As New York’s 2026 legislative session begins, a bill mandating kids statewide be taught about the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection is being reintroduced. This comes as public views on it have softened and a new investigation into the attacks begins this year.
The legislation was initially introduced in 2025 with some positive feedback. Assemblymember Charles Lavine, D-Glen Cove, the bill’s sponsor, said there is an obligation to teach kids the truth amid an attempted whitewashing of events.
“Without it, our struggle to establish a more perfect union which is what the founders wanted us to do,” he said, “and our ability to remain, as Lincoln put it, ‘the first, last, best hope,’ is in mortal peril.”
He said the bill’s overall goal isn’t only to present accurate versions of history, but to ensure kids learn about the good and bad parts. It also calls for kids to learn about broader concepts such as civic education and values, America’s history with diversity, and religious tolerance.
The bill failed to pass out of the Assembly and Senate Education Committee during the 2025 session, but Lavine said he hopes it will gain traction as the session continues.
In the wake of the fifth anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, the White House created a new website calling it a “peaceful protest” and praising Trump’s action that day. It comes as part of many federal efforts to rewrite the impacts of the day. However, Lavine said some of the same Congressional lawmakers supporting these efforts were also hiding from rioters who breached the Capitol.
“These people don’t have the moral fiber, they don’t have the patriotic strength, to stand up and call Trump out for what really happened on that day, that they saw and experienced,” he said. “That boggles my mind. That is un-American.
One challenge for the bill is finding an impartial way to teach about a politically polarizing event, although Lavine said that will be left to the state’s Board of Regents. Aside from the bill, many organizations have their own lesson plans about Jan. 6 so educators can answer students’ questions about that day.
