California is still debating ethnic studies in public education. Can the state finally get it right?
After more than a year of roiling controversies over how to teach ethnic studies in K-12 through college classrooms, discord erupted anew in a debate last week over course content and how to meet legal requirements, with many wondering: Can California get it right this go-round?
The state’s top instructional-policy makers for K-12 education painstakingly debated hundreds of changes to a draft model curriculum for ethnic studies Wednesday and Thursday, just months after a stinging veto by Gov. Newsom, who refused to sign a bill requiring ethnic studies in high school without clear course guidelines in place.
At the heart of the current tensions is how to create a curriculum that is faithful to the discipline of ethnic studies — which focuses on the experiences and contributions of Asian, Black, Latino and Native/Indigenous Americans — while also accommodating myriad additional groups who demand inclusion and say their stories have been