It’s Time to Teach the Truth: The Social and Political Contexts of Developing a Black Studies Curriculum for New York City Public Schools

• In Event: It’s Time to Teach the Truth: On Developing a Black Studies Curriculum for New York City Public Schools

Abstract

This paper will introduce the case study examination of New York City’s Education Equity Action Plan (EEAP) – a project approved and funded by the New York City Council for the development of the city’s first-ever comprehensive, interdisciplinary PK-12 Black studies curriculum. This paper will describe the social and political contexts of the project at the local, state, and national levels, and their implications for the how the project would unfold and to what end. Guided by the questions, “Why Black studies? Why New York City? Why Now?, the case study documents and analyzes the sociocultural and political forces that would facilitate the passage of a Black studies curriculum and its implementation within the nation’s largest school system against the backdrop of anti-equity legislation and book banning in states across the country.

Authors

• Sonya Douglass, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Ann LoBue, Teachers College, Columbia University