Despite a smooth development process over the past year, the Mountain View Los Altos High School District faces both backlash and an outpouring of support for its ethnic studies curriculum, its ethnic studies curriculum, which is currently in its pilot phase at both comprehensive high schools and set to launch in full in the fall.
In 2021, the State Legislature passed a bill mandating that all high school students take an ethnic studies course as a graduation requirement.
Little was said by the public as the MVLA ethnic studies task force worked to develop the curriculum over the past 18 months, but recently some local residents and statewide organizations have voiced opposition to both the curriculum and Acosta Educational Partnership, the consulting agency the district hired to train ethnic studies teachers.
Advocates attended board meetings last month to express their outrage at the district’s relationship with AEP, which MVLA hired in November, because of the organization’s alleged history of antisemitism. A letter to Superintendent Nellie Meyer and the board penned by MVLA parent Lia Rensin urged the district to end its contract with AEP and postpone implementation of the full ethnic studies course until administrators reassess the curriculum. Hundreds of people from within and outside the MVLA community co-signed the letter.
Amid the public outcry, MVLA opted to terminate its $45,000 contract with AEP last week. The district has not publicly announced the decision, but board president Phil Faillace wrote in an email to the Town Crier that “MVLA has acknowledged having received services from AEP and is making a final payment to them.” Faillace would not comment on whether the move marked a premature end to MVLA and AEP’s relationship, but AEP founder Curtis Acosta confirmed that MVLA ended the contract.
The allegations of antisemitism mainly stem from AEP’s association with Samia Shoman, a San Mateo-based educator who served on the state’s advisory committee for the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum draft created in 2019 that was publicly panned by Jewish groups for containing anti-Zionist material. Gov. Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed the draft, calling it offensive.
Shoman is co-founder of Teach Palestine, a blog that encourages educators to teach about Palestinian history and current affairs and takes a pro-Palestine position in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Acosta also contributes to the blog. Shoman, who has Palestinian heritage, has publicly spoken out about “Zionist influence” and erasure of Palestinians from the new Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.
Many Jewish people and organizations, including Rensin and the Anti-Defamation League, consider anti-Zionism to be inherently antisemitic, while many advocates for Palestine resist the equation.
District administrators declined to answer further questions on the situation, including whether the decision to sever the relationship with AEP was the result of public protestations, how long the contract was supposed to last and whether AEP received full payment.
Revisions ahead?
Teachers, students and parents who have emphatically supported the current iteration of the ethnic studies curriculum are left wondering whether the course content will be revised.
Beyond the allegations of antisemitism aimed at AEP, local residents including Rensin took issue with the content of some of the lessons MVLA has made public. The Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies, a coalition pushing for a different ethnic studies curriculum in California, asserts that MVLA has modeled its curriculum on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, associated with the draft Newsom vetoed.
“In some California districts, ethnic studies has been hijacked by political activists and a field called Liberated Ethnic Studies. This has happened in the Mountain View/Los Altos High School District,” reads the MVLA-dedicated page on ACES’ website.
The webpage, co-written by Rensin, contains links to MVLA ethnic studies lesson slide decks alongside passages detailing objections to the lessons. ACES claims that MVLA’s curriculum is based on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, despite MVLA ethnic studies task force members and trustees maintaining that it is a “homegrown MVLA course,” as Faillace said during the March 13 board meeting.
Many of the criticisms leveled are ideological. While MVLA’s curriculum takes a more critical approach to current systems of power and oppression, ACES supporters believes the class should not encourage a “victim/oppressor” mentality and should instead focus more on the achievements of different ethnic minorities throughout U.S. history.
Notably, some of the curriculum content ACES cites on its website as being problematic and related to the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is also included in the revised, adopted draft of the state’s model curriculum. One example is the definition of “race” as an “ever-evolving social, legal and political construct that has no basis in biological fact,” despite the definition in the adopted model curriculum reading “Within the field of ethnic studies, ‘race’ is defined as a (neo)colonial social construction. It is viewed as a ‘master category’ based upon a Eurocentric biological fallacy that is central to inequitable power relations in society.”
In another passage, ACES misquotes an MVLA lesson as saying “slavery is a new system of power post-Columbus,” going on to claim that this is an ahistorical statement, as the existence of slavery dates back to ancient Mesopotamia. The lesson actually posits that slavery became a prominent new system of power in the Americas after the arrival of Christopher Columbus, and even references the slave trade that existed in pre-colonial Africa.
ACES’ general sentiment is that the current curriculum lacks necessary varied perspectives and nuance regarding sensitive topics.
Rensin, one of the most active voices against the current curriculum, acknowledged that it is difficult to judge the level of nuance based on slides without seeing how such discussions play out in the classroom.
“I think the big concern came from the fact that there were so many examples – it wasn’t that there was one or two, it was that there were so many,” Rensin said in an interview. “You see a foundation that is framed in this victim-oppressor thing.”
Backlash to the backlash
Many students, educators and activists turned out to speak in support of the course at last week’s meeting after catching wind of the movement to change the current curriculum, with the crowd overflowing from the boardroom into the district office. Every student who commented was currently taking the ethnic studies class at Los Altos or Mountain View high school and shared their appreciation for it.
In a particularly powerful speech, Los Altos High freshman Ella Omura spoke to the feeling of empowerment she gained from class with teacher Anna Perry.
“I learned that because of my history, I’m not alone,” Omura said. “I learned that I’m Japanese and Chinese, but I am American. To give up this knowledge is like forgetting a friend, a friend who makes us better. Ethnic studies taught me that we are powerful.”
Current ethnic studies teachers also responded to specific points raised by critics regarding antisemitism in the classroom. Kevin Heiken, ethnic studies teacher and staff advisor for the Mountain View High Jewish Student Union, expanded on the lesson on Jewish identity that was criticized as insufficient by some opponents of the current curriculum.
“Students analyze various aspects of Jewish identity, from religion to ethnicity, to culture and language, historical heritage and, yes, the role of the State of Israel in shaping the identity of many Jews,” he said. “Students have explored historical antisemitism as well, including the restrictive antisemitic immigration laws many countries have forced in the 1930s that directly contributed to the calamity of the Holocaust.”
Prior to public comment, Meyer announced a new online information hub for the course and acknowledged the controversy brought forth by ACES and other residents. She and Faillace both expressed confidence in the current curriculum created by MVLA staff.
“Some of the errors that have been slung at anyone who has tried to teach this course have been hard sometimes to hear – that maybe you are not thinking of all students or that perhaps you have a bias toward one way or another – and our teachers have really talked this out and have continued to do so,” Meyer said.
“I just wanted to add that our ethnic studies teachers have put in a tremendous amount of work in developing this course and it’s going to be shown,” Faillace said.
The district has scheduled a study session on the ethnic studies program 4-6 p.m. April 3.
For more information on MVLA’s ethnic studies curriculum, visit tinyurl.com/4wxbhhun.
