The End of Critical Race Theory: How Schools and Schools Have Met, Operated and Connected Do They Really Exist? (Emphasis on America’s Future Starts Now)
Editor’s Note: This roundup is part of the CNN Opinion series “America’s Future Starts Now,” in which people share how they have been affected by the biggest issues facing the nation and experts offer their proposed solutions. The views expressed in these commentaries are the authors’ own. CNN has more opinion.
The schools were expected to help out by arranging meals, computers and broadband access. This was thrust on school systems where teachers already felt beleaguered and disrespected; in truth, our schools have operated in a low-trust environment for years. This caused schools to be closed for a long time, with consequences that included diminished learning and diminished public support.
Critical race theory became one of the most talked about education issues after a campaign of misinformation and fear mongering. Conservative strategists successfully convinced millions of Americans, including concerned parents of school-aged children, that it was being taught in K-12 districts across the country. No evidence exists to confirm that this was actually the case.
The conflation of equity and inclusion work with “critical race theory” has led to wildly inaccurate and unfounded accusations. This “threat” has taken seed in the imaginations of some legislators and families.
Presidents of two-year community colleges in Florida last month committed to not teach critical race theory in a vacuum and to not fund or support any institutional practice, policy or academic requirement that requires belief in critical race theory or related concepts.
Florida passed new legislation last year banning the teaching of critical race theory that suggests that anyone is privileged or not is based on their race or complexion.
The success of the campaign to remove critical race theory was due to the fact that White parents believed their children were being made to feel bad about being White. Where’s the proof that teachers, nearly 80% of whom are White, were doing this? They weren’t, certainly not in any widespread fashion.
With no credible evidence of an actual problem and no opportunity to vote on the issue, citizens who recognize the value of teaching our children the truth about America’s racial past and present won’t have a voice in the upcoming election.
There’s at least one state where voters will decide this fall what gets taught in the classroom. There is a ballot question that would change the constitution in West Virginia so that the majority- Republican legislature can have greater control over public education.
Those who truly care about the advancement of our democracy must insist that its full truth be taught. The discussions in our public schools may not resume until we wait a while.
Educating History: Myths, My Promises and Challenges with the Right to Freedom from Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education
Shaun Harper is a professor at the Rossier School of Education and the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. His research focuses primarily on race, gender and equity in the classroom and in the workplace. He used to work with DrShaunHarper.
I am an avid supporter of public education and a middle school social studies teacher. Having taught for over 20 years, my greatest joy is participating in a democratic institution that is for everyone.
I commit myself to learning and growth in order to protect my students. I continue to update instructional strategies, let go of old projects that no longer serve my current students and adapt my curriculum and language to ensure my approaches are culturally sensitive.
I strive to keep my background knowledge robust as I attempt to teach History to the best of my ability. All my students, regardless of their political beliefs or other affiliations, will be welcomed into the space I have available. To do this, I must rigorously and regularly examine my biases, consider what and whom I am centering and why.
I have devoted myself to building a foundation for trust, joy, understanding, respectful discourse, care and acceptance in my classroom through it all. We are finding it more difficult to achieve under the new legislation. For example, a colleague who teaches in a nearby school district was told that if she openly said slavery was a “bad practice,” she must make it clear to her students that she is expressing an “opinion.” It is an experience other teachers in my state have had as well.
The Right to Freedom from Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education bill was written with the mistaken idea that discrimination is not practised in public spaces and classrooms.
Laws like HB2 are obstacles to growth, student well-being and compassionate practices. It’s not possible for New Hampshire schools to create mandatory equity training because someone might feel bad.
At what point did we decide it’s divisive to take a stance on cruel and dehumanizing activities? Who is hurt by taking a hardline on the idea of slavery? Our silence is endorsement. Our ethical crisis is that one. That is what scare tactics yield.
