Statewide Ethnic Studies Curriculum Expansion

Building on the successes in SFUSD, we envision similar implementation of courses in public high schools across California. Since our victory at the local level to institutionalize the course in our school district in 2010, we’ve supported local efforts as part of statewide grassroots coalitions to mandate legislation for the creation of the first model Ethnic Studies curriculum through [ AB-2016 ] for grades 7-12. Later, we amplified demands to make the course a graduation requirement through [ AB-3131]. We consider SFUSD to be a local model district, with the vast expertise of Ethnic Studies practitioners who participated in the statewide process to create the original draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC).

In 2019 we joined the Save Arab American Studies Coalition, led by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), in response to attacks on the original draft of the ESMC. Revisions to the original draft don’t live up to the values, principles and pedagogy of Ethnic Studies. Course terminology such as the definition of “race” have been eliminated, incorrectly defined, or moved to the footnotes. We stand in opposition to the current version of the ESMC. We believe that the decolonial, anti-racist, and liberatory focus of Ethnic Studies has been silenced. Furthermore, we feel it unacceptable to allow that the history of our Arab relatives be relegated to an appendix. Arab American Studies has wrongfully been moved from its rightful place in Asian American/Pacific Islander Studies, to an “interethnic bridge-building appendix.”

For more information

• Sign the Petition to Defend Arab American Studies in Statewide Curriculum

• Sign the Educator Petition to the CDE to support a Real Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum