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An Act To Establish a Process for the Consideration and Implementation of Changes to School Curricula
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1.  20-A MRSA §4710-C  is enacted to read:
§ 4710-C. Establishment or substantial expansion of mandated instruction or training
A joint standing committee of the Legislature that considers proposed legislation to establish mandated instruction or training for students in elementary or secondary school not required under this Title or rules adopted pursuant to this Title or substantially expand mandated instruction or training for students in elementary or secondary school shall evaluate the proposed legislation in accordance with this section.
 
1.  Request to commissioner.     Upon referral to a joint standing committee of the Legislature of legislation that proposes new or substantially expanded mandated instruction or training, the joint standing committee shall, without a public hearing, briefly and informally review the proposal. Following this informal review, the committee shall request that the commissioner convene a review committee composed of teachers, administrators, and content specialists within the department to conduct an evaluation of the proposal.
 
2.  Evaluation.     The review committee established by the commissioner pursuant to subsection 1 shall review the legislation that proposes to establish or substantially expand mandated instruction or training and shall identify whether the subject of the proposal is already addressed within existing courses of study aligned with the system of learning results as established in section 6209. If the subject of the proposal is not already addressed within existing courses of study, the review committee shall analyze the impact of establishing or substantially expanding the mandated instruction or training contained in the proposal and shall specifically consider issues of availability of resources, staff expertise, the number of required courses of study that exist in accordance with the system of learning results and the available hours of instruction.
 
3.  Recommendations.     The commissioner shall submit a final report containing the commissioner's recommendations to the joint standing committee of the Legislature that requested the review pursuant to this section that includes any legislation required to implement the commissioner's recommendations. The commissioner may recommend that no legislative action be taken on a proposal.
 
4.  Rulemaking.     The commissioner shall adopt rules to implement this section. Rules adopted pursuant to this subsection are routine technical rules as defined in Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter 2-A.
 
SUMMARY
This bill requires that, upon referral of proposed legislation to establish or substantially expand mandated instruction or training in public schools, the joint standing committee of the Legislature considering the proposal must request that the Commissioner of Education convene a review committee to review whether the subject of the proposal is already addressed within existing courses of study aligned with the system of learning results and, if it is not, analyze the impact of establishing or substantially expanding the mandated instruction or training, including the availability of resources, staff expertise, the number of required courses of study that already exist and the available hours of instruction. The commissioner is directed to submit a final report to the joint standing committee that includes any legislation required to implement the commissioner's recommendations.