In the News

How many readers have heard of the Zinn Education Project? I am chagrined to report that though it has been doing its good work for over ten years, I just learned of its existence when I came across an announcement of actions, Saturday, June 12. That day there were demonstrations in over 30 states by teachers and their supporters in opposition to dangerous censorship legislation being considered by numerous state legislatures.

In the past month, Montana Republicans have drawn the state into a tense tug-of-war being waged in dozens of states over how public school students learn about racism in America. The debate has unfolded in the wake of a proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Education prioritizing racial, cultural and ethnic diversity in history and civics curriculum nationwide. The agency’s position triggered widespread conservative condemnation of a decades-old academic concept known as critical race theory, or CRT.

Kansas schools find themselves entangled in a debate about the past and whether critical race theory — the left's notion that America has yet to atone for its white supremacist origins and the right’s allergy to that world view — ought to guide the teaching of history and politics.

The push to keep students from learning about the profound role racism played in U.S. history is getting pushback this weekend from teachers across the country, including those in Arkansas. Educators and supporters are invited to gather from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, June 12 at the Trail of Tears marker by the intersection of Old Wire Road/Highway 265 and Randall Wobbe Lane in Springdale. The Teach the Truth rally, as it’s called, is one of at least 23 events planned nationwide to protest lawmakers’ efforts to prune away takes on American history that don’t center the white male perspective.

The Zinn Education Project, the journal Rethinking Schools, and Black Lives Matter at School are organizing “A Day of Action: Educators Pledge to Teach the Truth” on Saturday June 12 to protest state legislation, either already passed or in the works, that prohibits teachers from addressing racism and other forms of oppression in the history of the United States.

Four states have now passed legislation that would limit how teachers can discuss racism, sexism, and other controversial issues. It’s Republican lawmakers’ latest effort to rein in the approach to subjects they claim are divisive and inappropriate. The legislation, passed so far in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, bans teachers from introducing certain concepts. Among them: that one race or sex is inherently superior, that any individual is consciously or unconsciously racist or sexist because of their race or sex, and that anyone should feel discomfort or guilt because of their race or sex.

Jesse Hagopian is a high school teacher, a staff member of the Zinn Education Project, and an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine. He has edited and co-edited a number of books, including Teaching for Black Lives, Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice and More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing. As part of a growing movement to bring racial justice and people’s history to classrooms, he is on the forefront of the Black Lives Matter at School movement to connect educators with accurate curriculum and support their work with students to “root their concerns and daily experiences in what is taught and how classrooms are set up”. Just weeks before the 2021 Black Lives Matter in Schools Week of Action, Lush sat down with Jesse to learn more.

With Black History Month underway, some educators are challenging the way Black history is currently handled in the public education system. Erica Buddington, founder and chief executive officer of curriculum consultant firm Langston League, for example, believes the approach is contrary to how Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of Black History Month,” intended.