HARTFORD, Conn. – Legislation that would require Connecticut education officials to create a special K-12 curriculum about the virtues of organized labor and capitalism took a big step toward becoming reality on Wednesday.

CTPost.com reports the state’s Senate – which is controlled by labor-union friendly Democrats – passed the bill 25-10, after lawmakers engaged in a rollicking 90-minute debate. (It’s worth noting that an amendment requiring the study of the U.S. Constitution was defeated 26-9 during that process.)

The bill now heads to the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

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If the bill passes both chambers and is signed into law by Democrat Gov. Dan Malloy, “it would order state education officials to develop a (pro-labor and pro-capitalism) curriculum, but would not require its inclusion in local school programs,” CTPost.com reports.

Make no mistake – this is mostly a pro-labor bill. The only reason pro-capitalism lessons are included in the proposed curriculum is because Big Labor’s previous attempts to slip their agenda into Connecticut classrooms have failed. This time, the unionists shrewdly decided to include free market teachings as a sweetener for on-the-fence lawmakers – and that strategy appears to be working.

During Wednesday’s floor debate, Democrats argued that the special pro-labor lessons are necessary so students don’t leave school thinking child labor laws, work safety requirements and the 40-hour work week just fell out the sky. Instead, they want students to know those landmarks of modern life were created by organized labor.

That’s fair enough, though Connecticut taxpayers should hope students are already learning about such topics during their study of the Industrial Revolution. That’s assuming, however, that schools still teach history as part of their gooey, activism-laced “social studies” classes.

We’d suggest that Connecticut students don’t need a special curriculum to learn about Big Labor’s impact on their lives. All they need to do is look around their school campus to see how their teachers’ union is shortchanging them on their education by protecting the jobs of subpar educators. (And don’t kid yourself: Students know who the lazy, indifferent teachers are, just like they know who the tough, no-excuses ones are.)

Low-income and minority students can also feel Big Labor’s impact on their lives when they realize they’re attending a lousy government-run school because they don’t have many other options. (The kids know when their schools are bad, too.)

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Partly as a result of teacher union policies, Connecticut’s schools have the largest achievement gap in the nation. That means the state’s white students outperform their nonwhite peers in the classroom by a wide margin.

If Connecticut Democrats truly want students to learn about organized labor, we hope they’ll include a lesson or two about how teacher unions have helped destroy their schools – a reality that’s every bit as important to Big Labor’s legacy as the passage of child labor laws and worker safety protections.

But we’re not going to hold our collective breath on that one.