Sign the petition below to California State Board of Education President Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond asking her to ensure that the California AB 2016 Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is substantially revised, publicly vetted, and officially approved before adoption and implementation by district school boards. Currently, many school boards are being misled into supporting and committing to implement a deeply flawed and widely condemned first draft of the curriculum while the draft is still undergoing the necessary state mandated curricular review process. In order to ensure the highest quality education for our children, any curriculum adopted state-wide, for any subject, must undergo such a process.
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Dear Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond,
We are California residents, taxpayers and concerned citizens, many of us with children and grandchildren in schools throughout the state. We are deeply concerned about an unscrupulous campaign to mislead district school boards into approving and making plans to implement the divisive and highly flawed first draft of the AB 2016-mandated high school ethnic studies model curriculum before it has been revised by the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC), vetted by the public and adopted by the State Board of Education. Several school boards have already rubber-stamped resolutions affirming support for the unapproved draft curriculum and even committed their districts to moving forward with it, with more school boards expected to do the same in the coming months.
Shockingly, this deceptive campaign to circumvent the state’s curriculum revision process is being carried out by the same individuals who formerly worked with the IQC and were responsible for developing the original draft, which received an outpouring of public criticism from more than 19,000 Californians and dozens of state legislators. Governor Newsom stated, "We are united in our resolve to make sure the advisory committee draft is only that, a draft, that will be substantially amended... It will never see the light of day.”
Let us be clear: the original draft promotes highly controversial political ideologies that can’t help but exacerbate ethnic divisions and foment bigotry in our schools. This is not the ethnic studies curriculum that we want for our children, our school districts or our state.
Last August, you acknowledged that the first draft model curriculum “falls short and needs to be substantially redesigned." As we eagerly await the promised revisions this fall,
we ask that you immediately urge district school board members to wait until the state’s revision process is completed before affirming support for the ethnic studies curriculum or making plans to implement it in their district.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter and your leadership in these challenging times.
The Undersigned CA Residents, Taxpayers and Concerned Citizens,