Photo credits: Bettmann/Corbis
Black parents are requesting greater school dialogue regarding racism.
According to a May 2022 study by Education Next, 49% of Black parents want schools to concentrate more on teaching about racism and slavery. The classroom focuses “about the proper amount” on slavery, racism, and other difficulties encountered by Black people in the United States, according to 64% of parents (whose race was not disclosed). Also, 25% and 11%, respectively, believed there was not enough focus placed on racial discussions in schools.
“Allegations that Critical Race Theory had leapt from the academy into K–12 curricula stirred considerable controversy during the Virginia gubernatorial race, and many school districts across the country are reconsidering their approaches to teaching about slavery and race relations,” reads a passage from the study’s summation.
“The parents of half of Black students think the topic needs more attention, a view shared by parents of only 25% of Hispanic students and 17% of white students. An even larger difference was between students with Democratic parents and students with Republican parents; 37% of the Democratic parents think this topic is emphasized too little, while 19% of the Republican parents think it is given too much attention,” the summation also reads.
There has been debate about how history is presented in classrooms for many years. The issue over what may be taught in schools, however, has sparked fury throughout the country, from Texas to Virginia to Florida, as a result of Republican attempts to make “critical race theory” a heated subject in order to inspire their base and push “anti-woke” laws. The “Stop WOKE Act” was just enacted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and went into force on July 1. The law places restrictions on how racial topics may be educated in schools and gives parents the right to bring legal action against educators and school systems that disobey it.
Derrick Bell, a retired Harvard Law professor who passed away in 2011, developed CRT, which, per The New York Times, looks at how racism is institutionalized to maintain white domination in the U.S.
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