Americans don���t agree on a lot these days, but it seems like people across our political divides are sounding the alarm that democracy might die amidst these differences. The ideas of pluralism, E Pluribus Unum, and diversity���once considered values���have been weaponized and weakened.

It is against this backdrop that arrived earlier this month. Many organizations and educators are elevating civics education as a beacon of hope, at a time when Congress staved off a government shutdown by passing a budget. It���s a tense process and one where compromise and talking across differences can seem as remote as living on Mars.

More from 91心頭: 3 education issues governors prioritized in their state addresses��

Meanwhile, civics teachers are gathering young citizens��� attentions in classrooms across the country, and navigating ways to teach American civics, keep their students engaged and foster good citizenship that lasts a lifetime.

Civics lessons in action

A meaningful civics education develops the capacity to talk across differences. From its beginning, the United States has cast itself as a ���city on a hill��� that is more David than Goliath. Recently, I observed a high school teacher who reaffirmed my belief that teaching for democracy is a worthy endeavor.

Ms. Cartner began her civics class with the question, ���What should the U.S. spend its money on?��� She had developed 10 index cards with competing budget priorities on them.

One card featured an image of U.S. soldiers with the caption: ���MILITARY: Spending for national defense and support for U.S. allies and interests abroad.��� Another read, ���HEALTH CARE: Spending for research to cure or prevent disease and services for low-income and elderly Americans.���

Students were placed into small groups and deliberated which order to place the cards before putting their rankings into a Google form and examining in real time how the entire class ranked the various priorities.

What was noteworthy: Students’ differences of opinion were not a bug but a feature of this lesson���had the students all agreed, it would have been boring. They shared personal stories that impacted their priorities: One student talked about living on food stamps. Another talked about a family member who survived cancer because he had healthcare. One student was planning on forgoing higher education for a career in the military, which impacted how she ranked the spending categories.

Education and mental health served as rare points of common ground: Students agreed that government spending was needed to enhance care. Ultimately, the vulnerability of sharing perspectives and the discipline of listening to others’ ideas diffused some of the reactionary partisanship that typically accompanies these kinds of adult discussions.

Ms. Cartner ended the lesson by examining a pie chart of the current budget priorities to compare their priority list with the current reality of the federal budget. Students were surprised by the actual spending, particularly about the amount the government spends on interest from past debt.

They filed out when the bell rang, equally engaged and visibly confounded by the big ideas that surfaced in the lesson. I couldn���t help but think: E Pluribus Unum. Out of many ideas about budgets and priorities, came one unified belief in prioritizing education.

What I admire most about this lesson is the way Ms. Cartner elevated trust in her classroom. She trusted her students to deliberate real-life tensions in the budget, not just to consume its current state. She embraced uneasiness with the material, sending students to their next class with thoughts still swirling in their heads about the world around them. And she set students up for a study of scarcity in the weeks to come, undulating between choices made within macroeconomic fiscal policy and personal finance.

This wasn���t a one-off. Teachers will continue to help their students navigate the thorniness of decision-making, allowing differences of thought not to be resolved but openly debated. In other words, students in classrooms across the country are practicing democracy in real time, in age- and context-appropriate ways.

After the lesson, I was filled with hope. I wanted to jump on the desk exclaiming, ���O! Captain, my captain!��� with a soulful slow clap. But the teacher would have thought it odd. It was a Tuesday in March and she was just doing what she does every school day: Teaching good Civics.

Can civics save our democracy? I hope so. Learning to talk, listen, and think across differences is a good place to start.

The post Civics lessons are an important way to save democracy appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

If, like most educators, you are seeing continued evidence that not all students have fully recovered from the disruptions of COVID and online learning. The first report, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, finds that students are catching up thanks to tutoring, high-quality curricula, and extended learning time.

The organization, also known as CRPE, cites research showing students have regained about a third of their pandemic-era learning losses in math and a quarter in reading but also contends that high-dosage tutoring and other proven strategies are not reaching enough students. This hobbled academic recovery has the biggest impact on younger and low-income students.

CRPE also warns that schools are facing the “gale-force headwinds” of declining teacher morale, students’ growing mental health needs and post-ESSER financial peril. The report urges educators to deploy programs such as to help ninth graders build strong school relationships. K12 leaders are further encouraged to provide teachers and other staff with dedicated time to connect with parents and families. More flexible schedules and staffing would create ample time for core instruction and”pullout” programs such a tutoring and special education services.

