Revisions to Improve Ethnic Studies Curriculum - Year 2019 (CA Dept of Education)

Revisions to Improve Ethnic Studies Curriculum - Year 2019 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces Efforts Underway to Make Major Revisions to Improve Ethnic Studies Curriculum Draft

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond joined with leaders of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus at a special news conference today to address concerns and talk about revisions to the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

Thurmond stated in the meeting that greater balance was needed in the curriculum to more accurately reflect the experience and contributions of Jewish Americans and to address anti-Semitism that has existed historically and that continues to persist in modern-day times.

“Revisions to the model curriculum will be recommended to highlight the Jewish community and other ethnic groups in addressing the types of inequities that the curriculum seeks to help undo,” Thurmond said.

Along with Superintendent Thurmond, in attendance today were Senator Benjamin Allen, District 26 (Redondo Beach) and Chair of the Jewish Caucus; Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, District 45 (Van Nuys) and Co-Chair of the Jewish Caucus; Assemblymember Jose Medina, District 61 (Riverside); Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, District 19 (Oxnard); and Assemblymember Marc Berman, District 24 (Los Altos). All expressed deep concern with the first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum and their support for additional revisions.

Assemblymember Medina introduced AB 331 in January to mandate Ethnic Studies as a graduation requirement in all California high schools. Senator Allen is a recent member of the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), which is scheduled to review public comments and proposed edits to the model curriculum’s first draft in September.

Immediate next steps will include transmitting the more than 5,000 written public comments that were submitted to the IQC that will consider making changes to the draft before sending it to the State Board of Education which has the final authority to make changes and adopt a draft.

Thurmond said that the CDE will pursue all options to correct the issues, including meeting with other stakeholder groups, asking the legislature for more time if needed to complete the draft and if needed, starting a new draft. Edits will be recommended with the potential of additional writers and ethnographers being utilized. Thurmond, along with Senator Allen and fellow legislators, expressed confidence the first draft would be fixed.

“This first draft of the Ethnic Studies curriculum was created from a framework that focuses on the contributions of African-Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Native-Americans based on the kind of historic perspective of how ethnic studies has been traditionally viewed and taught at universities and colleges in the United States. Sadly, when it comes to history, we have witnessed high rates of anti-Semitic behavior against Jewish-Americans in the past and in recent times,” Thurmond said. “There was never any intent from the authors to articulate the draft in ways that would be offensive.”

All recommended revisions will be reviewed at the next IQC meeting on September 20, 2019. To submit public comment on the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, email ethnicstudies@cde.ca.gov. Comments made by August 15 will be reviewed for future edits. An additional public comment period may be scheduled after the September IQC meeting.

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Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

When do kids start school? As early as July or as late as September | Pew Research Center

When do kids start school? As early as July or as late as September | Pew Research Center

‘Back to school’ means anytime from late July to after Labor Day, depending on where in the U.S. you live

It’s the second full week of August, which means millions of American schoolkids are heading back to school or have already started. And depending on where you live, that statement might produce a reaction of either “That sounds about right” or “That seems way too early!”

Back-to-school dates in the United States, it turns out, vary considerably by state and region, based on our analysis of a sampling of the nation’s 13,000-plus public school districts. By the end of this week, for example, nearly all elementary and secondary school students in the East South Central region – a Census Bureau division that includes Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee – will be back in school. But not a single district in the nine New England and Middle Atlantic states will resume classes before Aug. 26, and many wait until after Labor Day.

The prize for the earliest start date among the 500-plus districts in our sample goes to Arizona’s Chandler Unified School District, which serves part of suburban Phoenix. The 44,000 or so students in Chandler Unified went back July 23 (though they get the first of three two-week “intersession” breaks starting Sept. 30). At the other extreme are the Trenton, New Jersey public schools, whose nearly 14,000 students won’t go back to school till Sept. 9 – the latest opening date in our sample.

Broadly speaking, earlier starts are more common in the South and Southwest: In a rough band of 13 states stretching from Arizona to Florida and up to South Carolina, 79% of the districts we examined will be back in school by the end of this week. Later starts are more common along the East Coast (from Maine to North Carolina), the upper Midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan) and the Northwest (Oregon and Washington).

Historically, the tourism and hospitality industries have favored later back-to-school dates, arguing that they give families more time to take vacations and teenagers more time to work summer jobs. For example, since 1986 Virginia’s “Kings Dominion law” (named for the amusement park just north of Richmond) barred most schools in that state from opening before Labor Day. Earlier this year, the law was amended to permit districts to open up to two weeks earlier, so long as they also give students a four-day Labor Day weekend. Still, six of the 10 Virginia districts in our sample are starting their 2019-20 school years after Labor Day; two will open Aug. 26, one on Aug. 22, and one (subject to a special provision) on Aug. 12.

To get a sense of when students head back to school, we looked at the 10 largest local school districts by enrollment in each state (except for Hawaii and the District of Columbia, which have only one district apiece). We also examined additional districts in Texas, Florida and California, so that the final 509-district sample would include the nation’s 100 biggest districts. We excluded private and parochial schools, public charter CONTINUE READING: When do kids start school? As early as July or as late as September | Pew Research Center

Big Education Ape: BACK TO SCHOOL: A parent’s guide to K-12 school success -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/08/back-to-school-parents-guide-to-k-12.html

IT'S A BUSY DAY AT Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

IT'S A BUSY DAY AT Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... 

