Educators are turning a skeptical eye to the longstanding practice of tracking students into classrooms based on ability levels. Mixing kids up, they say, can promote equity and improve learning for all, but not everyone is convinced.
Educators are turning a skeptical eye to the longstanding practice of tracking students into classrooms based on ability levels. Mixing kids up, they say, can promote equity and improve learning for all, but not everyone is convinced.
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How California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum Got Sucked Into the Culture Wars
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Top researcher calls such inclusive models the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of American education reform
As a middle schooler, early December was an agonizing time of year for civil rights activist Karen Korematsu. When the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack approached, she made excuses to avoid the school bus where students subjected her to racist bullying.
“Go home.”
“You don’t belong here.”
Korematsu, 70, said a teacher’s lesson about the December 7, 1941, bombing in Hawaii only added to students’ animosity toward Japanese Americans like herself. Rather than presenting “both sides of the narrative,” she said her teacher taught them that “the Japanese are very bad people” who “killed over 2,000 servicemen.”
Had they more time and an endless reservoir of patience, the board, the California Department of Education and the Instructional Quality Commission, which reports to the state board, could have continued to refine what and how ethnic studies should be taught. But the Legislature set an April 1 deadline to pass the model curriculum, and more iterations would not resolve the irreconcilable differences between its staunchest advocates and critics.
The model curriculum, while voluntary for districts to adopt, is intended to build upon ethnic studies courses already offered as electives in hundreds of high schools. Two of the state’s largest districts indicated they intend to require an ethnic studies course for graduation: Fresno Unified next year and Los Angeles Unified in 2022-23.