The Issues: Should the District Offer Ethnic Studies?

Candidates running for the Benicia school board will have many difficult choices in the years to come. Revenue to pay teachers and fund programs will continue to be tight. Class sizes are not going down and programs continue to get cut.

While the district and the state struggle with the financial affects of the slowed economy, the ethnic make-up of the country and the state is changing. What is the role of the school system when it comes to celebrating and explaining ethnic diversity? Should the schools take a role in this area?

In the next Q&A we publish, the candidates will tell us how they would increase diversity of the staff at BUSD.

Today’s question:

Would you support bringing an in-depth African-American studies program to the Benicia Unified School District?

I think the majority of courses, which provide historical perspective and enhance self-awareness, have value. The big question I have is, if this is an elective, will enough students select these types of courses in order to continue offering them? I  think we would need about 100-150 students per day in order to make such courses viable.

If there was more time granted by the state to include these studies I would like to see it, but I also feel we would need to have studies of several of the nationalities that make up the students/families of our school district. I believe most schools spend time covering black history in the month of February. Maybe to be fair to everyone we should cover a different nationality each month.

As for an in-depth African-American studies program, this could be a useful and increasingly important portion of sociology, world history or ethnic studies. As current curriculum is designed, the subject would either be an elective with special focus, which might mean enrollment variables, or a unit required within a larger focus. How this might work with the "no child left behind" focus on standards and testing is part of any curricular considerations.

Our schools must consciously integrate material that recognizes the contributions of African-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Mexican-Americans, the LGBTQ community and the disabled community, among many others, in a way that does not limit these contributions to civil rights. If educators at BHS or BMS want to create an academy that looks at the contributions of a specific group, such as African-Americans, in greater depth, I would certainly be supportive of their efforts.