Schools could be required to teach ‘the failures of communist and autocratic’ governments -

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Rep. R. Scott Richardson, R-Bentonville, introduces House Bill 1060 to the House Education Committee on Jan. 23, 2025. | Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate

By TESS VRBIN | Arkansas Advocate

A proposed Arkansas law to require public schools to teach students about “the failures of communist and autocratic systems” of government will go to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ desk.

House Bill 1060 passed the Senate Tuesday, a week after passing the House, both with solely Republican support. Rep. R. Scott Richardson and Sen. Jim Dotson, both Bentonville Republicans, sponsored a similar bill in 2023 that passed the House, also with only Republican support, but it did not make it to the Senate floor.

Editor’s note: The three Arkadelphia area delegates, Sen. Steve Crowell (R-Magnolia), Rep. Richard Womack (R-Arkadelphia) and Rep. Justin Gonzales (R-Okolona) all cast votes in favor of the bill.

HB 1060 would also require schools “to reinforce in required instruction the resiliency of the constitutional republic system adopted by the United States of America.”

The prescribed instruction would emphasize “the general subservience of constitutional republics to the citizens, while other forms of government require subservience to a single government institution or a single government leader,” according to the text of the bill. It defines “communism and autocratic government” as “a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of a single person or party, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal constraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.”

Both the 2023 bill and the current bill list “the record of mass murder and oppression” and “the economic structures and related collapses” as part of the lessons, aimed at students from 7th to 12th grades.

Both bills also name the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Argentina and “the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its successor state, Russia” as cautionary tales to teach students.

The 2023 bill died in the Senate Education Committee, in which a motion to pass it died for lack of a second, the day before lawmakers concluded business for the legislative session.

Former teacher and now-former Democratic Sen. Linda Chesterfield of Little Rock said at the time that the proposed lessons would be “indoctrinating kids, which is something the governor said she doesn’t want to do.”

Sanders signed an executive order on her first day in office banning “indoctrination” in public schools. Her signature legislation of 2023, the LEARNS Act, included a similar provision that faced a lawsuit from Little Rock Central High School parents, students and teachers.

Arkansas ACCESS, a higher education omnibus bill introduced Monday with Sanders’ support, contains another “indoctrination” ban.

Sen. Clarke Tucker, also a Little Rock Democrat, made a similar point on the Senate floor Tuesday when he asked Dotson if Sanders might oppose HB 1060.

“I’ve heard her say pretty clearly that she’s going to veto any bill that indoctrinates school kids,” Tucker said.

Dotson disagreed, saying, “This is educating kids.”

No members of the House or Senate spoke for or against HB 1060 before voting on it.

If the bill becomes law, the Arkansas Department of Education would be required to “review and update current social studies standards.” School districts would use the updated standards to implement the law’s mandated instruction beginning in the 2026-27 academic year.

Richardson told the House Education Committee on Feb. 4 that the instruction should not impose a financial burden on school districts.

“The curriculum is already there and available for them,” he said. “It’s readily available in text already. It’s just a matter of leveraging that in a format that does compare and contrast the resiliency of the constitutional republic versus these other types of government.”

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