How do we live in the age of public education? A message to teachers and parents about teaching critical thinking, critical thinking and children’s rights
Teachers deserve better: Shame and blame have been imposed upon a profession that is filled with loving, kind, compassionate and principled people. Choosing a career in education is almost always based on heart-centered desire. I have never encountered a teacher in four districts, two states and 22 years who displayed devious political intentions.
Future voters must understand that disagreement is normal and healthy. New evidence is reason enough for you to change your mind. Nothing could be more American, patriotic or democratic than striving for a more just society.
Feeling discomfort and dissonance often accompanies growth and learning; this is something I strive to normalize for my students. Teachers teach critical thinking and analysis by asking students to wrestle with challenging ideas and evidence. At some point, we have confused feeling uneasy with a lack of safety. There is a crucial difference.
Poorly constructed laws were drafted to stop good, productive work under the guise of being “anti-critical race theory” and have resulted in the oppression of free thought, critical thinking and children. I know we can do better.
My message to them? Trust teachers. Asking them to be thoughtful, sensitive and inclusive is always reasonable. You’ll find that’s what they generally already are.
Public education has played an enormous societal role: In the 19th century, common schools forged shared identity when government of the people, by the people, for the people was a novel idea. The middle class grew during the 20th century because of universal high school.
The assassination of George Floyd made it more likely that school officials would target systemic racism and conservatives would demand colorblindness. Graphic novels, such as “Gender Queer,” with graphic depictions of sexual activity, and other books on hot-button topics sparked dueling accusations of “hate” and “indoctrination.”
In 2000, the US population was 71% non-Hispanic white. By 2020 that was down to just over 50%. Gay marriage support skyrocketed from 27% of Americans in 1996 to 77% in 2021, while the share of people belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque plummeted from 70% in 1999 to 47% in 2020.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/opinions/fixing-problems-public-schools-culture-wars-roundup/index.html
Providing Access to Education and Support to Families in the Light of the Arizona Covid-19 Preliminary Results and Implications for Students and Families
Not “parents’ rights”, a term that can encompass useful things like requirements that districts share curriculum information, but sometimes is invoked so that only a small group of parents will get what they want.
Giving parents more say will not change a system where parents are forced to support and fight government-run schools.
Attach money to students, and let families choose their options, is the answer to freedom. The state of Arizona recently enacted a scholarship tax credit and Universal Education Savings Account, which can be used to achieve this.
Regardless of how it is done, the goal of choice is to enable diverse families to access education they think is right rather than forcing neighbor to defeat neighbor to control public schools.
More than 200,000 children in the United States are grieving the loss of at least one parent to Covid-19. The economic fallout of the pandemic exacerbated food and housing insecurity. People were, and still are, stressed and scared. Compared to systems that were quicker to reopen, the NAEP results show that remote learning has always been a lack of in-person instruction.
This is a chance to point fingers and use kids as political pawns. We see it as an urgent call to institute short-term and long-term investments and proven strategies to support students’ emotional development and to accelerate learning, especially for Black and Latino students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who were underserved and behind their peers prior to the pandemic.
We must not allow bad faith battles over bathroom access and participation on sports teams to distract from ensuring that every student receives a great education and the support needed to thrive academically and socially.
There are interventions in place that can help students at the moment, even though both organizations are engaged in longer term strategies.
Concentration tutoring has a positive effect on both math and reading. Teachers tend to be the most consistently effective tutors; however, recent studies have found that paraprofessionals (teaching assistants), AmeriCorps volunteers and others who are trained to support student learning can be just as effective when tutoring one-on-one or in small groups.
Many states are using state and federal funds to invest in strategies to increase the diversity of the workforce. Access to a racially and culturally diverse teacher workforce is beneficial for all pre-K-12 students, particularly for students of color, who often thrive in classrooms led by teachers who share their racial and cultural background.
Safety was required to return to in-person teaching and learning. The US has not yet fulfilled a promise to give every child access to a high quality public education, but now is the time to double down on proven strategies, using the resources we are fortunate to have.
