New legislative sessions launched in most states in January, and we are off to a big start this year. I'm following 14 bills in 11 states, most of them the product of direct efforts by state-level MLN advocates, some the results of years of policymaker education, and even some the resulted from lawmakers who care about the issue coming to us seeking help with specific legislative language. We were ready.
Many states have introduced our model bill that establishes an Advisory Council within the department of education to find solutions for ensuring comprehensive media literacy education K through 12.
H 247 Creates a library media specialist grant program. Grantees must report on how the media specialist affected a number of measures including media literacy.
Requires schools to incorporate instruction in "information literacy" in grades k-12 – defining information literacy to include: Information literacy includes digital, visual, media, textual, and technological literacy.
Advisory Council bill that includes funding for a survey of school administrators, teachers, librarians and educational technologists to determine how media literacy education is integrated in public school curricula.
requires two hours per week instruction in subjects related to civics, civility and citizenship, requires that Media literacy be included among the lessons.
Establishes a grant program to develop media literacy programs to be integrated in English, social studies or health. Also provides for two media literacy conferences to disseminate the work of the grantees. This will be Washington's third media literacy bill.