A while back I wrote Balkanization, a piece about the Tucson Unified School District’s “Raza Studies” program, part of its broader Ethnic Studies program. It was fairly obvious from the coverage that the “Raza Studies” program was another example of Critical Pedagogy in the public school system, and its intent is to radicalize the students involved.
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne decided to do something about it. The program, in his view, encourages students to resent a particular race.
It’s just like the old South, and it’s long past time that we prohibited it.
If you read up on Paolo Friere and Critical Pedagogy as he envisioned it, that’s exactly what it does, regardless of how it’s presented as promoting “critical thinking.”
So Horne lobbied for a bill in the state legislature, and it was recently passed and more recently signed by Governor Jan Brewer.
Of course, this is just more evidence of how racist Arizonans are.
The Tucson Unified School District says that they will have no problem complying with the new law though, while continuing their various Ethnic Studies programs.
I’ll bet.