What do parents say about public school funding? How far-right MAGA legislators need to apologize to teachers, librarians, and the public school system
The race theory is less shocking than the gender ideology that has overtaken our schools. It teaches children that “some people are boys, some people are girls, some people are both, neither, or somewhere in between”’ – as one popular children’s book puts it.
Many parents come to the school board meetings to complain and are met with silence or risible accusations of politicizing education. Parents are responsible for raising and teaching their children.
Jay Richards is the William E. Simon Senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where he is also director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family.
While parents are working with teachers and librarians to ensure that every child is acknowledged in school curricula and has a chance to thrive in school, regardless of who they are or where they live, far-right MAGA extremists are increasingly running for vacant school board seats or for reelection to gain control and power over decision-making at all levels of government.
Important investments toward providing more supports for teachers, classroom aid and salary increases – such as by passing the RAISE Act – are needed now more than ever. That measure would provide teachers tax credits totaling
as much as $15,000 each year.
Rather than addressing the real challenges facing teachers, many MAGA extremists have taken aim at books, racial and gender inclusion and more. Defunding the Department of Education, an ongoing federal level tactic among other changes in public school funding, should not be a topic of debate. However, it has also been central to MAGA Republicans’ federal policy agenda and could have devastating consequences for students nationwide.
It has made America more inclusive, improving outcomes across lines of race, gender and ability status. Over the course of many generations, bipartisan support has increased for public schools.
“A Nation at Risk,” a major report on education released by the Reagan administration in 1983, used fear-based arguments to argue that reading and math test scores were essential for national security. The test scores are a very important indicator, but they are not the purpose of public schools.
Progress among low-income students and students of color stopped a decade ago, but early accountability reforms led to gains. Test-and-accountability reforms are not supported by the broadest of bipartisan support.
State leaders should call for a public conversation about the future of their state and the role of public education in realizing that future. Unspent federal Covid-19 relief can be used to spark this work. Grants to community-based organizations and PTAs, after-school providers, 4-H Clubs and faith-based youth groups can support stakeholders in articulating what they want to be true about their public schools and identifying opportunities in their communities. Universities, chambers of commerce, and other civic organizations can use their own resources to sponsor similar inquiries.
However, they also want to preserve their mental health and have financial stability, and the teaching profession’s low pay and structures that challenge work-life balance are deterrents – especially when the average student-loan debt is nearly $30,000 and many other professions offer flexible schedules and remote work options. The profession at large has beenstruggling for a long time. The number of traditional teacher education graduates fell from 2008 to 2019.
Redefining learning opens the door to a more diverse set of adult leaders to work alongside educators and students: professionals in various fields who can support the development of students’ workplace skills; college students who can support digital literacy and serve as tutors and mentors; and any number of community leaders who can support students’ sense of belonging.
For example, technology could allow expert educators to teach multiple classes virtually while a colleague who is expert in creating productive learning spaces – where every student is valued and feels they belong – focuses there. Many teachers excel at both roles – we just don’t have enough of them to staff every classroom in our country. The shift is about positioning teachers to work in areas of greatest expertise and making teachers jobs more sustainable.
The organization Teach For America is dedicated to improving educational access, opportunity and outcomes for young people in low-income communities. She tweets @VillanuevaBeard.
In the spring of 2020, James Whitfield, an African American, was named principal of Colleyville Heritage High School, located in a predominantly white Dallas-Fort Worth suburb.
When students returned, he was anticipating big challenges. The COVID-19 had already stopped in-person learning, the Psybealis was about to make a chronic teacher shortage even worse.
Unable to sleep one night in June, Whitfield wrote an email to his friends and colleagues. He wrote about “systemic racism” and wondered what could be done to stop it.
At first, Whitfield says, “I got nothing but positive responses … from people in the community, parents, family members [and] staff members.” As internet chatter began to heat up amongst those he calls “conservative” operatives in Texas who are trying to take over school boards, pressure mounted on him. There were indirect aspersions about his marriage.
