Dive Brief:
- A group of San Bernadino-area students, educators and community organizers are pushing for ethnic studies to be made a graduation requirement.
- The push comes on the heels of a California state legislature decision to allow the development of a model ethnic studies curriculum to be used, but not mandated statewide.
- Advocates say the requirement could have benefits for the region’s minority students.
Dive Insight:
Few other states have taken similar steps. Montana and Washington require tribal curriculum be taught in schools but Washington just passed their law earlier this year — and it has no money attached. But across the country, schools and teachers are beginning to grapple with how to address issues of social justice and societal inequities. Nationally significant protests in Ferguson over police brutality and more conversation around discriminatory and harsh school discipline has raised the profile of these issues for students and their teachers. Ethnic and minority issues curriculum can be one way to tackle students' questions and quandaries.
"One of the things ethnic studies programs do is help students reconnect with their identity, particularly Chicano students with their indigenous identity and their heritage," Mary Valdemar, co-founder of the Chicano Indigenous Community for Culturally Conscious Advocacy and Action, told the Press Enterprise.