Extend Black and Latino History Curriculum Throughout K-12 Education in CT? That May Be Next Step

Part 3

Connecticut is in the midst of developing, for the first time, a statewide model curriculum for a year-long high school level course on Black and Latino history that is to be made available to students beginning as soon as next year.  But even as that effort proceeds, some are suggesting that it won’t be enough.

The thinking is that aspects of Black and Latino history should be incorporated into the curriculum beginning at the elementary school level, continuing throughout a student’s academic experience, building toward the high school course.  It is a vision that advocates suggest was present in discussions around the state’s law, passed last year, which required establishment of the high school curriculum.

It took an act of the legislature to require that curriculum, building on the nearly two-dozen districts in the state that currently offer a high school course in Black or Latino history.  Extending it to lower grades may require further legislative action.

“The K-8 curriculum should certainly develop a corresponding plan for integrating Black and Latino/Latinx history in the state on the model of the current plans for high school. Education plays far too important a role in the identity formation, socialization, and civic education of young people for this question to be debated,” commented University of Connecticut Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies Fiona Vernal, a member of the Advisory Group now assisting in the development of the high school curriculum. “If the standard narrative of U.S. history addressed racial formation, the minoritization of people, and the agency, contributions, experiences, and perspectives of a diverse array of people in the U.S., we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Connecticut is taking the lead on this important initiative and we need to press ahead, but this legislation would be just one piece of it - of the broader issue of how our education system can be leveraged to produce the just, equitable vision we have for our society. We have the tools. We need the will. The moment is now,” Vernal added.

Formed in recent weeks in Southeastern Connecticut, the Coalition for Educational Justice and a Culturally Responsive Curriculum has begun urging school superintendents throughout the state to put in place a “more inclusive curriculum.”  Their initial focus is local, in Regional School District 4, which includes the towns of Chester, Deep River and Essex, CTNewsJunkie reported this week.

Nationwide, there is little detail available on state requirements to teach Latino history.  In his studies of American history textbooks, author James W. Loewen has found that students often are not exposed to the histories of large swaths of the country’s population, including Latinos. Even the parts of Latin American and Latino history that are taught in American textbooks, Loewen told The Atlantic, have gaping omissions. Last fall, a New Haven student went before the local Board of Education to urge Latino history be included in her hometown city’s curriculum, saying “my history classes failed me,” according to a published report of the meeting.

Black history – perhaps due to Black History Month observances, among other factors – has been almost continuously a topic of discussion in education circles.  And in some places, Black history is included in the education curriculum beginning in grade school.

There is no national curriculum or set of standards for teaching Black history in America. Only a small number of states, including Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, and New York, have laws requiring that it be taught in public schools. Published reports have indicated that a New Jersey law approved in 2002 requires public schools to incorporate African American history into K-12 social studies lessons, although it is unclear whether it is being widely observed.

A Pennsylvania law permits local districts to determine the content.  One district, Carlisle, reflects a more expansive view of integrating Black history into its curriculum.

“As early as kindergarten, students are introduced in an age-appropriate manner to historical figures and events which shaped the country’s history,” Michael Gogoj, district director of curriculum and instruction, told The Sentinal last week. “Young students are also introduced to holidays, customs and traditions which may be outside of their own experiences.  Not only does Black history appear in stand alone units of study, but in everyday teacher-student discussions across a variety of subject areas, Gogoj explained. “By grades four and five, students are at an age at which they can better understand American history,” he said.

Illinois School Code requires that every public elementary and high school shall include in its curriculum a unit of instruction studying the events of Black History.  The requirements are plainly stated:  “Every public elementary school and high school shall include in its curriculum a unit of instruction studying the events of Black History, including the history of the African slave trade, slavery in America, and the vestiges of slavery in this country. These events shall include not only the contributions made by individual African-Americans in government and in the arts, humanities and sciences to the economic, cultural and political development of the United States and Africa, but also the socio-economic struggle which African-Americans experienced collectively in striving to achieve fair and equal treatment under the laws of this nation.”

It goes on to state that “The studying of this material shall constitute an affirmation by students of their commitment to respect the dignity of all races and peoples and to forever eschew every form of discrimination in their lives and careers.”

First appointed in 2019, that state’s Black History Curriculum Task Force continues to meet (as recently as July 7, 2020) and has been required to conduct an audit of every Illinois school district's history curriculum from K-12.  Chicago schools, at the high school level, have used The New York Times acclaimed 1619 Project material, which explores the African American history in America, as the curriculum guide since last fall.

The National Education Association website includes a list of resources, lesson plans and activities for younger students, focusing in fields ranging from science to the arts, to assist teachers in “integrating African-American culture and history” into the curriculum, although the material is aimed for use during Black History Month, which was first observed in 1976.

Advocating for a more expansive teaching of African American history, Glen Mourning, a Connecticut native, UConn graduate and now a 4th grade teacher in Washington, D.C., told PBS last year:  “Limiting the approach to teaching the entire country about who and what being an African American was all about, denied opportunities for all Americans to learn about the rich and noteworthy attributes of early African American culture. So to place a band-aid over a broken leg, it became widely acceptable to cram all of the cool stuff about African Americans into not only one month out of the year, but also into the shortest month of the year.”

Vernal points out that “What systemic racism does is permit the education system to proceed on a deficit model where teachers lack the cultural competency, content-area knowledge, experience, self-awareness, and instructional strategies to teach this kind of history. I am afraid the whole fish rots from the head—so the way we educate teachers and provide continued professional development and training will also have to shift. What we test will have to shift. What we value will have to shift.”

The Civil Rights movement, for example, a decades-long fight for equality centered around the 1960’s, often gets boiled down to "lessons about a handful of heroic figures and the four words 'I have a dream,'" according to a 2014 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The 31-page report found that some states, including Connecticut, earned a failing grade in its teaching requirements related to the Civil Rights movement.  That report called on states “to integrate a comprehensive approach to civil rights education into their K-12 history and social studies curricula.” 

An investigative analysis by CBS News, broadcast in February this year, found that seven states do not directly mention slavery in their state standards and eight states do not mention the civil rights movement. Only two states mention white supremacy, while 16 states list states' rights as a cause of the Civil War. The review of state requirements found that in Massachusetts, 3rd grade students are expected to learn "that colonial Massachusetts had both free and enslaved Africans in its population." Two grades later, the report found, students are asked to grapple with slavery, the legacy of the Civil War, and the struggle for Civil Rights for all.

A 2016 survey conducted by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture estimated that under 10% of total class time is devoted to teaching African American history. Dr. Tina Heafner, president of the National Council for the Social Studies, told CBS News "If students don't have access to social studies—learning civics to learning history—then they are certainly not going to be prepared for the jobs and responsibilities they have as engaged citizens."

Connecticut’s State Department of Education social studies curriculum was updated most recently in 2015.  In it, 3rd graders are to be asked to “explain the challenges people have faced and opportunities they have created, in addressing local, regional, and global problems at various times and places.” The 2nd grade curriculum framework suggests class discussion of the “compelling question,” What does it mean to make a difference in society?”  Among the topics for discussion are “Describe democratic principles such as equality, fairness, and respect for legitimate authority and rules,” and “Who or what is worthy of a monument? What monuments are in our town/state and why?”

Earlier in this week’s 3-part series: Part 1 reviews the public discussion that led to passage in 2019 of the Connecticut law requiring a high school course on Black and Latino history. Part 2 reports on the process, now underway, of building that model curriculum.