A number of new laws introduced across the country that have changed public education came about as a result of Whitfield’s email. Critical race theory suggests that people who are whites have benefited from racism in US institutions. Other laws are aimed at prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Texas Gov signed a law banning CRT in public school classrooms, but less than a year later a school board meeting was promoting the concept. He denied the charge, but soon after, the board voted not to renew his contract, which expires in August 2023. Whitfield is on paid administrative leave.
The statement issued nearly a year ago by the district is referred to as “the District and Dr. Whitfield each strongly believe they are in the right.”
The Teacher and Staff Shortfall: How Teachers and Principals Are Harled during the 2021-2022 School Year, says Michael Spar, a History Professor
“The whole teacher and staff shortage is not just a problem for people not getting into the profession, but a mass exodus of people with, you know, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years to 30 years of experience, you know, which is an issue,” says Spar.
Further, in a survey published by the Rand Corp. earlier this year, more than a third of teachers and 60% of principals reported being harassed during the 2021-2022 school year “because of their school’s policies on COVID-19 safety measures or for teaching about race, racism, or bias.”
Lindsay Marshall is a history professor at the University of Oklahoma and she feels that the situation has a negative impact on students.
“It was very clear to me in the classroom that I was not only engaging with my students, I was engaging with their whole world,” Marshall says. When politics gets infused into the classroom, it breaks down that relationship between teachers, students and parents, she says.
At a news conference, he said it was a political agenda. “That’s the wrong side of the line for Florida standards. We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them if you want to use Black history for political purposes.
Michael Woods teaches special education at Santaluces Community High School in Palm Beach County. He is an activist for the LGBTQ and has helped organize local Pride events. He doesn’t talk about it with kids.
Woods says he doesn’t understand the charge by some parents and politicians that teachers are trying to “indoctrinate” students into some sort of liberal ideology. He said that if he could get the kids to do something, it would be to bring a pencil to class.
The new law could result in the revocation of an educator’s teaching certificate if they are found in violation, “bypassing all the safeguards that we’ve had for decades and decades that were guaranteed by law,” Woods says.
But the issue can cut both ways. Some educators have recently made headlines for going public on their way out the door in protest of their schools’ alleged use of critical race theory or sensitivity to LGBTQ issues.
A Conversation with Frank McCormick, Tony Kinnett, and a Black History Teacher: From Sullivan Central to Indianapolis, and Back
Among them is Frank McCormick, who taught history for 11 years in a Waukegan, Ill., high school before calling it quits midway through the 2021-2022 academic year.
He says he “started off pretty progressive, politically,” but that he gradually became disillusioned after witnessing what he describes as a “very dysfunctional, very toxic” environment at the school.
After the 2016 election, he saw a liberal ideological agenda among administrators and fellow teachers. He went public with his concerns at a local schoolboard meeting, complaining that the district’s leader was enriching herself at the expense of the impoverished community.
Tony Kinnett, who was head instructional coach for the Indianapolis Public Schools, also posted similar criticisms of the school in a video on his account.
In January, Kinnett was asked to testify before the Indiana House on a bill that would ban any teaching that makes a student feel uncomfortable. [due to] sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin or political affiliation.”
Since his departure, Kinnett has appeared on Fox News and become a regular contributor to The Daily Caller and the conservative magazine National Review. He also started his own website, Chalkboard Review, which says it promotes “diverse perspectives in education.”
Matthew was dismissed from his job at Sullivan Central after he became involved in the debate about critical race theory.
During a discussion in his contemporary issues class about Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager armed with an AR-15 rifle who shot and killed two people and wounded a third at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wis., Hawn “made the statement that white privilege is a fact,” he says.
As part of a consolidation, the school became a middle school, and was in the midst of hybrid learning at the time. An angry parent sent an email to school officials after a video was accidentally uploaded to the wrong class. He took the video down.
