OneNewsNow reports that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels last week signed into law HB 1003, creating a "choice scholarship" program for students from families whose income does not exceed 150% of the amount to qualify for the federal free lunch program. It also provides tax deductions for parents who send their children to private schools or who home school them. It increases the tax credit for contributions to scholarship granting organizations, and bars such organizations from limiting scholarships to only one school.
The new law sets out a series of curricular requirements for schools that accept the new scholarships. It contains a lengthy list of historical documents that teachers must be allowed to read or post in classrooms or at school events. These include the Constitution, the national motto, all U.S. Supreme Court decisions and "Chief Seattle's letter to the United States government in 1852 in response to the United States government's inquiry regarding the purchase of tribal lands." The law bars such schools from "content based censorship of American history or heritage based on religious references" in these documents. Certain of the basic documents must be in the school's library. Students must be allowed to refer to these documents in any report or work product.
The new law contains another list of curricular requirements relating to government, citizenship and personal values. Among the social science requirements are "a study of the Holocaust and the role religious extremism played in the events of September 11, 2001, in each high school United States history course."
