Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-
educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. Cesar Chávez. November 9, 1984.
By 2019, every Los Angeles Unified School District high school student will need to take a class in ethnic studies to graduate.
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| Cesar Chavez & Duane Campbell, 1972. |
By 2019, every Los Angeles Unified School District high school student will need to take a class in ethnic studies to graduate.
The LAUSD
board voted 6-1 on Tuesday to require the courses and increase ethnic
studies classes as hundreds of students rallied outside the district's downtown
headquarters, shouting "We won!"
District
officials estimate the new requirement will cost $3.9 million to roll out to
all 140,00 high school students, but the board has yet to be presented with the
program's budget.
Ethnic
studies, the interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity and culture, has long
been offered in colleges, but has not been widely available in high
schools.
Several
ethnic studies courses, such as Chicano Literature or African American
History, are already offered at 19 district schools, but fewer than half count
towards California university entrance, according to a board report.
Supporters
say exposing students to the stories and cultures of other ethnicities promotes
racial tolerance and teaches a more accurate version of the country's history.
“There is a
saying: 'The real story of the hunter will be told when the lion and the
buffalo get to write,'" said LAUSD board member George McKenna, co-sponsor
of the resolution who represents South Los Angeles.
Angie
Escalante, a senior at Orthopaedic Hospital Medical
Magnet High School near USC, complained her history and
literature courses focus too heavily on white people.
"It
says that we don't exist and when we do, it's for something bad,"
Escalante said. She heard about the initiative to require ethnic studies and
encouraged her classmates to attend the board meeting – a first for many.
"When I
heard we would have the chance to change history, I was like, 'That would be
awesome,'" said Brenda Perez, her voice cracking from four hours of
shouting.
"We
think this builds a young person's sense of self and empathy in
others,"said Manuel Criollo with Community Rights Campaign, an
advocacy group supporting the ethnic studies policy. The group shuttled in
dozens of Little Caesars' pizzas to feed the crowds of teenagers.
KPCC http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2014/11/19/17582/lausd-requiring-ethnic-studies-for-graduation/
Why California Students Need Ethnic Studies
By Duane Campbell
Children and young adults need to see
themselves in the curriculum. Students, particularly students of color,
have low levels of attachment to California and U.S. civil society messages in significant part because the
government institution they encounter the most- the schools- ignore the
students own history, cultures and experiences.
