Lawmaker Wants School Requirement Changed

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA -- The speaker of the state House urged the city school district to reconsider what he called an "unnecessary" requirement that high school students take an African-American history course in order to graduate.

"I would like to see them master basic reading, writing and arithmetic," Speaker John Perzel said in a letter Tuesday to James Nevels, chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.

"Once we have them down pat, I don't care what they teach. ... They should understand basic American history before we go into African-American history," he wrote.

Perzel, a Republican, questioned why one ethnic group is singled out in the curriculum. He urged a course of study focusing on "the many cultures" in the district, which is about 67 percent black, 14 percent Hispanic, 14 percent white and 5 percent Asian.

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Comments

[Ash]

Kitt is right. The history of the powerful doesn't do anything but reinscribe their power. Different histories have to be put up front, and every student needs to learn about marginalization and oppression in historical milieu.

~~~Ash

[Daniel]

Republicans will always trot out this line to try to stir up the pot among people of color. They tried trotting out Asian Americans against African Americans during that whole UC/Affirmative Action stuff. As with that situation, I think we need to invoke Rev. Jackson's, "amend it, don't end it."

[Kitt]

""Once we have them down pat, I don't care what they teach. ... They should understand basic American history before we go into African-American history,"

Oh yeah? Who decides when that time comes? Same old tired line - let's get regular history before we study 'women's history', latino/latina history - whatever.

Besides 'basic American history' IS about white history - the history of those with privelege in power and generally not female. Gimme a freakin' break.