I recently interviewed Montana State Superintendent in the Office of Public Instruction Denise Juneau on Tribal Scene Radio. We talked about the postive inroads the state has made in educating all students about contemporary and historical American Indian issues. Meanwhile, her professional polar opposite is working against those same educational standards. In Arizona, State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne called passage of the bill in the state House a victory.
Fox News just released this story about the Arizona Legislature and a bill passed on Thursday to ban ethnic studies program in the state. A Fox News story says critics argue ethnic studies programs advocate “separatism and racial preferences.”
The bill, which passed 32-26 in the state House, had been approved by the Senate a day earlier. It now goes to Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature.
The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach any courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or ‘advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.’
The bill stipulates that courses can continue to be taught for Native American pupils in compliance with federal law and does not prohibit English as a second language classes. It also does not prohibit the teaching of the Holocaust or other cases of genocide.
Schools that fail to abide by the law would have state funds withheld.
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne called passage in the state House a victory for the principle that education should unite, not divide students of differing backgrounds.
“Traditionally, the American public school system has brought together students from different backgrounds and taught them to be Americans and to treat each other as individuals, and not on the basis of their ethnic backgrounds,” Horne said. “This is consistent with the fundamental American value that we are all individuals, not exemplars of whatever ethnic groups we were born into. Ethnic studies programs teach the opposite, and are designed to promote ethnic chauvinism.”
Horne began fighting in 2007 against the Tucson Unified School District’s program, which he said defied Martin Luther King’s call to judge a person by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Horne claimed the ethnic studies program encourages “ethnic chauvinism,” promotes Latinos to rise up and create a new territory out of the southwestern region of the United States and tries to intimidate conservative teachers in the school system.
But opponents said the bill would prevent teachers from using an academically proven method of educating students about history. They also argued that the Legislature should not be involved in developing school curriculum.
Jodi Rave