A measure that supports schools' efforts to educate students about the Holocaust and other human rights abuses has been signed into law.
AB 2003, the CTA-supported bill by Assembly Member Paul Koretz (D-Los Angeles), creates the California Taskforce on Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance Education.
Among its provisions, the measure seeks to promote collaboration between existing organizations and programs trying to train teachers to help their students learn about the Nazis' systematic genocide efforts.
The measure encourages schools and museums to include the testimony of survivors and witnesses of such human rights abuses as the Holocaust in the teaching of human rights.
"As the Holocaust recedes into time, the generation of survivors and witnesses is slowly leaving us," noted Gov. Davis as he signed the measure. "Soon, the living memory of the Holocaust will pass and the rest of us will shoulder the burden of remembrance. It's our sacred responsibility to ensure that the truth is known by future generations."
The measure requires the creation of a model human rights curriculum for use in grades 7-12.