Finally, the report emphasizes “real accountability.” It calls on state leaders to give parents better information about their child’s academic performance beyond traditional report cards and ensure schools can provide teachers with complete student data to identify needed interventions.

Civic empowerment

Another report on the American student experience could encourage K12 leaders to provide high school students with more opportunities to create change in their communities.

A YouthTurth survey of more than 115,000 higher schools found:

• Strong civic dispositions but skills lacking: “Most high school students want to help others and work across differences to improve society. However, fewer than half report learning the necessary civic skills in school, and fewer than a third have been empowered to create positive change in their communities.”
• Inequitable civic preparedness: “Civic readiness is uneven among high school students. Those with parents holding advanced degrees stand out as most civically prepared, while Hispanic/Latinx students are significantly less civically empowered than other racial groups.”
• Only half agree voting matters: “Overall, 53% of high school students believe that voting is important. School size and location do not significantly affect students’ belief in the importance of voting. However, significant differences in this belief exist based on student demographics.”
• Civic engagement thrives in extracurriculars: “Students describe academic work as disconnected from public life and a barrier to civic engagement, but they find participation in clubs, activities, and sports teams civically empowering.”

Xxxx

[soliloquy id=”138239″

The post State of the American student: Here are 2 perspectives appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

In addition to the U.S. presidential race, by the Education Commission of the States shows 11 states will hold gubernatorial races, nine states will elect members of their state boards of education, and four states will pick their next education chief. Moreover, voters will fill seats in 42 Senate chambers, 43 House chambers and the unicameral Nebraska State Legislature. All of these positions have influence on our students, families, and educators.

Ahead of this pivotal���and often polarizing���election, we sat down with a diverse group of the nation���s top female education leaders to understand what makes them hopeful for education in America. Here���s what they said.

���If you take a moment and look at children, you can���t help but be optimistic���

Kyla Johnson-Trammel, superintendent of Oakland Unified School District, didn���t hesitate when asked about what gives her hope for the future. ���It���s our kids, right?��� she quipped.

She praised the ingenuity she observes from students in her school district. ���Part of what pushes me to be on my game is the level of innovation they are bringing into the classroom. I always joke that our kids are five times ahead of us in terms of artificial intelligence. They���re already using many of these tools. We need to catch up.���

Penny Schwinn, a former state commissioner of education in Tennessee who is now vice president for PK-12 and pre-bachelor���s programs at the University of Florida, agreed: ���Their curiosity, their wonder, the way they explore and interact with each other. If you take a moment and look at children, you can’t help but be optimistic.���

���Whenever I’m having a bad day, people think you go to kindergarten to see all the little smiles, and I do, and I love that, but I love nothing better than going to the high school,��� said Kathleen Skeals, superintendent of North Colonie Central School District in New York. ���They give me such faith in the future. They are hyper-aware of the issues in the world, but they want to make a difference.���

This is especially true of the young women, Seals said. ���I���m amazed at how often the leaders are now our girls, which I don’t think was true years ago. They are running all the organizations. They are showing up. They are asking the hard questions. And I’m so proud of them for using their voice.���

���People want to do better���

Julia Rafal-Baer, CEO of Women Leading Ed and ILO Group, said strong leadership makes her hopeful for the future of education.

���I really believe that people want to do better,��� she said. ���When you can show them how to do better and to give them that support, both in big and small ways, then we can see tremendous progress.���

On the move: San Francisco USD suddenly has new leader

Rafal-Baer has seen this first-hand in her work to support female educators to fill leadership positions in school districts and state education agencies.

���Six years ago, I had a dozen women in the room, and at that time, only 23% of those women were stepping into a superintendent search versus 86% of the men,��� she recalled. ���Within two years, the women were surpassing the men in the percent of placements and equaled the men in the percent going into those top jobs.���

���We���re in a period of change���

New technology, like artificial intelligence, also holds promise for the future of education, said Carolyne Quintana, former deputy chancellor of teaching and learning for New York City Public Schools.

���We are in a period of change,��� Quintana said. ���Technology ��� is going to bring in new tools and resources and help automate some of our work.���

This shift means education leaders have an opportunity to think about their roles differently, she said. ���We’re returning to thinking about teaching and learning in a way that is grounded in deeper learning. What does it mean to really build hands-on experiential work for students to prep them for the world beyond high school? What does it mean to make sure that every teacher and leader knows how to take care of a student socio-emotionally within the academic spaces? What does it mean to really learn to communicate with one another? We have to return to this type of teaching and learning if technology is going to do so much more of what is rote for us.���

���With strong education comes opportunity���

Shanie Keelean, deputy superintendent of Rush-Henrietta Central School District in New York, and Mary-Anne Sheppard, executive director of leadership development for Executive Director of Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut, agreed they feel excited and hopeful about the opportunities and choices available to students.

