A bill to require a study on Holocaust education efforts of States, local educational agencies, and public elementary and secondary schools, and for other purposes.
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Sen. Rosen, Jacky [D-NV]
ID: R000608
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. Hearings held.
December 9, 2025
Introduced
Committee Review
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
Floor Action
Passed Senate
House Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another bill, another exercise in futility. Let's dissect this mess.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The "Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons Act" (because who doesn't love a good acronym?) aims to study Holocaust education efforts in states, local educational agencies, and public elementary and secondary schools. The bill's sponsors, Ms. Rosen and Mr. Lankford, want to examine the current state of Holocaust education, identify gaps, and provide recommendations for improvement.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill requires the Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to conduct a study on Holocaust education efforts within 180 days of enactment. The study will examine:
* Whether states and local educational agencies require Holocaust education as part of their curriculum * The existence of centralized apparatuses for collecting and disseminating Holocaust education curricula and materials * Professional development opportunities for teachers * Involvement of informal educational organizations, such as museums and cultural centers * Challenges or gaps in implementing Holocaust education requirements
The bill also requires the Director to submit a report to Congress within 180 days after completing the study.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** This bill affects:
* States and local educational agencies responsible for implementing Holocaust education programs * Public elementary and secondary schools that teach about the Holocaust * Teachers, educators, and administrators involved in Holocaust education * Informal educational organizations, such as museums and cultural centers * The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic example of "feel-good" legislation. It's a symbolic gesture that allows politicians to claim they're doing something about antisemitism and Holocaust education without actually addressing the root causes.
The real motivation behind this bill? To appease special interest groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), which have been pushing for increased funding for Holocaust education programs. Follow the money: these organizations have donated generously to the campaigns of Ms. Rosen and Mr. Lankford.
In reality, this bill will likely result in:
* More bureaucratic red tape and paperwork for already overburdened educators * Increased funding for Holocaust education programs that may not be effective or efficient * A lack of meaningful action to address antisemitism and hate crimes
In short, this bill is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It's a shallow attempt to address a complex issue, driven by politics and special interests rather than a genuine desire to make a positive impact.
Diagnosis: This bill suffers from a severe case of "Legislative Theater-itis," characterized by grandiose language, vague objectives, and a complete lack of substance. Treatment: a healthy dose of skepticism, critical thinking, and a strong stomach for the inevitable disappointment that follows.
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Sen. Rosen, Jacky [D-NV]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 348 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise materials, private school tuition, transportation and more—accounts modeled after the accounts in Arizona, Florida, West Virginia, and seven other states. l Members of Congress should design the same account system for students in active-duty military families, including students attending schools that receive funding under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).18 Heritage Foundation research found that if even 10 percent of the students eli- gible for accounts under such a proposal transferred from an assigned school to an education savings account, the change for the sending district would be 0.1 percent of that school district’s K–12 budget. Even in heavily impacted districts (districts with a large number of students receiving Impact Aid), the budgetary effect would be less than 2 percent. Yet these children would then have the chance to receive a customized education that meets their unique needs. As with state ESA programs, families who are homeschooling are distinct in statute from families who use an ESA to customize an education at home. Furthermore, research from the Claremont Institute used documents pro- vided by a whistleblower demonstrating how educators at Department of Defense schools around the world are using radical gender theory and critical race theory in their lessons. This instructional material discards biology in favor of political indoctrination and applies critical race theory’s core tenets advocating for more racial discrimination. Such ideas are highly unpopular among parents, accord- ing to nationally representative surveys, and the course material attempts to indoctrinate students with radical ideas about race and the ambiguous concept of “gender.” Finally, schools on tribal lands and under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) are among the worst-performing public schools in the country. Research from Rep. Burgess Owens’ office reports that the graduation rate for BIE students is 53 percent, lower than the average for Native American students in public schools around the country, and nearly 30 percentage points lower than the national average for all students. In 2015, Arizona lawmakers