2025 · Regular session · Senate bill
SB24
SB24 directs the State Board of Education to adopt appropriate social-studies knowledge and skills for grades 4–12 that develop students' understanding of communist regimes and ideologies.
Official caption: Relating to the inclusion of an understanding of communist regimes and ideologies in the essential knowledge and skills for the social studies curriculum for certain public school students.
Official report lists Senate author(s): Campbell, Bettencourt, Creighton, Flores, Hagenbuch, et al.. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- SB24 directs the State Board of Education to adopt appropriate social-studies knowledge and skills for grades 4–12 that develop students' understanding of communist regimes and ideologies.
- The required subjects include communist movements in the United States and their tactics; the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward; the Holodomor or Ukrainian Famine; the Great Terror; the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge; the origins and policies of Cuba's Communist Party; and communist guerrilla movements in Latin America.
- Additional required comparisons contrast communism and totalitarianism with U.S. founding principles of freedom and democracy, and collectivist ideologies with individual rights, merit-based advancement and free enterprise.
- The board must publish instruction standards and seek input from victims willing to share their accounts and nationally recognized organizations commemorating victims of communism.
- The governor signed the bill June 20, 2025, and it took effect immediately.
What does it do?
Social-studies standards on communist regimes and ideologies
SB24 directs the State Board of Education to adopt appropriate social-studies knowledge and skills for grades 4–12 that develop students’ understanding of communist regimes and ideologies. Instruction must be age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate. It changes curriculum standards; it does not create a separately named graduation course or require this instruction in kindergarten through grade 3. final law, Section 1.
The required subjects include communist movements in the United States and their tactics; the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward; the Holodomor or Ukrainian Famine; the Great Terror; the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge; the origins and policies of Cuba’s Communist Party; and communist guerrilla movements in Latin America. The law also specifies oppression and suffering under communist regimes, including mass murder, violent land seizures, show trials, concentration camps, forced labor, poverty and economic deterioration. These are the topics the statute directs schools to teach. final law, Section 28.002(h-11)(1)–(2).
Additional required comparisons contrast communism and totalitarianism with U.S. founding principles of freedom and democracy, and collectivist ideologies with individual rights, merit-based advancement and free enterprise. The curriculum must address modern threats to the United States and its allies, events historically preceding communist revolutions, the evolution from economic/class-based theories into broader cultural movements as described by the statute, and propaganda, public shaming, censorship and forced conformity as methods of spreading communist ideologies. It must include victims’ first-person testimony, which may be in person, recorded or written—not necessarily a live classroom visit. final law, Section 28.002(h-11)(3)–(8).
The board must publish instruction standards and seek input from victims willing to share their accounts and nationally recognized organizations commemorating victims of communism. It may use existing educational programs only if their materials meet its standards. The law neither selects a particular organization as the exclusive provider nor automatically approves its materials. final law, Section 28.002(h-12).
Timing
The governor signed the bill June 20, 2025, and it took effect immediately. The board was required to review and revise standards as needed by July 31, 2026, with application beginning in the 2026–27 school year. These are the law’s deadlines; this explanation does not claim to have audited each school’s implementation. official history; final law, Sections 2–4.
What changed along the way?
The committee narrowed the grade range
The introduced bill would have covered kindergarten through grade 12 and required board review by June 1, 2026. The Senate committee substitute changed the range to grades 4–12 and the deadline to July 31, 2026. Those changes survived. The engrossed, House committee and final versions have the same substantive text as the Senate substitute. Five posted versions; final law.
Five floor proposals did not become law
- Eckhardt’s Senate F1 would have added comparisons involving fascism, pluralism and religious freedom, and modern threats from fascist regimes and ideologies. It failed March 26.
- Goodwin’s House amendment 1 would have broadly added fascist regimes and ideologies, including the Holocaust, Night of the Long Knives, Nanjing Massacre and Italy’s National Fascist Party, and expanded related testimony/input requirements. It was tabled May 21.
- Hinojosa’s House amendment 2 would have added “and fascist” to the opening description of regimes and ideologies. It was tabled May 21.
- Wu’s House amendment 3 would have required instruction that people living in a country governed by a communist regime may disagree with that government’s ideology. It was tabled May 21.
- Rosenthal’s House amendment 4 would have added National Socialism in Nazi Germany and its resurgence in the United States and Europe. It was tabled May 21.
amendment index; official history. None of these five proposed additions appears in the final act. Their rejection does not, by itself, prohibit schools from teaching those subjects under other standards. The House passed the bill without amendment; no conference report was needed. final law.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Expected benefits and practical limits
The law gives students a required framework for studying specified historical atrocities and political systems and requires access to victims’ accounts. Whether it improves historical knowledge or civic judgment depends on the standards, materials and teaching; the act alone is not evidence of measured learning gains. Teachers and curriculum planners must fit this specified content into social studies while keeping it appropriate to students’ ages. The board retains choices about suitable material within the required topics and must seek the specified outside input. final law.
The law prescribes a particular set of comparisons and topics rather than a general requirement to cover all authoritarian ideologies. The failed amendments show proposals to broaden that scope, not new legal requirements. Materials can come from existing programs, but must meet board standards. These are curriculum-design choices and implementation obligations, not evidence that a particular classroom has adopted a particular provider’s lessons. final law; amendment index.
The April 24 fiscal note on the engrossed text anticipates no significant state or local-government fiscal implication and assumes costs can be absorbed with existing resources. It does not say implementation requires no staff time or materials. The introduced and Senate-substitute notes reach the same fiscal conclusion; the final text has no substantive change from the engrossed text. The act contains no appropriation, and the notes do not quantify a financial benefit or measured outcome.
Review scope: complete final act, history, all five versions, all five complete floor amendments and their dispositions, and all three posted fiscal notes.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
