Wed 03/23/2022 Page: A7
NM moves to focus on race, ethnicity in K12 classrooms
12 conservative states restricting teaching
BY CEDAR ATTANASIO
ASSOCIATED PRESS / REPORT FOR AMERICA
SANTA FE — New Mexico’s K-12 students will see a greater focus on race and
ethnicity, including Native American history, in curriculum over the next two years
under new standards aimed at making social studies teaching more culturally
responsive.
The state Public Education Department recently finalized the changes following
months of debate that included pushback from parents worried their kids would
be labeled racist. The standards don’t mandate specific lessons or textbooks, but
will require school districts to increase their focus on social identities and
understanding the world through the lens of race, class and privilege.
New Mexico is the latest Democratic- led state to approve new public school
standards amid a move toward more open discussion of race. As in Washington
and New York, the standards require students to identify and articulate their
cultural identity starting in elementary school. Ethnic studies will now be part of
the high school curriculum, though not required for graduation, as in California.
A dozen other states have passed laws to restrict topics related to race and
gender over concerns, particularly among the GOP, about “critical race theory,”
which has become a catch-all term for identity politics in education.
In New Mexico, hundreds of parents, teachers and grandparents weighed in for
and against the proposed changes last fall. Officials heard public comments in
thousands of letters and hundreds of appearances in an all-day Zoom forum.
Supporters backed a closer look at the history of Indigenous communities in the
state, and more discussion of race and identity at an earlier age.
The final rule, published last month, rebutted some criticisms about identity and
integrated a plea for including personal finance in the curriculum.
School districts will begin training teachers on the new standards next year and
implement them in the classroom in the fall of 2023.
It’s the state’s first overhaul of social studies standards since 2001.
The new standards change the way Native American histories are taught.
Students will be more likely to study the state’s 23 tribes on their own terms and
more in depth. In the past, that history was cursory, focusing on comparing and
contrasting with European conquerors.
State education officials are also under pressure to make the K-12 school system
more relevant to the 11% of students who are Native American, due in part to an
ongoing lawsuit. A court ruled in 2018 that the state isn’t meeting the educational
needs of Indigenous kids.
Alisa Diehl, an education attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty
representing
People protest Nov. 12 outside the offices of the New Mexico Public Education
Department in Albuquerque. As conservative-run states move to restrict discussion of
race, gender and identity in the classroom, other states are trying to encourage those
discussions, including New Mexico. CEDAR ATTANASIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
NM boosts its focus on race, finances in K12
the plaintiffs, calls changes to the social studies standards a “first step toward
providing a public education system that takes students’ cultures, languages and
life experiences into account, as required by our statutes and constitution.”
Opponents of the new approach expressed fears that children would be labeled
victims or oppressors based on their race.
Some commenters color-coded the entire proposed rule, identifying language
that they saw as echoes of critical race theory, including such phrases as
“unequal power relations,” “privilege or systemic inequity,” and requirements
that students identify their “group identity” starting in kindergarten.
The agency also removed “mentions of sexuality, communism, police brutality
and gun violence following concerns raised by the public,” said Gov. Michelle
Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Maddy Hayden.
The agency decided to keep the privilege, power and inequity language.
The response to those criticisms stated that: “Critical race theory is suited for
graduate school-level discussions, and is not contained in the standards.”
At the heart of the debate is whether discussing differences in the classroom
hardens social divisions or softens them.
Republicans in the state Legislature had proposed banning critical race theory.
They also proposed replacing leadership at the education department, currently
appointed by the governor, with an elected board. Both measures failed.
In a letter to state education officials, Republican leaders said they would
advocate for districts to use wiggle room in the curriculum requirements to keep
conservative textbooks and lesson plans. They said education officials ignored
public opposition.
The department “had no real intention of making significant changes to the
proposed standards, which were clearly outside of the mainstream of New
Mexico’s values and traditions,” the letter said.
The letter was signed by House Republican leaders, including Rebecca Dow, of
Truth or Consequences. Dow is one of three members of her party fighting in a
primary to take on the sitting governor, a Democrat.
“Whether they fit all the definitions of ‘critical race theory’ or not, the new
standards appear designed to divide New Mexicans by race, ethnicity and
economic status,” said Paul Gessing, president of the libertarian think tank Rio
Grande Foundation.
Authors of the changes say identity has become a more important and more
visible aspect of society, and needs to be studied.
“It’s more like a deep exploration that there are identity differences that exist,
and that everybody is not always going to think the same. But the level of respect
for everybody’s varying opinions is what we want to bring out in the classroom,”
said Irene Barry, an English teacher in Aztec.
Barry says the biggest changes in the standards are an incremental introduction
to social identity from K-12, and the expansion of civics and geography into high
school. The previous standards did not focus on identity, and wrapped up
geography and civics in middle school.
PED leaders said removing the language advocated by Barry and other teachers
would devalue their work, despite the many objections from the public voiced in
comments.
In economics, the agency responded to public comments with sweeping
changes, adding an entirely new section on personal finance, following a letter
campaign backed by a local education policy think tank.
By fifth grade, students can be learning how to track spending and savings. In
high school, standards include sections on understanding credit scores, the
consequences of credit cards, and ways to build wealth with such tools as stocks,
savings and real estate.
“New Mexico now joins the 45 other states that include personal finance in their
K-12 education standards, which is an important first step to tackling
intergenerational poverty,” said Abenicio Baldonado, education reform director for
Think New Mexico, which promoted the letter campaign.
Baldonado is advocating for personal finance to be required for high school
graduation.
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