CA School District Spent Tens of Thousands Creating 'Anti-Racist' Curriculum

Late last month, Townhall reported how a new survey explained why more families have chosen to homeschool their children. According to the poll, homeschooling has become more “racially and ideologically diverse” since COVID-19 pandemic onset.

In the findings, 74 percent of respondents said that “concern about school environment” is a reason why their family chose to home-school. Thirty-one percent of respondents said that COVID-19 policies were “too strict at local public schools.” Forty-six percent said that “local public schools” are “too influenced by liberal viewpoints.”

This week, parental rights organization Parents Defending Education shared documents with Townhall showing that a school district in California paid tens of thousands of dollars to create “Ethnic Studies curriculum focused on systems of oppression, colonialism, and student activism” and train it to teachers.

According to PDE, the Jefferson Union High School District in San Mateo County, California proposed “Ethnic Studies” curriculum, which would “center the stories, experiences, and knowledge of people of color, challenge and dismantle racism and intersectional systems of oppression, and cultivate communities that are committed to wellness, liberation, and solidarity.”

In addition, the curriculum would focus on “systems of oppression,” broken down into specific lessons on “power and privilege” and “colonialism.” One specific example, PDE noted, is “Palestinian dispossession of lands/identity/culture through Zionist settler colonialism.”

Reportedly, three schools in the district have begun teaching pilot programs of the course, which would be offered for ninth-grade students (via PDE):

JUHSD hired Community Responsive Education Consulting Group to help develop the Ethnic Studies curriculum and train teachers. Invoices obtained by PDE indicate that JUHSD has paid Community Responsive Education Consulting Group at least $60,000 for their services.

The curriculum also includes a unit on “Social Movements and Solidarity” with links to lesson plans from the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project focused on how the Black Panther Party shaped #BlackLivesMatter.

“It should come as no surprise that American students are rallying in support of terrorists when our public schools teach ethnic studies lessons like this one from Jefferson Union High School,” Alex Nester, investigative fellow at Parents Defending Education, told Townhall.

“When children are taught to lump entire groups of people into categories such as ‘oppressors’ or ‘oppressed,’ and ‘Zionist settler colonialism’ is oppression, it’s really no wonder how a generation of American students have chosen to side with Hamas over the descendants of Holocaust survivors,” she added. “Just 13 percent of American students have a functional grasp on history. Schools like Jefferson Union that spend time teaching divisive race ideology instead of actual history are a huge part of the problem.”

https://townhall.com//tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/10/13/pde-exclusive-n2629803

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Three Jewish schools in London close amid safety fears
Pupils told to stay away after ex-Hamas leader calls for street protests by Muslims

Three Jewish schools in north London are closing on Friday over fears for children’s safety amid a rise in antisemitism.

Fears have grown of street protests in support of Palestinians as Gaza comes under bombardment from Israeli air strikes. A former head of Hamas has called for protests across the Muslim world on Friday.

Ateres Beis Yaakov Primary School in Colindale, Torah Vodaas Primary School in Edgware, and Menorah High School in Neasden all told parents on Thursday they would not reopen until Monday.

The head teacher of Menorah High School for Girls, a state secondary school with 389 pupils, said the decision was made “in view of the planned protests” on Friday.

The BBC reported that Esther Pearlman told parents: “Please be aware that this difficult decision has been reached because the [sic] of the risk of violence on the streets.

“The police are concerned that as the girls are not in school, they will venture outdoors and have asked us to advise you that it is incumbent on you as parents that your children remain indoors.”

Schools have advised Jewish pupils to disguise their uniforms because of a fear of retaliatory attacks.

One father told Sky News he had been advised by his children’s school to alter their uniform “so they are not signalling in any way they are Jewish”.

He said: “And in 2023 for my kids to go to school and it not be OK for them to wear uniform, a kippah, star of David on their blazers, to have to hide their identity in 2023, it’s very scary.

Nearly a week after Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, Benjamin Netanyahu’s unity government is preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak has announced £3m in extra funding to protect schools, synagogues and other Jewish community buildings in the UK in response to Hamas’s attacks in Israel.

The money will be given to the Community Security Trust (CST) after the group, which acts on the behalf of British Jews on matters of policing and racism, said it had recorded a 400 per cent spike in antisemitic incidents in the UK since the weekend’s assault.

They included six assaults, 14 direct threats and 66 cases of abusive behaviour.

The letter to parents at Ateres Beis Yaakov, a small primary school, referred to the call for protests across the Muslim world on Friday.

The letter said the decision was made “in the interest of the safety of our precious children”.

Rabbi Chaim Pinter, the principal of Yesodey Hatorah, said certain measures had been put place, including extra patrols, and therapists and counsellors for children.

Pupils who normally travel in on public transport were now taking taxis, he said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jewish-schools-close-protest-hamas-b2428906.html

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In Special Session on School Choice, Texas Legislators Should Emulate Arizona

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called a special legislative session to begin Oct. 9 to expand K-12 options for Texas families.

In the past few years, nine states have made every K-12 student eligible for education choice.

“Empowering parents to choose the best educational path for their child remains an essential priority,” said Abbott, who noted that a “majority of Texans from across the state and from all backgrounds support expanding school choice.”

Evidence from other states shows that students benefit greatly from school choice policies.

But not everyone in the Lone Star State is on board.

Texas state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, and the House minority leader, claims that Texans “already have school choice” in the district school system. His claim is reminiscent of Henry Ford, who once said that customers could have a Model T in any color they wanted “as long as it’s black.”

The Texas Constitution guarantees funding for K-12, but it does not mandate a one-size-fits-all system. In reality, one size fits few.

Critics also claim that giving families more education options will “destroy” rural school districts. Fortunately, they have nothing to fear. Other states have been expanding choice for decades without harming rural schools.

Indeed, if anything, choice policies appear to spur improvement.

Two states away, Arizona has the most robust K-12 choice in rural areas of any state by a country mile, and its rural schools show strong positive trends in academic achievement. Rural Arizona not only still has Friday night football, but also educational variety and academic improvement.

By contrast, in rural Texas, national exams show a significant long-term drop in learning.

Rural students in Texas suffered large declines in reading and mathematics achievement both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Texas eighth graders dropped approximately a grade level in math between 2007 and 2019 and then dropped an additional grade level between 2019 and 2022.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/05/texas-should-follow-lead-of-neighboring-arizona-on-school-choice

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