expanded the state’s education savings account program to include children living on tribal lands, and by 2021, nearly 400 Native American children were using the accounts. l Federal officials should design a federal education savings account option for all children attending BIE schools. The next Administration should make the K–12 systems under federal juris- diction examples of quality learning opportunities and education freedom. — 349 — Department of Education Washington should convert some of the lowest-performing public school systems in the country into areas defined by choices, creating rigorous learning options for all children and from all backgrounds, income levels, and ethnicities. Expand Education Choice Through Portability of Existing Federal Funds Setting education policy on the right track long term would require sunsetting the U.S. Department of Education altogether. Doing so would not result in fewer resources and less assistance for children with special needs or from low-income families. Rather, closing the federal behemoth would better target existing taxpayer resources already set aside for these students by shifting oversight responsibilities to federal and state agencies that have more expertise in helping these populations. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law gov- erning taxpayer spending on K–12 students with special needs. The law stipulates that students have a right to a “free and appropriate education,” and 95 percent of children with special needs attend assigned public schools. The education is not always appropriate, however: Special education is fraught with legal battles. Some argue that the education of children with special needs is the most litigated area of K–12 education. Thus, despite a nearly 50-year-old federal law that sees regular revision and reauthorization and approximately $13.5 billion per year in federal taxpayer spending, parents still struggle to establish intervention plans for their students with public school district officials regarding the physical and educational requirements for their children with special needs. State-level education options often exclusively serve children with special needs for these very reasons. Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, and North Carolina, to name a few states, all have education savings accounts or K–12 private school scholarship options for children with special needs. l Federal lawmakers should move IDEA oversight and implementation to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. l Officials should then consider revising IDEA to require that a child’s portion of the federal taxpayer spending under the law be made available to families so parents can choose how and where a child learns. l IDEA already allows families to choose a private school under certain conditions, but federal officials should update the law so that families can use their child’s IDEA spending for textbooks, education therapies, personal tutors, and other learning expenses, similar to the way in which parents use education savings accounts in states such as Arizona and Florida. These micro-education savings accounts
Introduction
— 342 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise use litigation and other efforts to block school choice and advocate for additional taxpayer spending in education. They also lobbied to keep schools closed during the pandemic. All of these positions run contrary to robust research evidence showing positive outcomes for students from education choice policies; there is no conclusive evidence that more taxpayer spending on schools improves student outcomes; and evidence finds that keeping schools closed to in-person learning resulted in negative emotional and academic outcomes for students. Furthermore, the union promotes radical racial and gender ideologies in schools that parents oppose according to nationally representative surveys. l Congress should rescind the National Education Association’s congressional charter and remove the false impression that federal taxpayers support the political activities of this special interest group. This move would not be unprecedented, as Congress has rescinded the federal charters of other organizations over the past century. The NEA is a demonstrably radical special interest group that overwhelmingly supports left-of-center policies and policymakers. l Members should conduct hearings to determine how much federal taxpayer money the NEA has used for radical causes favoring a single political party. Parental Rights in Education and Safeguarding Students l Federal officials should protect educators and students in jurisdictions under federal control from racial discrimination by reinforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibiting compelled speech. Specifically, no teacher or student in Washington, D.C., public schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, or Department of Defense schools should be compelled to believe, profess, or adhere to any idea, but especially ideas that violate state and federal civil rights laws. By its very design, critical race theory has an “applied” dimension, as its found- ers state in their essays that define the theory. Those who subscribe to the theory believe that racism (in this case, treating individuals differently based on race) is appropriate—necessary, even—making the theory more than merely an analyti- cal tool to describe race in public and private life. The theory disrupts America’s Founding ideals of freedom and opportunity. So, when critical race theory is used as part of school activities such as mandatory affinity groups, teacher training programs in which educators are required to confess their privilege, or school — 343 — Department of Education assignments in which students must defend the false idea that America is sys- temically racist, the theory is actively disrupting