Did you know that Arkansas has joined Florida in removing the AP course on black “history” from its schools? No? Its because its governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is not running for president and considered a threat to Joe Biden’s reelection. I am waiting for the NAACP to issue a travel advisory for Arkansas. Obviously, its governor has created a hostile environment for black people by not adopting Critical Race Theory and queer black history. I am also waiting for the National “Educators” Association and the American Federation of “Teachers” to blast the decision as trying to eliminate black history. Will black organizations cancel their conventions in Arkansas? Imagine no longer being able to partake in the charms of Little Rock or visit Bentonville, the home of Walmart.
Arkansas stated that the AP African American studies course was not a history course but rather an exercise indoctrinating liberal woke ideology. When Ron DeSantis said the same thing, the progressives wailed and gnashed their teeth. The Arkansas “Education” Association did say that the decision is of “grave concern” to its members and worried about “the abandonment of teaching African American history and culture”. The president of the NAACP intoned that state-level attacks on Black history are undemocratic and regressive. But no travel advisory? I really don’t understand the “undemocratic” and “regressive” nature of the bans. So please explain.
What Arkansas did was to pass a law that prohibits the teaching of certain topics including gender, sexual orientation and Critical Race Theory. I personally think that these are best left out of school curricula. Rather, schools should concentrate on teaching basic skills like reading, math, science and language. That teachers’ associations, school boards and school administrators have veered off into liberal ideology is likely due to their miserable failure to teach basic skills. Student proficiency in math and reading is pitiful in virtually all public schools in the country. Arkansas had aggressively moved to rectify the poor education received in its schools. It passed – over the usual objections of the education establishment – an education reform bill that enacts a universal school choice program. I wonder if such a program is “undemocratic” and “regressive”?
The left is always going to contend that the right is trying to suppress the teaching of black history which is a blatant lie. As Arkansas (and Florida) noted, the AP course was not a course in history. When Florida replaced the AP course with one that really was about history, the left pounced on one statement that said that some slaves learned skills that were helpful when they became free claiming that the new curriculum stated that slavery was beneficial. However, the same statement appears in the AP course which the left endorses. However, they fail to see the contradiction and have no shame.
haroldblackphd.com 