Texas’ school board has given final approval to a plan to draft standards to guide a class focused on the experiences of Mexican-Americans, but in a decision that riled board members and supporters, it won’t be called Mexican-American Studies.
For advocates of the new class, to be called Ethnic Studies: An Overview of Americans of Mexican Descent, getting it on the books has been an odyssey spanning more than four years. In 2014, the board nixed a proposal to create a course, though it left the option up to districts to offer it as an elective. Effectively, this meant districts had to create the course guidelines on their own and choose materials from scratch.
The new vote means publishers will have a more detailed set of guidelines.
