SECTION 1. Section 1D of Chapter 69 of the most recent Official Edition of the Massachusetts General Laws is amended by adding the paragraph:

Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, no student may graduate from high school without demonstrating satisfactory understanding of the founding principles of the United States. The Board shall direct the commissioner to establish the standards and the assessment for this requirement. The standards and assessment shall be based on original source materials including but not limited to the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Mayflower Compact, Magna Carta, John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, and Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. The principles shall include the source of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness found in the Declaration of Independence, the concept of the Rule of Law, the separation of powers not only between the three branches of government, but between the federal government and the several states, and why such separation is important, and the concept of a constitutional republic on which the U.S. Constitution is based. Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, the standards for these founding principles shall be based on the cultural and historical context of the founding era.