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Does our educational curriculum lack diversity?

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement and the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others, there is a cry to address diversity in our educational system – not only for more representative and supportive staff and faculty, but in the content being taught in schools. How can we implement fundamental change, when the education we receive remains whitewashed?

Until recently, I never understood how little I was taught in school, particularly in the mostly-white public school system where I grew up.
  • At a very young age, we learn that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, but not that he enslaved the indigenous peoples he encountered and treated them with extreme violence and brutality.
  • We learn that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's “New Deal” created much-needed relief through stimulus programs after the Great Depression, but not that the resulting Federal Housing Administration was specifically – and explicitly – designed to segregate neighborhoods, and that its effects are still felt strongly today.
  • And in Delaware, we know Caesar Rodney for his midnight ride to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on July 1, 1776 to cast the state’s tie-breaking vote for independence - but we don’t learn that his ability to participate in political life was due to his family’s life of leisure afforded by the income earned on their 1,000 acre plantation worked by 200 slaves. 

As one recent Delaware high school graduate said to the local press – "I've been going to Caesar Rodney School District since fifth grade, and never once did I know that his family were slave owners and that they basically had a plantation with over 200 slaves. I didn't know that until recently when they removed the statue."

Some Delaware schools, it seems, are beginning to listen. After Caesar Rodney School District superintendent Kevin Fitzgerald’s released an initial statement of support to the community, for example, more than 3,000 people signed a petition stating that the vague promises of "help and support" were not enough; the district needs to adopt specific plans to re-evaluate its curriculum, provide guidance counselors and other concrete resources to students, and hire more BIPOC educators. Fitzgerald released a second statement in response to the petition, committing to drive the changes outlined in the petition with collaboration from the school board, principals, and Black student leadership groups like the newly-formed Caesar Rodney High School Black Student Union.

One thing is for sure - these changes will be driven by community voices, because the institutions will not change on their own.




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