AB 1703 establishes the California Indian Education Act to encourage local educational agencies to form California Indian Education Task Forces with California Indian tribes local to their region and establishes reporting requirements applicable to the task force. The California Indian Education Task Forces are encouraged to discuss issues of mutual concern and to work to do the following:
- Develop a thorough, shared understanding of accurate, high-quality curricular materials about the history, culture, and government of local tribes, and develop curricular materials for use within local educational agencies that include tribal experiences and perspectives and teach about the history, culture, and government of local tribes.
- Develop a shared understanding of proper or improper instructional material when these materials use depictions of Native Americans.
- Encourage local educational agencies to adopt a curriculum developed by the California Indian Education Task Forces, in order to ensure that all pupils learn about the history, culture, government, and experiences of their Indian peers and neighbors, and to ensure that Indian pupils are more engaged and learn more successfully.
- Identify the extent and nature of the achievement gap between Indian pupils and other pupils, and identify the strategies necessary to close it.
Within a year of formation and annually thereafter, the task force must submit a report of findings to the State Department of Education, including findings on the progress of the work. The bill also requires the State Department of Education to submit a report to the Senate Education Committee and the Assembly Committee of Education within one year of receiving task force reports.
(AB 1703 adds Article 7, commencing with Section 33390, to Chapter 3 of Part 20 of Division 2 of Title 2 of the Education Code.)
