Ethnic Studies in Seattle Schools
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(Editor's note: you are welcome to chime in with ideas, feedback, whatever. You are welcome to disagree with my viewpoint. You are not welcome to personally attack me. I should not have to say that but there are a few people who have made it their mission to deny my own ethnic background for their own purposes. This thread is about this subject, not me.)
You may have seen the article on KUOW that the district is considering a proposal from the NAACP for ethnic studies throughout Seattle schools and that it be a graduation requirement.
"In Washington state, it’s mandatory that you have to teach Native American history, but it’s not mandatory that you have to teach ethnic studies for other cultures," said Rita Green, the NAACP Education Chair. (Tribal history became mandatory in 2015.)Given that Native Americans were here for a much longer time than anyone else, that 2015 date is not all that impressive.
The NAACP proposal does not strictly define ethnic studies, but the subject is often described as an interdisciplinary study of power, race, ethnicity and national origin, often including gender and sexual orientation, from the perspectives of marginalized groups.Director Rick Burke, Chair of the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, has Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ethnic Studies in Seattle Schools:
Last year, Portland Public Schools made ethnic studies part of the required high school curriculum. And there’s a bill in the Washington state legislature to create a model ethnic studies curriculum for middle and high school students. That’s something California will soon do for its high schools.
The NAACP’s model would go further, and make ethnic studies part of required courses at every school in Seattle, and a graduation requirement. The roll-out would begin in 2017, and be in full effect in 2019.
Ethnic Studies Now Coalition http://bit.ly/24vIwvP