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After more than five years of scrutiny and intense effort, California on Friday became the first state to make ethnic studies a compulsory high school graduation course to help students understand struggles and the past and present contributions of Blacks, Asians, Latinos, Aboriginals / Aboriginals. Americans and other groups who have experienced racism and marginalization in America.
Although criticism from all political circles remains, the bill garnered overwhelming support in the Legislature and was enacted by Governor Gavin Newsom, who vetoed an almost identical measure the year last. At that point, he called for a revised and completed national curriculum guide for ethnic studies – one that would be, he said, balanced, fair and “inclusive of all communities.”
The revised teaching guide was completed and approved in March by the State Board of Education. The requirement would apply first to those who graduate in 2030.
“Ethnic studies classes allow students to learn their own stories – and those of their classmates,” Newsom said in a signing statement. A press release from his office predicted that ethnic studies “will help expand educational opportunities in schools, teach students about the diverse communities that make up California, and boost student engagement and academic achievement.”
The signing was greeted by MP Jose Medina (D-Riverside), the author of the bill. Medina called the new requirement “a long time ago” and “a step in the long struggle for equal education for all students”.
Ethnic studies in California classrooms will progress as a compromise between advocates who wanted a militant, anti-imperialist approach and those who claimed that the first version of the state education guide was filled with radical ideology, academic jargon. obscure and prejudiced against capitalism.
The changes mitigated these elements and also added the experiences of the Jewish, Armenian and Sikh communities in the United States.
With the problem apparently settled at the state level, the debate could now shift to schools and school districts – and become entangled in a volatile political divide over critical race theory and the extent to which it is incorporated. in the state’s ethnic studies program. School boards must hold public hearings on the courses they plan to offer.
Critical Race Theory was first developed at the university level as an academic lens through which to analyze how race and racism are intertwined with institutional and systemic inequalities in America. A footnote in the state’s Ethnic Studies Teaching Guide states that critical race theory “recognizes that racism is embedded in systems and institutions.”
Critical race theory is rarely mentioned in the teaching guide, but reviewer Williamson M. Evers said the overall model curriculum is “steeped in” content that makes it “racially divided and overwhelmed by a fashionable ideology “. According to Evers, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, and other opponents, problematic issues include the use of concepts from critical race theory, leading to a representation of American culture and institutions through a racially prism. divided between oppressor and victim.
Newsom didn’t see it that way.
“America is shaped by our common history, much of it painful and marked by dire injustice,” the governor said in his signing statement. Students “must understand the whole history of our nation if we are to ever expect them to build a more just society.”
Individual school districts will be tasked with developing courses using the state’s educational guide, known as a “model curriculum”. Educators can choose what to include in a local course, but they should stick to the main ideas of that framework.
Students from Glendale, with its large Armenian American population, for example, could study the experience of Armenian immigrants in this community.
By law, class of 2030 students, who will enter secondary school in the fall of 2026, must pass at least one semester-long course. And, by fall 2025, all public high schools will have to offer such a class.
Longtime professor of African studies and former member of the Commission on Educational Quality, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who reviewed the curriculum model, said the successful promotion of ethnic studies sets California apart. .
“At a time when some states are retreating from a specific discussion of our history, I am proud that California continues to lead its teaching of ethnic studies,” Weber said. “This subject not only has academic benefits, but also has the ability to build character as students learn how people from their own background or from different backgrounds face challenges, overcome them, and make contributions to American society. . “
Even before the statewide requirement, a growing number of schools and districts offered ethnic studies, and some, including Los Angeles Unified, had already made the class a local graduation requirement. .
In the end, many critics of California Ethnic Studies were at least appeased by the changes to the curriculum guide or the legislation. These included Jewish and pro-Israel advocates, who claimed that the original draft of the Model Program was anti-Israel and defined Islamophobia but not anti-Semitism.
The final version removes lessons and references that offended some Jewish groups.
When the bill passed with overwhelming approval in both the Assembly and the Senate, the Legislative Assembly’s five “diversity caucuses” – lawmakers who identify with and assess legislation with sensitivity. Asian Pacific Islanders, Blacks, Jews, Latinos and Native Americans – issued a statement of support.
“Requiring ethnic studies in high schools is integral to cultivating a classroom environment that accepts diversity,” the joint statement said.
The revised curriculum now includes two sample lessons on the Jewish experience in America. Arab Americans are included in a sample lesson titled “An Introduction to Arab American Studies”. Another lesson is “The Sikh American Community in California”.
A Sikh representative said the changes are a step in the right direction.
“While this is an extremely positive development for the Sikh community in California, we must also recognize that the curriculum adopted in March 2021 has failed and left many other marginalized communities behind,” said Pritpal Kaur, Director of Education for the Sikh Coalition.
Another change: a glossary containing terms developed largely at the college level, such as cicheteropatriarchy (“a power system based on the domination of cicheterosexual men”) has been deleted.
And the language directly associating capitalism with oppression has also been removed from the review.
But those who wrote the original draft say the final teaching guide is too watered down. They objected to the extent of expansion beyond the four groups that have traditionally been the subject of ethnic studies: Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans, and Indigenous peoples – those who lived in the Americas before the arrival of European colonizers. They were not invited to participate in the review and disassociated themselves from it.
Even so, a leader of this group applauded the new graduation requirement.
“It is high time we looked at the demographic imperative,” said Theresa Montaño, Chicana / o studies professor at Cal State Northridge. She noted that the battle over ethnic studies classes began in the 1960s. “In California, 70% of students are students of color. They go through 12 years of education – ranging from math to biology – and yet it took them 53 years to get a single course in something that is relevant to their own personal historical trajectory.
Two provisions of the bill disturb Montaño and others who were in favor of the original version of the educational guide.
The bill specifically advises school districts to avoid using anything that was taken out of the original project. The new law also requires course material to be provided for public review, including a public hearing, before being approved at a subsequent meeting.
Montaño said these two provisions could become a recipe for litigation and unruly board meetings in which educators could become targets of intimidation from uninformed or hostile people. Already, she noted, opposing ethnic studies has become a rallying point for the political right.
Earlier this year, protesters took to the Los Alamitos Unified School District to complain that an ethnic studies course and learning resources on social justice would spread “hatred of America and all America ”. Others strongly contested these claims, and the Board of Education ultimately approved the learning materials.
Newsom defended the additions that Montaño opposed.
“I understand that the legislation provides a number of safeguards to ensure that classes will be free from bias or bigotry and appropriate for all students,” Newsom said in his signing statement. “The bill also expresses the intention of the legislature that courses should not include parts of the original draft curriculum that had been rejected by the Education Quality Commission due to concerns about bias, bigotry and discrimination. “
Assembly member Medina, a former professor of ethnic studies, said the new requirement, along with the revised teaching guide, embodies a reasonable compromise.
“As we have seen during this long process, there is criticism from different sides, from the left and from the right,” Medina said. “It was not an easy task, but in the end, in the version adopted, I say it is a model program that we can all be proud of.
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