���No matter your zip code, no matter where you live, no matter where you come from, you should be given the opportunity to make the decision for yourself when you exit 12th grade on what you want to do and how you want to be successful and flourish and thrive,��� said Keelean.

Sheppard echoed that sentiment: ���With a strong education comes opportunity. Education is a way we can support our students as they develop to be able to make choices about their life and to feel empowered.���

���I know that kids are graduating with choice and that all kids are being served,��� added Kimberley James, superintendent of Willis Independent School District in Texas. ���That to me is so impactful and that is how I know that we’re gonna be OK.���

Interviews were conducted by , a provider of special education-related and mental health assessments and teletherapy services for K12 schools, as part of its Visionary Voices video series. Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

The post This is a high stakes election. These educators have hope appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

For that reason, many teachers have said they���re planning on avoiding the upcoming 2024 election entirely in the classroom, despite the obvious historical significance of the event. That���s an understandable response given the political climate. Still, as a former teacher, I see the election as a once-every-four-years opportunity to teach students essential durable skills such as critical thinking, research and .

Here are four ways teachers can avoid opinion and encourage civil debate and inspire social responsibility in their students.

1. Don���t let one voice drown out the others

Modern politics often favors the loudest person over the person with the most reasoned, factual and well-presented argument. In political discussion in the classroom, quieter or more introverted students can feel overpowered by their peers or may not have the opportunity to speak at all.

When I was a social studies teacher, I mitigated this problem by holding Socratic debates. I asked my students to research a set topic and be prepared to participate in discussion during the following class period. Researching a topic kept students focused on policy and less on politicians in the discussion.

On the day of the class debate, I placed firm limits on speaking by distributing three poker chips to each student. Each of those chips represented a single speaking opportunity to provide a well-reasoned response to a posed question or previous student comment. Students knew that their response was graded based on the parameters provided prior to the debate. When they used up all of their chips, they were no longer allowed to speak up.

This way, students learned valuable research skills. During the debate, the structure gave each student an equal opportunity to speak without letting any individual voice dominate the conversation���or letting any voices go unheard. Because the rules were even and fair for each student, nobody felt like they were being unfairly silenced.

2. Model and support civil debate

Regardless of the state of actual political debates, elections are a valuable opportunity for educators to teach civil debate based on research and facts.
Socratic debates, like the one I described above, favor critical thinking over emotional outbursts. When each student had an equal opportunity to speak, the more complete and well-reasoned arguments tended to shine over the hasty and flawed ones blurted out in the heat of the moment.

I also noticed that the extroverted students would run through their chips quickly, leaving the quieter students more time to collect their thoughts and get the last word. Perhaps most importantly, this format removed my own opinion from the equation entirely.

In this format, the teacher is a moderator and facilitator, not a speaker. A skilled moderator keeps the conversation focused not on who can state their opinion the loudest, but how to structure an argument, use rhetoric to present it effectively and adhere to the rules of a proper debate.

3. Promote civic understanding and responsibility

No matter the year, the candidates or the rhetoric, one of the most enduring and positive messages that (almost) everyone can agree on is that engaging in the political process is a matter of civic responsibility. Showing students the importance of the political process may mean assigning them to research political parties, dig into a candidate���s record or find background information on a particular issue of their choice���another opportunity to teach research skills that they���ll use for the rest of their lives.

Superintendents on the move: New leader steps up in New York City schools

I focused lessons on voting as a civic responsibility and our school held mock elections supported by the student government to make the act of voting a significant event that students could participate in. We also supported all students who were of voting age to register to vote in order to aid that process. As with the debate, I focused on why and how to vote, without showing bias or stepping into any sort of discussions about who or what to vote for.

4. Contrast bias and objectivity

This one is tricky because everyone has biases���including teachers. Speaking or writing from an entirely objective viewpoint is challenging for anyone, and many people who carry those biases don���t realize they have them.

Listening to others��� opinions throughout debates and mock elections, many of my students realized that they were carrying their own biases. Having a student simply recognize a bias and then contrast it with an objective viewpoint is a major durable skill teaching moment. Simply seeing the difference is the point���not changing anyone���s minds.

