Push for Ethnic Studies in Schools Faces a Dilemma: Whose Stories to Tell
California’s newly proposed model ethnic studies curriculum has led to bitter debate in recent weeks.
NYT
…The 2016 law that led to the California course materials, which will be optional for schools to use, did not precisely define ethnic studies, leaving much of the work to a committee of teachers and professors appointed by a state curriculum board. Members of that committee said they had taken their cues from the way ethnic studies is taught at the college level, where the discipline has traditionally encompassed the study of four groups: African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and Asian-Americans.
The draft falls short, said Assemblyman Jose Medina, a Democrat and former ethnic studies teacher. He has introduced a bill to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement but said he now supported slowing down the process, in part to make the materials more inclusive….. (continue reading)