“I was just sick over what happened,” Hawn says, but teaching contemporary issues at a time of such massive polarization would prove to be a minefield for Hawn moving forward.
Months later, when the topic of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol came up in Hawn’s contemporary issues class, Hawn assigned an essay from The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates titled “The First White President,” a critique of the presidency of Donald Trump as, among other things, “the negation of Barack Obama’s legacy.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/13/1131872280/teacher-shortage-culture-wars-critical-race-theory
The 1619 Project: A Multimedia Educational Project for Investigating Black People’s Discrimination and Their Role in the Politics of Black America
He says he loves teaching courses that are controversial. “I think the most controversial ideas are in many ways the most fun to teach because they are intellectually stimulating.”
After the violence at the Capitol some students understood that it wasn’t protected speech. Others brought up the issue pushed by then-President Donald Trump that the 2020 election was stolen. “Kids are a lot better about talking about politics than adults,” he says.
“I’ve heard of people saying bad things about teachers,” he says. When he was a defense of gay students, he was berated for being a child molester.
Since the Parental Rights in Education law took effect in Florida, the punishment can include losing certifications, as well as the civil case against him.
“On the one hand, I feel like this job is more important than it’s ever been,” he says. It is dishonest for me to say I’m content here.
Hannah-Jones pays attention to how her family’s history fits into a larger American narrative and how black people have been unrecognized as the architects of the nation’s democratic experiment.
The New York Times multimedia project created by Nikole Hannah-Jones is the subject of the first two episodes of “The 1619 Project,” which were brought to life by the documentary series on Thursday.
Black people would be able to help make Wall Street and New York City the financial capital of the world as shown in the first two episodes of The 1619 Project.
By weaving interviews, graphics detailing data connected to race, slavery and history and incorporating recordings of voices of Americans with personal recollections of slavery, Jim Crow, civil rights and voting rights activism, the series offers an experience that is both intimate and expansive. The narrative of a struggle for Black citizenship and dignity that remains this nation’s defining story is told by individual biographies of Black Americans.
The multimedia educational social media supporting materials, and bestselling anthology have been added to the original New York Times Sunday Magazine special issue.
The Birth and Death of Hannah-Jones; Black Mother, Black Grandmother, and the Rise of Civil Rights: A Campaign against DeSantis and the Education Depth
We learn that after her White mother and Black father met and fell in love in 1972, Hannah-Jones’ paternal grandparents initially disowned their daughter, before reuniting after the birth of their first grandchild. Hannah-Jones says race defines our lives in the United States.
Focusing on democracy here is pivotal. The relationship between race and democracy has been a topic of controversy and praise following the revelation of The 1619 Project.
The violence in the 18th and 19th centuries was very similar to Reconstruction, reaching a point in 1898 in which the first successful political coup in American History took place.
The series’ second episode, “Race,” explores the racial and gender hierarchies against the backdrop of the contrast between the lives of Hannah-Jones’ White maternal grandfather and her Black paternal grandmother.
Our racial identities being listed on certificates of birth and death are more than bureaucratic signposts. They serve as markers of destiny and signifiers of future wealth and prosperity for some and punishment and premature death for others.
Forced reproduction laboring resulted in precarious Black pregnancies, where Black women were forced to give many babies up against high rates of infant mortality and trauma. As historian Daina Ramey Berry observes in the episode, “There’s a direct link and contemporary connection to maternal mortality today and infant mortality and the challenges that women had giving birth during slavery.”
This is a painful history that needs to be confronted in our own time. It’s possible that it will help to explain how Serena Williams nearly died from her Caesarean birth, because she was rich and famous.
A campaign of suppression of the viewpoints and histories of historically marginalized groups is underway in the country, with Florida being the most obvious example. The pilot African American studies course was turned down by the state’s Department of Education.
The state education department said the move was a rejection of “woke” diversity, equity and inclusion.