The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Labor Day Is Coming Up – Here Are Related Teaching & Learning Resources

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YESTERDAY

Ed Tech Digest

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Six years ago, in another somewhat futile attempt to reduce the backlog of resources I want to share, I began this occasional “” post where I share three or four links I think are particularly useful and related to…ed tech, including some Web 2.0 apps. You might also be interested in THE BEST ED TECH RESOURCES OF 2019 – PART ONE , as well as checking out all my edtech resources . You might also w

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A Look Back: We Should Be Obsessed With Racial Equity

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I thought the summer might be a good time to re-share posts from My All-Time Favorite Posts! list… This post originally appeared in 2017. I have often shared links to Education Week posts by Walt Gardner in this blog. His pieces are short, to-the-point, and often, in my opinion, right on target. However, I have to say that I was shocked and appalled by his latest post, The ‘Racial Equity’ Obsessi

Video: “A Hidden Life” Might Be A Movie Worth Watching By Students & Teachers

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ulleo / Pixabay “A Hidden Life” opens in theaters in December. Here is how it’s described: Based on real events, from visionary writer-director Terrence Malick, A HIDDEN LIFE is the story of an unsung hero, Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. When the Austrian peasant farmer is faced with the threat of execution for treason, it is his unwavering faith and his l

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OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay India Independence Day is on August 15th. You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About India .

Most Popular Posts Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 21h

I’m making a change in the content of the regular feature. In addition to sharing the top five posts that have received the most “hits” in the preceding seven days (though they may have originally been published on an earlier date), I will also include the top five posts that have actually appeared in the past week. Often, these are different posts. You might also be interested in IT’S THE TWELFT

Google Unveils Two Big Tools For Schools: “Assignments” & “Originality Reports”

37by Larry Ferlazzo / 22h

377053 / Pixabay Google made two big announcements today. I don’t think I can give an accurate description of Assignments, which is why I’ll just link to some other articles and embed a video about it below. It seems to me possibly like a way to assign and grade work if you don’t want to go through the trouble of creating a Google Classroom (it connects to your Google Drive and Docs) but, again,

“Q&A Collections: Writing Instruction”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Q&A Collections: Writing Instruction is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. All Classroom Q&A posts offering advice on Writing Instruction (from the past eight years!) are described and linked to in this compilation post. Here’s an excerpt from one of them:

AUG 13

A Look Back: KQED Interviews Me About Saul Alinsky & His Connection To Teaching

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

I thought the summer might be a good time to re-share posts from My All-Time Favorite Posts! list… This post originally appeared in 2016. Two days after Ben Carson suggested that Saul Alinsky was, and Hillary Clinton is, a devil worshiper , the KQED Mindshift blog published an interview with me about how I apply his work in the classroom. Check out Books Teachers Share: Larry Ferlazzo and Rules f

“Author Interview: ‘Working Hard, Working Happy'”

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Author Interview: ‘Working Hard, Working Happy’ is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. In it, Rita Platt agreed to answer a few questions about her new book, “Working Hard, Working Happy: Cultivating a Culture of Effort and Joy in the Classroom.” Here are some excerpts:

Amazing NY Times Project On The 400th Anniversary Of The Beginning Of Slavery In America

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KlausHausmann / Pixabay The 1619 Project from The NY Times is edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, and is an amazing interactive: The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Ald. La Spata needs to dump Moreno's plan for Von Humboldt School

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Ald. La Spata needs to dump Moreno's plan for Von Humboldt School

Ald. La Spata needs to dump Moreno's plan for Von Humboldt School

This from Mina Bloom at Block Club Chicago:

Nearly 200 Humboldt Park residents, teachers and teacher advocates packed into the Von Humboldt Elementary School auditorium this week to weigh in on a long-stalled plan to turn the shuttered school into an apartment complex geared toward teachers. At the chaotic two-hour-long meeting Monday night, the majority of residents who spoke during public comment lambasted the developer behind the project, East Coast-based RBH Group, and Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st). 

They took turns slamming the project, saying it doesn’t address Humboldt Park’s gentrification-fueled displacement problem and that teachers won’t be able to afford the apartments. Some said they’d much rather see officials reopen the school, which closed in 2013 when the district closed a record 50 schools.

“We would like to see the school be back open,” local teacher Jhoanna Maldonado said to cheers. “Whether there’s 10 kids, 100 kids or 2,000 kids in this neighborhood — every kid should deserve to go to their neighborhood school. If that’s not the case, it should be housing for families who have been displaced from our neighborhoods.”

 My note this morning to Ald. La Spata...

I'm surprised to hear that you are continuing your corrupt predecessor's backing for the Von Humboldt condo plan. The current version of plan was originally part of a deal indicted Ald. Joe Moreno worked out with RBH developers, a self-interested community group [that used to oppose gentrification], and with Teach CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Ald. La Spata needs to dump Moreno's plan for Von Humboldt School