The state's top school official is touting a bill that he says will end ethnic-studies classes, which he claims segregate students by race.

The measure, House Bill 2281, passed the House of Representatives in the final hours of the legislative session with one vote to spare. It's one of dozens of bills on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk that she must act on by May 11.

Coming on the heels of the state's new immigration-enforcement law, the bill could further fuel the controversy over Arizona's treatment of people of Hispanic descent.

But Tom Horne, the state superintendent of public instruction, said he thinks it would do just the opposite because it seeks to treat all elementary and high-school students as individuals, rather than teaching students to see people through racial and ethnic lenses.

Horne, who is running for the Republican nomination for state attorney general, wrote the bill and championed it as it moved through the Legislature.

The bill applies to all public and charter schools, from kindergarten through high school. It would ban classes that:

��Promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

��Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

��Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

��Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of treating pupils as individuals.

If the state Board of Education or the state school superintendent determines that a school district or charter school violates the bill's provisions, the school or district would lose a share of its state education dollars.

Horne said his target is an ethnic-studies curriculum in the Tucson Unified School District.

"It would ban La Raza studies because it's a course that's aimed primarily at members of one race, and we have testimony that this has promoted resentment toward one race," Horne said Friday. "Raza" means "race."

But the bill would go beyond Tucson's Mexican-American offerings and would end other ethnic-centric courses, Horne said. Students would still be exposed to other cultures and traditions.

"You do it in the regular social-studies class," he said. "And you do it within the (state) standards."

Tucson school officials say there's nothing in their curriculum that would run afoul of the bill's provisions. "In no way do we teach the resentment of any particular group of people," said Sean Arce, director of the Mexican-American studies department in the Tucson district.

The district integrates Mexican-American studies into its offerings, from kindergarten through high school.

Arce said that, contrary to Horne's assertions, the courses are open to all students, and they draw a mixed crowd.

Brewer has not indicated her view on the bill, her spokesman said Friday. But Horne said he is confident Brewer will sign it.

"She and I have been at a lot of Republican meetings, and she agreed with me that this is outrageous," he said.