Assembly committee approves bill to strengthen Holocaust and genocide education, expand teacher training grants

Senator Sarah Stern presented SB 472 to the Assembly Education Committee, saying the bill would reinforce the state education code requirement to teach the Holocaust and other human-rights topics and would establish a grants program for teacher training. The committee approved the bill as moved to appropriations.

Stern said decades of curriculum choices that downplay or omit uncomfortable historical truths can leave students without context to understand genocide and the mechanisms that enable it. She described a statewide coalition of survivor-teachers and other educators who train teachers across California and said state support would help reach teachers who currently get no training.

Liz Ygre, introduced as a survivor and teacher who founded the Central Valley Holocaust Educators Network, testified she had worked for 16 years to help teachers learn how to teach the subject. Teacher Onda Robinson of Miwok Middle School told the committee that students consistently listed a Holocaust unit as their favorite unit and said many teachers have not received training or were unaware the subject is in the California Education Code.

Supporters, including the Jewish Public Affairs Committee and Jewish Family and Children Services, urged the committee to pass the bill. The committee accepted the author's amendments and passed SB 472 to Appropriations by recorded vote; the committee later reported the bill out with a 9-0 tally.