H.3705 would require the State Board of Education to develop or adopt curricula, materials, and guidelines for local school boards to use in implementing diversity awareness instruction programs in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Tolerance and diversity are both worthwhile ideals but they are not fit subjects for instruction in school. Grade schools should be focused on developing sound reasoning ability in students, and imparting knowledge in fields such as writing, mathematics, and the sciences. Instruction in these areas will help provide students with concrete skills they can use later in life, either in work or in pursuit of higher education. Devoting school time to instruction in diversity will only use up valuable resources (of which time is one) that could be better used instructing students in the subjects just mentioned.
Modern society, particularly the west and America, has reached a general level of tolerance for diversity that would have been nearly unimaginable as little as half a century ago. Government has played little role in this development other than by repealing explicitly discriminatory laws which it enacted in the first place. There is no reason to believe we can’t continue towards greater tolerance and diversity absent government instruction.