Flawed school bills (MediaNews Editorial Endorses Tom's SB 1097)

MediaNews Editorial
July 31, 2008

SEVERAL MEMBERS of the California Legislature have decided to become public school curriculum directors, especially in history. They have offered a number of bills that would mandate that particular pieces of California and U.S. history be taught in our schools.

Most of the additions would be welcome to history lessons. One bill would require that a landmark 1946 California school desegregation case be added to history lessons.

Another bill seeks to add more information about the role of Filipino Americans who fought in the U.S. Army during World War II.

More information about the contributions of Italian Americans in state and U.S. history is in yet another bill. Other measures would add more information about American Indians, the Vietnam War and the deportation of Mexican citizens during the Depression.

One bill wants to add instruction on personal finances to the high-school curriculum, others seek changes in science classes.

They all have merit, but it is not the job of individual legislators to alter the public school curriculum on a piecemeal basis. This is the purview of the state Board of Education.

One of the many education bills floating around the Legislature does have merit. It is SB1097 by Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch.

His measure does not prescribe any particular lessons to add to any course. Instead, it would require the state Board of Education to be flexible in making changes to curriculum when needed rather than waiting a decade for the curriculum commission to meet.

Torlakson's bill would create a content standards review panel for individual subjects. This would enhance the process of updating courses in an orderly, comprehensive fashion.

Instead of writing individual bills to change curriculum, legislators could present their ideas to the review panel for consideration.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has yet to take a position on the many curriculum bills. We suggest that he veto them and either support Torlakson's measure or set up a curriculum review panel himself.