Kansas House Bill 2207 was designed with the best of intentions. The bill was designed to promote education related to ethnic studies within Kansas’ schools. The goal of promoting a diversity of opinions into the classroom seemed like a good idea to many committee members. Kansas Republicans, however, saw the bill differently, and in the education committee, today, managed to significantly change the inner workings of the bill.
The committee signaled it was truly moving off the rails when Representative Kasha Kelley (R-Ark City), asked whether or not Ethnic studies already receive too much time, and if Black History month was already “too long.”
The complaint, argued Kelley, was that far too much time was being spent teaching about these issues already, and that without limits, it would be all a school could teach. With that as a starting point, Representative Lunn (R-Overland Park) and others began making significant changes in the bill that would alter the end goal, culminating in a language change that would limit teachers in what they could teach entirely, in regards to ethnic issues.
The committee tossed back and forth about how to answer Kelley’s concerns, finally agreeing to a simple word change in the bill that would resolve many of their concerns.
"Ethnic studies" includes, but is not limited to, the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, Native Americans and other racialized peoples
The original text, listed above, was successfully altered by the committee to remove the word “not” and change “but” to “and”, so that Ethnic studies IS limited to those specialized categories. This move was made at the behest of several representatives who wanted to make sure that teaching about Islam, or other faiths would not occur within Kansas’ schools.
Representative Lunn, however, was very sympathetic to the concerns of Representative Kelley and others, and decided that other changes needed to be made.
The amendment that had them up in arms? It reads as follows:
Textbooks and supplemental materials that contain substantive information but do not promote social justice remedies
will be approved for the future of coursework. In other words, teaching about social justice remedies in the classroom will likely run afoul of the proposed standard. This puts forward a serious risk, as teachers in the room had significant concerns. How do you teach about desegregation, Women’s Suffrage, or Civil Rights?
Without being able to reference texts and material which discuss a social justice solution, teachers may be stuck.
While Representative Kelley and others may be concerned about what they perceive as disproportional time allotted to Black History, the ability today to significantly impact how we teach it may be good enough. Representative Valdenia Winn (D-Kansas City), pointed out “I don’t think social justice means what you think it means,” pointing out she would offer searches from Google to the committee.
But making sure “Sharia Law” and “Social Justice” do not get taught in schools today became far more important than the goal of the bill, to teach young students about diversity in the history of the world.
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