To underscore this point, I assigned students to create an entirely unbiased news story with a list of prescribed facts. They were able to see the challenges that writers and editors face when they are covering controversial topics and working to be truly objective, the language they used to connect their given facts to the story and what facts they included or excluded added their own bias to the story. This assignment helped them see their own biases in a different light and taught them an important lesson in media literacy: especially when it comes to political coverage, always consider the source.

I understand some teachers��� hesitation to bring the election into their classroom at all, but I believe the rich educational opportunities are worth the risk and effort. My parting advice is this: You can cover hard things, but it requires laying the groundwork, setting clear parameters and respecting the context of your school, city and state.

The post 4 ways to use the election to teach durable skills appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

If, like most educators, you are seeing continued evidence that not all students have fully recovered from the disruptions of COVID and online learning. The first report, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, finds that students are catching up thanks to tutoring, high-quality curricula, and extended learning time.

The organization, also known as CRPE, cites research showing students have regained about a third of their pandemic-era learning losses in math and a quarter in reading but also contends that high-dosage tutoring and other proven strategies are not reaching enough students. This hobbled academic recovery has the biggest impact on younger and low-income students.

CRPE also warns that schools are facing the “gale-force headwinds” of declining teacher morale, students’ growing mental health needs and post-ESSER financial peril. The report urges educators to deploy programs such as to help ninth graders build strong school relationships. K12 leaders are further encouraged to provide teachers and other staff with dedicated time to connect with parents and families. More flexible schedules and staffing would create ample time for core instruction and”pullout” programs such a tutoring and special education services.

Finally, the report emphasizes “real accountability.” It calls on state leaders to give parents better information about their child’s academic performance beyond traditional report cards and ensure schools can provide teachers with complete student data to identify needed interventions.

Civic empowerment

Another report on the American student experience could encourage K12 leaders to provide high school students with more opportunities to create change in their communities.

A YouthTruth survey of more than 115,000 higher schools found:

• Strong civic dispositions but skills lacking: “Most high school students want to help others and work across differences to improve society. However, fewer than half report learning the necessary civic skills in school, and fewer than a third have been empowered to create positive change in their communities.”
• Inequitable civic preparedness: “Civic readiness is uneven among high school students. Those with parents holding advanced degrees stand out as most civically prepared, while Hispanic/Latinx students are significantly less civically empowered than other racial groups.”
• Only half agree voting matters: “Overall, 53% of high school students believe that voting is important. School size and location do not significantly affect students’ belief in the importance of voting. However, significant differences in this belief exist based on student demographics.”
• Civic engagement thrives in extracurriculars: “Students describe academic work as disconnected from public life and a barrier to civic engagement, but they find participation in clubs, activities, and sports teams civically empowering.”

The post State of the American student: Here are 2 big perspectives appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

Last month, middle school students from the Brigantine Public School District in New Jersey were given the learning experience of a lifetime. Students saw what looked like an older gentleman on a projector screen interacting with them on a Zoom call. They didn’t know that the man they were speaking with, Edward Mosberg, .

Thankfully, Mosberg’s ability to tell his story lives on. He is one of several Holocaust survivors whose stories have been captured through interviews and documentation and transformed into “interactive biographies” by the . Below you’ll find a “60 Minutes” report detailing the process behind creating the technology:

Bringing history to life

Stockton University’s Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center became one of the first organizations in the world to host the first generation of interactive Holocaust testimonies. This allowed Brigantine Public Schools students to learn about the Holocaust like no other children had before.

Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez, director of the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University, says the relationship between humans and technology is becoming more intimate at a time when there is a decreasing number of Holocaust survivors left to tell their story���in person.

“When we look to the future with technologies like the interactive biography of a Holocaust survivor, students will be more engaged because they have the ability to ask questions and in real time receive an answer,” he says.

More from 91心頭: Teaching apprenticeships: Here are 3 models that work

Such innovation is key to creating that spark and curiosity for learning, he adds. There’s no such thing as a dumb question when interacting with the interactive videos because a genuine response is guaranteed. When the students finally learned that the man they were speaking to was no longer alive, they began to think more critically about their questions.

“In the last question, a student asked, ‘Why did you record your testimony?'” says Moreno-Rodriguez. “No one’s ever asked that question before.”

‘I thought he was actually there’

Brigantine’s middle school students were particularly interested in Mosberg’s experiences and his family. “Most of his responses were emotional,” says 8th-grader Addison Goodman. “It was hard to understand what he was saying sometimes. Overall, I thought it was a really cool experience.”

