Parent curriculum bill clears House

A bill codifying the process by which parents may challenge curriculum materials or events they find objectionable easily cleared the lower chamber of the Arkansas Legislature on Monday.

House Bill 1464, by Rep. Bruce Cozart, R-Hot Springs, puts into state law an existing policy from the Arkansas School Boards Association but gives it “more teeth,” Cozart told the House on Tuesday.

The policy, which has already been in schools’ rules, gives parents an avenue to complain about curricula they feel are misleading, factually inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate.

The legislation arose in response to two bills from Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle. One sought to bar kindergarten-12th grade public schools in Arkansas from teaching The 1619 Project Curriculum, a set of materials based on a New York Times project on the legacy of slavery, and the other to allow state funding to be restricted from going to schools with certain courses, events or activities that separate or promote social justice for particular groups of students.

The first bill was rejected by the House Education Committee, and Lowery said previously he would likely pull down the second.

Cozart told the committee last week that HB1464 would let parents know what to do when “they have problems with things like that.”

The vote in the House was 93-1. Rep. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, who said in a meeting of the House Education Committee last week that he worried that the legislation would have a chilling effect on teachers’ creativity, voted against the bill.

Rep. Vivian Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, Rep. David Fielding, D-Magnolia, and Rep. Milton Nicks, D-Marion, voted present on the bill.