The bill makes good on DeSantis’ pledge to ban colleges and universities from any expenditures on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs. In a news conference earlier this month, DeSantis, who is weighing a 2024 presidential bid, said such programs create an “ideological filter,” and his office described them as “discriminatory.”
DEI programs help to promote multiculturalism and encourage students of all races and background to feel at home in a campus setting. The state’s flagship school, the University of Florida, has a “chief diversity officer,” a “Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement” and an “Office for Accessibility and Gender Equity.”
It was obvious in December when the governor’s office asked universities to account for all of their spending on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The Republican governor has also installed a controversial new board at the New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college, with a mandate to remake the school into his conservative vision for higher education.
One of DeSantis’ new board members, Eddie Speir, wrote in an online post that he planned to propose in that meeting “terminating all contracts for faculty, staff and administration” of the school, “and immediately rehiring those faculty, staff and administration who fit in the new financial and business model.”
A Multidisciplinary Course on Black History and Culture: A Tool for Public Schools to Investigate Racism, Anti-Black Violence, and Other Insights from the Past, Present and Future
“The course focuses on the topics where professors shared a strong consensus on the essential events, experiences and individuals crucial to a study of African American history and culture,” the College Board said in a news release Wednesday.
In recent months, the multidisciplinary course has been praised by academics and historians, all while becoming a target for lawmakers aiming to restrict how topics like racism and history are being taught in public schools.
“No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the Civil Rights movements; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and Civil Rights causes. Everyone is seen,” Coleman said in a statement.
The decision was made because it included the study of queer theories and movements that advocated the abolition of prisons, the governor told reporters last week.
The curriculum is designed to be taught over a period of 28 weeks and includes topics such as African kingdoms, how Jim Crow laws impacted African Americans after Reconstruction, and the accomplishments of Black Americans in science, music and art.
The units include other topics, such as the responses of African American writers and activists to racism and anti-Black violence, the founding of historically Black colleges and universities, Black Caribbean migration to the United States, segregation in the 20th century, redlining and the civil rights movement.
More than 300 professors of African American studies, including faculty from dozens of HBCUs, were consulted during the development of the course framework, which was completed in December, the organization said.
60 high schools are starting to offer a version of the course as a pilot in the upcoming school year, according to the organization. The College Board states that the course will be available in all schools in the following school year.
Unlike the pilot version, the College Board said the official framework includes additional topics, only requires the analysis of “core historical, literary, and artistic works,” does not have a required list of secondary sources and adds a research project that counts as part of the AP exam score.
The College Board also admitted it “made mistakes in the rollout” of the course framework “that are being exploited,” according to a lengthy statement published Saturday. The board disputed how Florida officials – who have asked that the course be resubmitted for consideration after initially rejecting it – have characterized their dialogue and influence with the testing non-profit.
The state’s education department told CNN that it had concerns about topics of study included in an 81 page document that appears to be a preview of the course framework. CNN received a copy of the document, dated February 22nd, 2022, last month.
The Black Lives Matter movement is not included in a list of examples that students can pick from.
The topics are not part of the course framework that states use to prepare for the exam. This list is a partial one for illustrative purposes and can be refined by states and districts,” the College Board said in the framework.
The framework no longer explores the origins, mission and global influence of the Movement for Black Lives. Instead, Black Lives Matter is listed alongside Black conservatism as a sample course project, labeled “Illustrative Only.”
The governor of Florida says that it’s a good idea to teach kids to hate our country and hate each other. He continued by saying that “it is state-sanctioned racism and has no place in Florida schools.”
Emmitt Glynn’s AP Course: From the Edge of Africa to the Wretched of the Earth, to the History of the United States
The course is testing at 60 schools in the U.S. and will be expanded to hundreds of additional high schools in the next academic year. More than 200 professors from more than 120 colleges were consulted by developers of AP courses, according to the College Board.
The College Board has been taking input also from teachers running the pilot classes as the draft curriculum has gone through several revisions over the last year.
