Thursday was the final day for public comment on the third draft of California’s Department of Education’s ethnic studies curriculum in state high schools. To put it mildly, this is bad news for California Jews and by extension to American Jews everywhere.

In 2016, California state legislators passed a bill, AB 2016, mandating that the state’s Department of Education (CDE) develop a model ethnic studies curriculum for use in high school ethnic studies courses.

Although the bill stated that the goal of such courses was “preparing pupils to be global citizens with an appreciation for the contributions of multiple cultures,” the politically motivated educators appointed by the CDE to help draft the model curriculum had other ideas.

In June 2019, when the first draft of the model curriculum was released for public comment, it was firmly rooted in Critical Ethnic Studies, a narrow, politicized conceptualization of the field that limits its focus to specific identity groups, and is firmly rooted in ideologies that divide society into oppressed and oppressor groups based primarily on race and class. Also, as part of its disciplinary mission, Critical Ethnic Studies uses the classroom to indoctrinate students into narrow political beliefs and activism. Read more at JP