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A group of Texas educators proposed calling slavery “forced displacement” in second-grade classrooms — before it was rejected by the State Board of Education.
The nine educators make up one of many groups tasked with advising the Texas board on social studies curriculum changes that will affect the state’s nearly 9,000 public schools.
In the minutes of a June 15 meeting in Austin that lasted more than 13 hours, committee members received an update on the social studies review before giving their feedback.
“The commission provided the following guidance to the task force implementing recommendations for Kindergarten through Grade 8: … For K-2, carefully examine the language used to describe events, particularly the term “involuntary transfer.” “
Aycha Davis, a Democrat representing Dallas and Fort Worth, said during the meeting that the wording was not a “fair representation” of the slave trade, according to the Texas Tribune, which first reported the story.
Part of the proposed draft curriculum standards, the Tribune reports, directs students to “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and the forced removal of Africans during colonial times.”
State Board of Education Chairman Kevan Ellis told the Tribune that the board “unanimously directed the task force to review this specific language.”
Davis, Ellis and the Texas Education Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.
The task force behind the recommendation included teachers, social studies specialists, instructors and a university professor, according to a list on the education agency’s website.
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In a statement posted on Twitter Thursday, the Texas Education Agency responded to the backlash the proposal created.
“As documented in the meeting minutes, the SBOE provided feedback during the meeting indicating that the task force should change the language related to ‘involuntary relocation,’” it said.
“Any claim that the SBOE is considering downplaying the role of slavery in American history is completely inaccurate.”
The State Board of Education enforces policies and standards for Texas public schools, setting curriculum rules, reviewing and adopting instructional materials, and controlling certain funding. The board will vote on the final curriculum in November, according to the Tribune.
The incident sparked outrage on social media. Former Austin and Houston police chief Art Acevedo called it a “washing of history” and said “slavery deniers are just as dangerous as Holocaust deniers.”
One user wrote: “Forced relocation is what happens when you lose your home in a hurricane. Not what happened during slavery.
“Forced relocation” for chattel slavery? Human slavery? The selling and buying of human beings from Africa or descended from Africans? Do people realize that for millions of you this is a family story? That for the state this represents a civil war? https://t.co/JLnS12l8p4
— Maya Wiley (@mayawiley) July 1, 2022
The Texas education system has been the subject of much recent controversy amid a culture war over how history and current events should be taught.
Recent policies have led to bans on books about sexual orientation, as well as those that “contain material that may cause students to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.”
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Last year, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill banning K-12 public schools from teaching critical race theory, an academic framework centered on the idea that racism is systemic rather than limited to individual prejudice, which conservatives use as a label for any discussion of race in schools.
Most recently, a North Texas school district was forced to apologize after an administrator advised teachers that if they had books about the Holocaust in their classrooms, they should also include reading materials that had “opposing” viewpoints.
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