The news that white men in positions of privilege were trading horses on the first day of Black History month is an insult to the history of the United States, said David Johns of the National Black Justice Coalition. The lives, contributions and stories of non- conforming people matter and should not be erased.
The course has been popular among students in schools where it has been introduced. At Baton Rouge Magnet High School in Louisiana, a lot of students were interested in the classes Emmitt Glynn was going to teach.
Earlier this week, his students read selections of “The Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon, which deals with the violence inherent in colonial societies. In a lively discussion, students connected the text to what they had learned about the conflict between colonizers and Native Americans, to the war in Ukraine and to police violence in Memphis, Tennessee.
“We’ve been covering everything from the shores of Africa to where we are now in the 1930s and we will continue on,” he said. He said that he was happy to see his students’ connection with the past.
For Malina Ouyang, 17, taking the class helped fill gaps in what she has been taught. “Taking this class,” she said, “I realized how much is not said in other classes.”
“Black history isn’t important to just Black people, it is important to everyone,” Simmons said. “It is the fabric of the country … angst in the community is caused by attempts to wipe it away or to ignore the importance. It’s not just the AP course. There is whitewashing of African American history in this country. It is the inequitable treatment of African Americans all the way up to the funding of our institutions.
The College Board offers AP courses in multiple areas, including math, science, social studies and foreign languages. The courses are not mandatory. The students who score high enough on the final exam to earn course credit are usually taught at college level.
“It’s ridiculous that they’re not letting this one AP class be thought,” said her daughter, Izzy Cummings. It has an impact on us directly. If we don’t learn about the past, we’ll change our future.
I’ve witnessed light bulbs go off when I give them information. I asked them, “How does it affect you?” How do you feel about learning this?’ ” he said. It is new for me, and I’m just taking it easy. We’re not just learning history, but we’re making history.”
Bringing graduate-level topics into high school can prove politically dicey even in progressive contexts. A group representing American Jews, Hindus and other minorities were upset by the draft ethnic studies curriculum that was released by the State of California. The state chose to revise the document.
A unit on “The Black Feminist Movement and Womanism,” which previously highlighted intersectionality, has been renamed “Black Women and Movements in the 20th Century.” The term “intersectionality” is no longer used but a concept still called Overlapping of Black Life. The framework talks about how Mari Evans and Gwendolyn Brooks explored class and gender in their work. The Combahee River Collective is part of the framework.
Still, groundbreaking Black female writers and leftist activists such as bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis and Alice Walker, who were included in the 2022 draft, have since been excised.
The College Board noted that the work of other less controversial African American Studies scholars, such as Evelyn Heights Higginbotham and Henry Louis Gates Jr., were left out because the course had been moved away from presenting a current-day secondary education.
“We urge the college board to do the right thing and keep the Black history curriculum and education available for our young people because they know the Governor wants them to think Black history is American history, and we don’t agree with that,” he said.
“We reject any claim that our work either indoctrinates students or, on the other hand, has bowed to political pressure,” Haynie said in a statement issued by the College Board on Wednesday.
Though the nonprofit maintains it did not “purge” the curriculum of key lessons concerning “Black feminism” and “gay Black Americans,” it also acknowledged a reduction in the “breadth” of the new framework.
The works of scholars such as Roderick Ferguson, a professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, were removed from the curriculum completely.
Ferguson wrote that the Florida criticism of his removal connected to a long history of “this culture war” targeting intellectuals, artists and academics.
The state’s rejection of the AP course brought criticism from other state lawmakers and civil rights organizations. The three high school students announced that if the state didn’t change their minds, they would file a lawsuit. More than 200 African American history professors also signed an open letter denouncing the changes.
“Too often politics interferes with education, which is exactly what DeSantis attempted here,” Weingarten tweeted on Wednesday. “Despite this rewrite, we maintain our conviction that AP African American Studies should be available to every high school student nationwide.”