“Anything that was about his family, he seemed pretty traumatized,” added 7th-grader Sierra Fische. And 8th-grader Annabella Casamento contended they weren’t simply talking to a hologram. “You could see his emotions,” she noted.

Superintendent Glenn Robbins says he was just as surprised. When the head representative of the Temple Beth Sholom reached out to him asking if they’d be interested in hosting a Holocaust assembly, he figured it’d be your typical presentation.

“We had no clue what we were in store for,” he says.

Goodman reflected that she prefers an experience like this over any history book. “I feel like I would much rather have an assembly or something like that rather than reading it in a magazine or a book,” she says. “You get to ask your own questions and find out more.”

The students agreed with Moreno-Rodriguez that their peers were much more comfortable asking questions because they were interacting with technology rather than a real person. “I notice when people come to assemblies, we’re more hesitant to ask,” says Goodman. “We had a little more freedom.”

The post Deeper learning: How tech brought this Holocaust survivor to back life appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

“When I went to school, media literacy looked like being able to read a newspaper, understand what we were being told, maybe verify that with a second or maybe third source,” Camhi notes. “But the abundance of information that’s out there requires that we teach students how to know the difference between factual information and other people’s version of that.”

Media literacy begins in sixth grade English language arts and social studies in the Baldwin Union Free School District. High school seniors can take a college-level civics news literacy course that is credited through Stony Brook University.

What to know for the week: 4 important reasons smartphone bans work

“Our kids sit around the dinner table with their families, having these political discussions, and so I dare say that they probably influence the thinking in their families and in their communities,” she continues. “It’s not a skill that you can learn overnight. It’s a skill you have to grow up with.”

Media literacy is a hot topic during an election season but it’s a skill students need throughout their daily lives on- and offline, Camhi adds.

“It’s about the clothes that you buy. It’s about the friends that you keep. It’s about your community and the local newspaper. It’s about everything,” she explains. “The election is sort of the cherry on the top. I mean, it’s like the peak of the mountain. But knowing that what you read or hear is true, and being able to decipher your opinions and your beliefs based on real information, is paramount to everything that we do all the time.”

Listen to the podcast below, or on , or .

The post “Talking Out of School”: Why media literacy now matters so much appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

When drafting the Constitution and during the debates surrounding its ratification, the Founding Fathers expressed a belief in the ability of the United States to establish ���a more perfect union.��� Yet, the framers also were aware of the challenges and uncertainties that lay ahead.

Drawing on their knowledge of history and philosophy, and their own experiences, they understood the historical failures of democracies and republics, such as those in ancient Greece and Rome. The evolution of these systems into autocratic empires that led to their downfall fueled concerns about the sustainability of the American experiment.

Today, the question of whether the United States is ready for a new republic looms large, especially as voices within both political parties question the desirability of the limited government envisioned by the founders.

For this reason, the need for civics education has never been greater. After all, today���s high school and college students will be the generation tasked with making serious decisions about the direction and fate of the country. But it���s clear that the way we are educating students about civics���if at all���is failing. According to one study, fewer than half of adults could name the three branches of government, and 26% could not name a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment.

As we live in what some argue is the second American republic (born with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789), students must ask themselves if they are prepared for a potential third republic.

To make informed decisions about the nation’s future, students must first understand the seven American Principles that together make the American experiment unique: Civic Engagement, Egalitarianism, Entrepreneurship, Governance, Individualism, Liberty and Trade. Studying history and civics through the lens of these American Principles will equip tomorrow���s citizens to make informed decisions about the kind of country they desire to live in.

As citizens grapple with weighty topics such as constitutional changes, alterations to the Supreme Court, winner-takes-all elections, and the traditional two-party system, the need for informed civic participation becomes increasingly urgent. Civics education based on American Principles plays a pivotal role in preparing students to understand and evaluate the promises, failures, and alternatives that shape the American experiment.

The exploration of American Principles is not just a theoretical exercise but a practical tool for students to navigate the complex terrain of American governance and contribute meaningfully to the ongoing conversation about the nation’s future.

When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 concluded its work, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Founding Fathers had created. Franklin replied, ���A Republic, if you can keep it.���

As the American experiment evolves, each of us is responsible for its direction. I believe the discussion has already begun. We must be prepared when asked, ���If not this, then what?���

The post Teaching civics has never been more important. Our republic depends on it appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

“It forces collaboration between social studies, math, English and science teachers,” he explains. “They’re working together and our kids are getting the medicine they need���it’s not just about remediation, it’s about acceleration.”

