Posted: | April 24, 2023 01:52 PM |
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From: | Representative Kristin Marcell and Rep. Jill N. Cooper |
To: | All House members |
Subject: | Curriculum Transparency |
A school's curriculum must not only meet the academic standards created by the Pennsylvania State Board of Education, but also be age-appropriate for the students. In order to ensure that both of these requirements are met, parents, taxpayers, and school officials must be engaged in open discussion and have timely, accurate, and free access to all information related to what a child is being taught. However, in our Commonwealth, there is currently no standardized, simple, and user-friendly way for parents or taxpayers to review the curriculum that will be taught to their children for the upcoming school year. The law only requires that a school board post on its publicly accessible internet website the rules, regulations, and policies surrounding curriculum review by parents and students - not the curriculum itself. While the regulations require schools to provide a process for the review of instructional materials, this usually necessitates that parents physically visit the school building. Frequently, requests to review a school's curriculum are met with:
This is why we will soon be introducing curriculum transparency legislation. Our legislation will be a companion bill to Sen. Coleman's SB 458. It will require that proposed changes to curriculum first be presented at a school board meeting, and then considered for approval at a separate school board meeting. It will also require that a school entity post on its website the following information related to curriculum and instructional materials:
We hope you will join us in cosponsoring this critical legislation. |
Introduced as HB1372