the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness. l As such, lawmakers should design legislation that prevents the theory from spreading discrimination. l For K–12 systems under their jurisdiction, federal lawmakers should adopt proposals that say no individual should receive punishment or benefits based on the color of their skin. l Furthermore, school officials should not require students or teachers to believe that individuals are guilty or responsible for the actions of others based on race or ethnicity. Educators should not be forced to discuss contemporary political issues but neither should they refrain from discussing certain subjects in an attempt to pro- tect students from ideas with which they disagree. Proposals such as this should result in robust classroom discussions, not censorship. At the state level, states should require schools to post classroom materials online to provide maximum transparency to parents. l Again, specifically for K–12 systems under federal authority, Congress and the next Administration should support existing state and federal civil rights laws and add to such laws a prohibition on compelled speech. Advancing Legal Protections for Parental Rights in Education While the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts have consistently rec- ognized that parents have the right and duty to direct the care and upbringing of their children, they have not always treated parental rights as co-equal to other fundamental rights—like free speech or the free exercise of religion. As a result, some courts treat parental rights as a “second-tier” right and do not properly safe- guard these rights against government infringement. The courts vary greatly over which species of constitutional review (rational basis, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny) to apply to parental rights cases. This uncertainty has emboldened federal agencies to promote rules and poli- cies that infringe parental rights. For example, under the Biden Administration’s proposed Title IX regulations, schools could be required to assist a child with a social or medical gender transition without parental consent or to withhold infor- mation from parents about a child’s social transition (e.g., changing their names or
Introduction
— 324 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise CHART 1 Trends in Fourth- and Eighth-Grade Reading EIGHTH-GRADE READING, AVERAGE SCORES 270 265 263 260 260 255 1992 1994 1998 ’02’03 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2022 FOURTH-GRADE READING, AVERAGE SCORES 225 220 220 217 215 210 1992 1994 1998 2000 ’02’03 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2022 SOURCES: The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average Scores,” Grade 4, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ reading/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023), and The Nation’s Report Card, “National Average Scores,” Grade 8, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/scores/?grade=4 (accessed March 17, 2023). A heritage.org — 325 — Department of Education This bloat has persisted for decades. In 1998, a commission led by Repre- sentative Pete Hoekstra released a critical report based on extensive fieldwork, interviews, and analysis of the Department of Education. The report, Education at a Crossroads: What Works and What’s Wasted in Education Today, detailed the suffocating bureaucratic red tape Carter’s agency had wrapped around states.12 The commission estimated that states completed nearly 50 million hours of paperwork just to get their federal education spending, which at that time, they estimated, resulted in just 65 cents to 70 cents of each federal taxpayer dollar making its way to the classroom. The situation has only worsened since the Hoekstra report. More recent evidence of Washington’s bureaucratic paperwork burden can be found in the growing number of non-teaching staff in public schools across the country, which doubled relative to growth in student enrollment from 1992 to 2015. The labyrinthian nature of federal education programs—convoluted funding formulas, competitive grant applications, reporting requirements, etc.—has likely contributed to the considerable bureaucratic bloat in state and local school districts across the country and is one of the key areas of needed reform. Streamlining exist- ing programs and funding so that dollars are sent to states through straightforward per-pupil allocations or in the form of grants that states can put toward any lawful edu- cation purpose under state law would bring a needed easing of the federal compliance burden. The federal government should confine its involvement in education policy to that of a statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to the states. To improve educational opportunities for all Americans, the next Administra- tion should work with Congress to pass a Department of Education Reorganization Act to reform, eliminate, or move the department’s programs and offices to appro- priate agencies. The following is an overview of what should happen within each of the offices and to each of the programs currently operated by the department. PROGRAM AND OFFICE PRIORITIZATION WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) The OESE is comprised of 36 programs, ranging from Title I, Part A, of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Impact Aid, to programs for Native American students and the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. l Reduce the number of programs managed by OESE, and transfer some remaining programs to other federal agencies. l Transfer Title I, Part A, which provides federal funding for lower- income school districts, to the Department of Health and Human Services, specifically the Administration for Children and Families. It should be administered as a no-strings-attached formula block grant.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.