EDUCATION
House Bill 4027
Sponsor: Rep. Artina Hardman
Committee: Education
Complete to 1-27-99
A SUMMARY OF HOUSE BILL 4027 AS INTRODUCED 1-26-99
The Revised School Code requires the State Board of Education to develop and periodically update recommended model core academic curriculum content standards. The standards are recommended as state standards for adoption by public schools in local curriculum formulation and adoption and must be distributed to each school district. The standards set forth desired learning objectives in math, science, reading, history, geography, economics, American government, and writing for all children at each stage of schooling. House Bill 4027 would require the development of standards in life management, including parenting education, for all children in grades 7-12, and in parenting for all children in grades K-6.
The parenting learning objectives to be included in the content standards would have to be designed to teach children about early childhood development, caregiving, and parenting in order to enhance the students' understanding of the responsibilities of being a parent and a caring person, to teach positive ways to respond to stressful situations, and, by exposing students to caregiving alternatives they might never have experienced, to decrease the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. They would have to be integrated as much as practicable into the academic curriculum and be included beginning in kindergarten. A school district that included parenting in its curriculum could contract for the development of materials. To the extent that instruction in parenting included instruction of the type described in the section of the code relating to sex education and family life education, it could only be offered if it was submitted to the advisory board process required by Section 1507 of the code.
The bill also would allow professional development funds to be spent on programs for teachers on teaching parenting information and skills and integrating the teaching of parenting education into the curriculum beginning in kindergarten.
MCL 380.1278 and 380.1525
Analyst: J. Hunault