to enter into contracts for. Furthermore,
this bill requires the CCREC to assist education officials and
community organizations with providing information, coordination
and facilitation services with respect to courses or programs
that relate to the civil rights movement. It is unclear as to
what education officials would receive the information,
coordination and facilitation services from the CCREC. The bill
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does not specify whether the information that would be provided
about courses and programs refers to courses and programs
currently available or whether those programs are for students
and/or staff. The bill also requires the CCREC to act as a
liaison with various entities but lacks specificity on what the
nature of the relationships between these entities would be.
The bill should be amended to clarify the role of the CCREC.
Without a clear role for the CCREC, it is questionable whether
the CCREC should be allowed to enter into contracts for goods
and services, particularly since there is no clear delineation
of what those goods and services are. Most importantly, this
bill could potentially create a considerable conflict of
interest as it allows the commission to receive gifts, grants
and donations from any public or private sources, while also
allowing the commission to enter into contracts for goods and
services.
According to the sponsor of this bill, the CA NAACP, the intent
of this bill is to create a commission that is advisory in
nature for purposes of the inclusion of civil rights movement
education in the curriculum. Staff recommends the bill be
amended make the CCREC an advisory commission to the SBE,
similar to other SBE advisory bodies, and correspondingly place
it under the administration of the CDE. The CCREC would inform
and advise the SBE on matters related to the development and
adoption of curriculum frameworks in history social science,
specifically relating to the inclusion of civil rights movement
education. Additionally, the bill should be amended to remove
provisions allowing the CCREC to hire employees and enter into
any contracts. Since the CCREC will be administered by the CDE,
any contract that the commission should need to enter into would
be handled by the CDE. The amendments could also authorize CDE
to apply for and receive gifts, grants and donations from
private and public sources instead of authorizing the CCREC to
do so. Additionally the amendment should specify that the
gifts, grants and donations shall be specifically for the
administration of the CCREC.
Membership of the CCREC : The bill currently provides for the
creation of a four-member joint committee to be part of the
CCREC and to make the appointments of 11 of the 15 members of
the CCREC. The existing members of the joint committee include
representatives from UC, CSU, CCC, and the CA NAACP. Because
this commission seeks to advice on issues relative to the K-12
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curriculum, it may be appropriate for the joint-committee to
include a representative from the K-12 education system. Staff
recommends the bill be amended so as to make the SPI a member of
the four-member joint committee, and instead specify that at
least one member of a civil rights organization, including but
not limited to the State Conference of the NAACP shall be
selected to serve on the CCREC, but shall not be a member of the
joint-committee that selects the other 11 members.
This bill requires the SBE to make civil rights education a
mandatory part of the curriculum in public elementary and
secondary schools. The SBE does not mandate curriculum and to
require the SBE to do so would raise several concerns,
particularly in consideration that there is currently no
precedent for mandating specific curriculum. Staff recommends
the bill be amended to delete this requirement and instead
authorize the CCREC to act in an advisory role to the SBE on
informing the development and adoption of the history social
science framework, as it relates to civil rights movement
education.
This bill charges the CCREC with providing assistance and advice
to public elementary and secondary schools with respect to civil
rights movement education. Schools get guidance on curriculum
through the standards and curriculum frameworks and through the
adoption of textbooks in grades K-8. Staff notes that there is
no precedent for the creation of a separate stand-alone
commission that focuses on one particular aspect of the
curriculum. Furthermore, the existing 11th grade content
standards and framework in history-social science include the
analysis of the development of federal civil rights and voting
rights, as well as the history of the civil rights movement in
the 25 years after World War II and the social and political
transformations that it brought. Additionally, the history
social science framework touches upon various aspects of the
civil rights movement including the following:
Examining and analyzing the key events, policies, and
court cases in the evolution of civil rights,
including Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson,
Brown v. Board of Education, Regents of the University
of California v. Bakke, and California Proposition
209.
Examining the roles of civil rights advocates (e.g.,
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A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm
X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks),
including the significance of Martin Luther King,
Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a
Dream" speech.
Analyzing the passage and effects of civil rights and
voting rights legislation (e.g., 1964 Civil Rights
Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and the Twenty-Fourth
Amendment, with an emphasis on equality of access to
education and to the political process.
Analyzing the women's rights movement from the era of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and the
passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the movement
launched in the 1960s, including differing
perspectives on the roles of women.
The 8th grade standards also include units on the Civil War and
its consequences as well as the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and
15th amendments and their connection to the civil rights
movement of the 1960's.
This bill requires the SBE to work with the CCREC to survey and
catalogue the extent to which civil rights education exists in
statewide curricula. Considering that curriculum is based on
the state standards but ultimately determined at the local
level, the task of gathering the information may be very
difficult. It is not clear as to what value or benefit this
information would yield. The bill also requires the SBE and
CCREC to create an inventory of memorials, exhibits and
resources for use in classrooms, and to prepare reports to the
Legislature and the governor on the inclusion of civil rights
studies into educational systems. The Legislature does not
monitor the inclusion of specific content in the curriculum thus
it is unclear as to what the purpose of these reports would be.
Additionally, to survey the curriculum seems to be a significant
undertaking. Staff recommends the author consider amending the
bill to delete these requirements.
In some parts of the bill, the language requires the inclusion
of civil rights movement education and in other areas it
requires civil rights education. There is a difference between
learning about the civil rights movement and learning about
civil rights law. For purposes of consistency, the bill should
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be amended to clarify whether the intent is to include civil
rights movement education or civil rights education in the
curriculum or both. According to the author's staff, the intent
is to include civil rights education in the curriculum.
An office for civil rights exists at the federal level with a
very different role than the commission established by this
bill. This bill creates a civil rights focused commission for
purposes of advising the SBE on curriculum matters, while the
federal Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was established within the
United States Department of Education to ensure equal access to
education and the enforcement of civil rights. The OCR serves
student populations facing discrimination and one of its
responsibilities is resolving complaints of discrimination. OCR
also conducts compliance reviews and provides technical
assistance to help institutions achieve voluntary compliance
with the civil rights laws that OCR enforces.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Teachers Association
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Marisol Avi?a / ED. / (916) 319-2087