Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Gendered, Racial and Religious Biases Infiltrate Virtual Learning Curriculums
Many schools may still be using materials that teach conservative Christian beliefs as history and social studies and express implicit and explicit gender and race bias.
Across the country, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced school closings and a rush to online learning for many K-12 students. In their haste to facilitate this change, a number of schools and school districts have purchased packaged curriculum materials from providers such as Acellus and Edgenuity. These companies, which often market to home schoolers, offer ready-made materials that have had great appeal to public schools in the sudden shift to virtual classrooms.
While schools likely purchased these materials in good faith based on their companies’ claims to meet state learning standards, no one in public schools seems to have read these materials prior to use with an eye toward explicitly religious content and gender and race bias. Likely unwittingly, public schools have purchased and used materials that violate the First Amendment’s religion clauses.
While watchdog groups like American Atheists have alerted some schools to this unconstitutional content, many schools may still be using materials that teach conservative Christian beliefs as history and social studies and express implicit and explicit gender and race bias. Educators using packaged curricula and parents with children in virtual learning should take note of the curriculum materials, be aware of this possible impermissible content and notify schools and watchdog organizations should they discover issues with students’ learning materials.
In late September, American Atheists announced that, following their intervention, Edgenuity removed unconstitutional religious content from the curriculum materials they offered public schools. American Atheists discovered, for example, that one third grade module taught Bible stories as social studies, advancing a particular religious viewpoint in violation of the First Amendment.
https://msmagazine.com/2021/02/04/online-learning-curriculum-edgenuity-acellus-gender-race-religion-bias-virtual-learning/
Across the country, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced school closings and a rush to online learning for many K-12 students. In their haste to facilitate this change, a number of schools and school districts have purchased packaged curriculum materials from providers such as Acellus and Edgenuity. These companies, which often market to home schoolers, offer ready-made materials that have had great appeal to public schools in the sudden shift to virtual classrooms.
While schools likely purchased these materials in good faith based on their companies’ claims to meet state learning standards, no one in public schools seems to have read these materials prior to use with an eye toward explicitly religious content and gender and race bias. Likely unwittingly, public schools have purchased and used materials that violate the First Amendment’s religion clauses.
While watchdog groups like American Atheists have alerted some schools to this unconstitutional content, many schools may still be using materials that teach conservative Christian beliefs as history and social studies and express implicit and explicit gender and race bias. Educators using packaged curricula and parents with children in virtual learning should take note of the curriculum materials, be aware of this possible impermissible content and notify schools and watchdog organizations should they discover issues with students’ learning materials.
In late September, American Atheists announced that, following their intervention, Edgenuity removed unconstitutional religious content from the curriculum materials they offered public schools. American Atheists discovered, for example, that one third grade module taught Bible stories as social studies, advancing a particular religious viewpoint in violation of the First Amendment.
https://msmagazine.com/2021/02/04/online-learning-curriculum-edgenuity-acellus-gender-race-religion-bias-virtual-learning/
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