Literacy growth rates had slipped to under 40% during the height of COVID but have now resurged to over 50% of students meeting expectations. Dignan’s main solutions are HMH���s Math 180 and and the platforms’ new Flex component that helps teachers adapt instruction toward individual students��� learning needs, Dignan attests.

Principal Lori Webster and Reading Interventionist Alexandra Wilcox have made embedded interventions in both the methodology and the mindset at in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Back in 2018, only 20% of the small charter school’s students scored proficient in reading. To boost literacy rates, the two educators have since had their elementary school teachers participate in training in the Orton-Gillingham multisensory approach to the science of reading.

More from 91心頭: This superintendent sees trust in K12 eroding. Here is what he’s doing

It incorporates writing, reading and talking, and the method is the same whether students are in their regular classes or receiving a push-in intervention in their classrooms. ���I would love for more teachers to understand that this is not just additional work for them, this is in exchange for things that they already teach,��� Wilcox says. “What I’ve noticed as our teachers have implemented it is they feel like we’re taking some things away because it is working.”

Mountain Mahogany is now recognized as a Structured Literacy Model School by the New Mexico Public Education Department. “What’s most rewarding for me as a teacher is seeing confidence grow,” Wilcox explains. “I see students go from ‘I can���t do this’ to ‘Oh, I can do this.’ It���s like cracking the code.”

Embedded interventions inspire independence

Teaching and assessing literacy is the top professional development priority at Wayne-Westland Community Schools and HMH’s Flex instruction has replaced disruptive pull-out interventions. “Even Pre-COVID, a large percentage of kids were coming in one or two grade levels behind,” Dignan points out. “As a central office team, we knew we wouldn’t be able to intervene our way out of it.”

More students are now catching up to grade level and moving on to accelerated instruction. Students are able to see the progress they are making as they are better grasping the texts and making improvements in all of their core classes. The adaptive platforms allow teachers to abandon traditional “stand-and-deliver” instruction and give students more autonomy and independence.

“Going through everything being virtual and combing back, some of the skills teachers picked up allowed them to become facilitators of learning and use more small group instruction in lieu of the traditional ‘For the next 55 minutes, you���re going to listen to me talk,'” Dignan concludes. “We���re moving way past that.”

District 91心頭istration’s��Superintendent’s Playbook series examines how superintendents, principals and other administrators are solving common problems that today’s educators are facing.��

The post Superintendent’s Playbook: How to make more progress with interventions appeared first on District 91心頭istration.

That decision by the state’s Department of Education makes Arkansas the second state after Florida to block the highly anticipated class that the College Board had been piloting in a growing number of high schools over the last few years.

High school educators were notified of the change in a phone call last week with state officials who also told the teachers that the Department of Education would not cover the $90 fee for the end-of-year AP African American Studies test, .

More from 91心頭: A whopping 8 more superintendents step down just as students are returning

Several teachers had spent the summer preparing to teach the course, 岳鞄艶油Arkansas 意庄馨艶壊油noted, adding that state officials could not be reached for an explanation. But Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva had earlier this year embarked on a wide-ranging K12 curriculum review, looking to rout out “indoctrination and critical race theory,” the Arkansas 意庄馨艶壊油explained.

Controversy first flared earlier this year when the College Board notoriously altered the AP African American Studies curriculum to appease Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and members of his administration who had barred the course from Florida high schools. DeSantis administration officials rejected AP African-American Studies because they believed it ���lacks educational value,��� is historically inaccurate, and veers into critical race theory in violation of Florida���s controversial Stop WOKE Act, the National Review reported last month.

The College Board many Black scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism from the official curriculum, The New York 意庄馨艶壊油reported. The College Board also scrubbed Black Lives Matter and added ���Black conservatism��� as a potential research topic, the 意庄馨艶壊油says.

���This course is an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture,��� David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, said in��in April. ���No one is excluded from this course: the Black artists and inventors whose achievements have come to light; the Black women and men, including gay Americans, who played pivotal roles in the civil rights movement; and people of faith from all backgrounds who contributed to the antislavery and civil rights causes. Everyone is seen.���

AP African American Studies will continue to be piloted this school year, and in about 800 high schools, which was twice what the College Board had anticipated prior to , USA Today reported.

The post Second state opts out of popular AP African American Studies class appeared first on District 91心頭istration.