At the beginning of the school year, Marlon Williams-Clark shared his excitement with NPR over teaching the original version of the course as part of the pilot program. Williams-Clark would be teaching the class at a high school in Tallahassee, the capital of Florida.
Sharpton Against a New Advanced Placement Course on Black History: Protesting the Governor’s Plan for Higher Education in the House of Representatives
He toldNPR that there could be topics that have a thin line and that we’ll have to be careful with how we approach them. “I can’t be involved in any conversations.”
Hundreds of marchers, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and other activists, held a rally outside Florida’s state Capitol on Wednesday to protest Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration’s rejection of a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies.
“If you would have studied history long enough, you would have known to mess with us in education always ends in your defeat,” Sharpton told the crowd of marchers in Tallahassee.
To know how bad you were but to know how strong your children are is something our children need to know. From the back of the bus was where the people fought to get to the White House.
The crowd included members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer community, according to Sharpton. You should not have left us there. Now you have brought us all together.”
The marchers chanted slogans like, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Ron DeSantis has got to go!” “I’m proud that I’m black and black and proud!” Some carried signs with messages such as “Save our history” and “We will not be silenced.”
Shaia Simmons, a former teacher at the march, called the state’s rejection of the new course a “gross injustice” and a “slap in the face to all Americans.”
The testing organization behind the course accused the state Education Department of spreading misinformation to get their own agenda over the line.
A new bill overhauling Florida universities to match Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vision for higher education would shift power at state schools into the hands of the Republican leader’s political appointees and ban gender studies as a field of study.
The legislation, filed this week, would also require that general education courses at state colleges and universities “promote the values necessary to preserve the constitutional republic” and cannot define American history “as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” It would prohibit general courses “with a curriculum based on unproven, theoretical or exploratory content.”
The bill would place all hiring decisions in the hands of the universities’ board of trustees, with the help of the school’s president. The review of any faculty member’s tenure is something the board of trustees could call for.
The Omission of Race in the Story of Rosa Parks: A CNN Account of an Advocate for Education in Florida and a Pedestrian’s Rights Concerning Black History
The omission of race in the story of Rosa Parks is just one of the latest controversies regarding teaching race in the state and comes after the DeSantis administration rejected certain math textbooks last year because it said it found evidence of CRT and other banned concepts in the materials, CNN previously reported.
Studies Weekly says the revisions were missed due to errors in the quality assurance process, and they have taken corrective action and implemented safeguards to ensure nothing like this happens again.
The publisher doesn’t defend the omission of historical facts, they say in a statement. “Those unapproved changes have already been removed from our curriculum.”
However, Stephana Ferrell, a parent and activist with the Florida Freedom to Read Project, tells CNN she was able to easily access the Rosa Parks lesson plan with the omissions online along with several other Black history lessons as late as the end of January while serving as a guest reviewer for Florida’s Department of Education.
If a parent signed up to be a guest reviewer they could see any lesson plans that were submitted to the state for inclusion in the 2022,2023 curriculum.
Ferrell said Florida is using taxpayer funds to make “public education so dysfunctional,” and adds that because of the penalties associated with violating state law, “publishers are now scared.”
“It is our duty to follow the directives provided by each state Department of Education,” and that its texts are aligned with state standards, it continued.
The Department of Education says it informed Studies Weekly that their text was not considered for use during the 2022-2023 school year but they could reapply for inclusion in future years.
The state is playing politics with children’s education. She and her husband decided to put her kids in public school to expose them to different cultures and viewpoints and to learn from the experiences of others, she said.
“We noticed that it was an attack on Black and brown, Hispanic, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ voices in particular; those were the folks that they were going after,” Ferrell said, adding that “we wanted to make sure that we were putting more and more of these voices into our schools.”
In February, there was a suggestion that the state should teach Black History. However, a state board created to help school districts to do that, say many schools only cover the topic during Black History Month in February. Critics of the state also say courses teaching African American history in the state were historically underfunded.