Bill Text: CA AB1805 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Instructional materials: history-social science: Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 16-10)

Status: (Passed) 2024-09-20 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 302, Statutes of 2024. [AB1805 Detail]

Download: California-2023-AB1805-Introduced.html

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CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill

No. 1805

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Introduced by Assembly Member Ta
(Principal coauthor: Senator Umberg)

January 08, 2024

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An act to add Section 60605.12 to the Education Code, relating to pupil instruction.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 1805, as introduced, Ta. Academic content standards: history-social science: Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County.

Existing law requires the State Board of Education to adopt statewide academically rigorous content standards and performance standards in the core curriculum areas of reading, writing, mathematics, history/social science, and science, as specified. Existing law establishes the Instructional Quality Commission, as specified, and requires the commission to, among other things, recommend curriculum frameworks to the state board and develop criteria for evaluating instructional materials.

This bill would require the state board and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, on or before December 31, 2028, to revise a specific academic content standard from the History–Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve, as adopted by the state board on October 9, 1998, to incorporate the case of Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County. The bill would specify that any revisions to the history-social science curriculum framework or to the evaluation criteria for the adoption of instructional materials shall occur only within the timeframes and procedures set forth in the existing schedule for the adoption of curriculum frameworks and instructional materials.

Digest Key

Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

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Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) In 1943, the children of Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez were denied entry into the Seventeenth Street School in the City of Westminster, California, because they were Mexican American. As a result, the Mendez family in March 1945 joined four other Latino families and sued four school districts in the County of Orange on behalf of their children and 5,000 other children. The Mendez family earned a living as tenant farmers and was able to bring the lawsuit forward with the help of civil rights attorney David Marcus.

(b) The lawsuit, Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County (64 F. Supp. 544 (C.D. Cal. 1946)), aff’d, Westminster School District of Orange County v. Mendez (161 F. 2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947)), argued that the school districts denied the children equal protection under the law and due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Eventually, amicus curiae briefs were filed by the American Jewish Congress, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Lawyers Guild, the Japanese American Citizens League, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The success of the lawsuit led to legislation in California that repealed laws mandating segregation and set legal and strategic precedent for other cases striving to end educational segregation, including the national landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education.

(c) As a result of the Mendez case, the Legislature and Governor Earl Warren in 1947 repealed the last school segregation statutes in California, making California the first state to end school segregation. The case is an integral part of the history and culture of the County of Orange and the City of Westminster, and is honored by the city at the Mendez Historic Freedom Trail and Monument. The Mendez case represents the beginning of the end of legal school segregation and signifies the important role of California in the civil rights movement, a role that should be both preserved and remembered.

SEC. 2.

 Section 60605.12 is added to the Education Code, to read:

60605.12.

 The state board and the Superintendent shall, on or before December 31, 2028, revise the academic content standard HSS-11.10.2 from the History–Social Science Content Standards for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve, as adopted by the state board on October 9, 1998, to incorporate the case of Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County (64 F. Supp. 544 (C.D. Cal. 1946)), aff’d, Westminster School District of Orange County v. Mendez (161 F. 2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947)). Any revisions to the history-social science curriculum framework or to the evaluation criteria for the adoption of instructional materials shall occur only within the timeframes and procedures set forth in the existing schedule for the adoption of curriculum frameworks and instructional materials.