Michael Hansen: Diversity in education benefits white and Black students alike
Utah students need to learn to navigate an increasingly diverse society.
(Ben Dorger | Standard-Examiner via AP)
Maria Montessori Academy, a public charter school in North Ogden, Utah, is pictured on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019. Parents who sought to opt out their children from learning Black History Month curriculum at the charter school have withdrawn their requests. The Standard-Examiner reported that the academy experienced a public backlash after announcing plans to make participation optional.
By Michael Hansen | Special to The Tribune
| Feb. 15, 2021, 6:00 p.m.
Last week, commotion broke out in North Ogden over Maria Montessori Academy’s decision allowing parents to opt out of a social studies unit spotlighting Black History Month. School director Micah Hirokawa “reluctantly” made this concession, yielding to parental pressure for exemption from the curriculum.
Run-Down Schools in Low-Income Communities Face Long-Term Closures Amid COVID
Sign informs parents who picked up items from the neighborhood public school to exit the premisses through the gate, in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 14, 2020.
Bastiaan Slabbers / NurPhoto via Getty Images
By
Yvette Alston-Johnson was seething when she got the news. Children in Paterson, New Jersey would not be allowed to go to school in person this fall, while many of their peers in predominantly white and affluent suburbs would return.
Alston-Johnson attended Paterson public schools, as did her five children, and she has watched the buildings fall steadily into disrepair over the years. She is now the primary caregiver for her grandson Rayahn, who is in eighth grade at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Complex, where close to 90 percent of students are Black or Latino.