Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is catching a lot of heat,
justifiably, for wanting to do away with or limit certain advanced
placement classes due to the race based curriculum it offers.
Now to be sure, again, he deserves the criticism.
But so do education officials who want to eliminate high school honors classes for
a similar reason, but from a different perspective,
again, having to do with race.
I'll give you an example.
The Culver City School District in southern California is now considering
essentially doing away with honors classes because they feel that
those classes do not have enough diversity in its enrollment, okay?
Now, let me just say this.
When it comes to honors classes,
students decide whether they want to enroll in said classes, okay?
This is not a situation in which school administrators hand pick white
students and ignore everyone else.
Again, the students get to enroll should they want to challenge themselves with
these honors classes.
Well, since the start of the school year, freshmen and
sophomores in Culver City, again, Culver City, California,
have only been able to select one level of English class, known as College Prep,
rather than the previous system in which anyone could opt into the honors class.
The school officials say that the goal is to teach everyone with
an equal level of rigor, which I'm not buying at all.
>> What does that mean?
Their argument is, no, no, we want, instead of offering honors classes for
students who might find the regular curriculum incredibly boring and
unchallenging, by the way, as I did when I was in high school.
We're gonna do away with the honors classes that they would have been able to
enroll in and instead make the main curriculum rigorous and challenging.
Except we know that's not gonna happen.
We know that's not gonna happen.
Some students need extra help,
some students do unfortunately slow down the pace of the class.
It is what it is.
You have people at different levels within in the same classroom, all the time.
So doing away with options is ridiculous.
I think it's incredibly stupid.
If you're not seeing enough diversity in the honors classes,
then how about encouraging some of the students, whether they be black students,
brown students, what have you to do it.
Give them the motivation, tell them that they're up for the challenge.
>> Yeah, look guys, we're stuck in the middle of a cultural war and
we're the collateral damage.
>> It's insane.
>> The whole country.
So, as Ana pointed out, in Florida, DeSantis said, well, I don't
want the African American studies AP class because it teaches too much about racism.
What did you think it was going to teach about?
He's like, I don't want that history, right?
>> I don't want that option for students.
>> Yeah, hut then he threatened all of the AP classes.
And by the way, AP panicked then, and started saying, okay, okay,
we're gonna take certain things out of the curriculum, we won't teach racism as much,
it's disgusting, right?
So, there is an actual history and you have to actually teach the history,
not the version that you want, where your side is amazing and did nothing wrong, and
what the hell's your side anyway, right?
Aren't we all supposed to be Americans that look back at our past and go,
those were things that were bad, now we're making it better, right?
All together.
So, the right wing is saying no, let's obliterate these ap classes, and
no one's allowed to take them because they actually teach things that are true.
Now you go to the left wing.
Yeah, come on guys, get real.
It's the left wing here in California.
Culver City is in California, right?
And look at this absurdity, equal level of rigor.
Well, that's nonsensical.
Let's say that it's math, there's algebra and there's calculus,
calculus is a lot more advanced than algebra is.
So how do you teach it with an equal level of rigor?
I mean, some kids, when I was in public high school, and
a senior were still taking algebra and some kids were taking advanced ap calc 34.
>> It doesn't matter, put them all in the same class.
>> How could they be in the same class?
That makes no sense at all.
>> It makes no sense.
>> No, be honest with what you're doing.
You're saying, I wanna eliminate ap classes,
sayy because I wanna protect the feelings of some people.
>> That's actually 100%, correct and it's even noted in the reporting here.
Again, I wanna emphasize, students get to decide whether or
not they enroll in the honors classes.
There's nothing stopping a student of color from enrolling in the class, okay?
But here's what they say, okay?
So, in Santa Monica, California, for instance,
the high school English teacher said last year that they had a moral imperative to
eliminate honors English classes that they viewed as perpetuating inequality.
The teachers studied the issue for a year and a half,
a District Representative said.
They say this is not a social experiment, this is according to a board member,
John Keane.
This is a sound pedagogical approach
to education- >> Just because they use the word
pedagogical doesn't make it sound, okay?
>> So here's what the school district is saying in Culver City.
So, school districts doing away with honors classes argue students who don't
take those classes from a young age start to see themselves in a different tier and
come to think they aren't capable of enrolling in advanced placement classes
that help with college admissions.
>> Well, they can't enroll if you took them all away.
So I guess you solved the problem by nuking them.
>> So, some students don't have the self esteem in their words, right,
to enroll in these AP classes, these honors classes.
And so, the only thing to do is to eliminate the classes altogether so
the students who wanna be challenged with a more rigorous
curriculum don't have that option.
How is that smart?
How is that a good method in improving education?
Let me give you more.
So, Culvert City English teachers presented data at a board meeting last
year showing, Latino students make up 13% of those in 12th grade advanced placement
English, compared with 37% of the student body.
Asian students were 34% of AP classes, compared with 10% of students.
So Asian students are overrepresented.
And then with black students,
they represented 14% of AP English versus 15% of the student body.
So really what they're focusing here on is the lack of representation among Latino
students in these honors classes.
So how about the educators and the administrators encourage
these students to enroll in the classes, what is the issue here?
>> Look, good news for the first time ever it's a racial issue and
not about blacks and whites, blacks are almost perfectly represented.
And if you do the math on the remaining portion,
it appears whites are pretty well represented.
So, bad news, now they're pitting Latinos versus Asians.
And by the way, if you're on the left, how does that help?
How does that help?
I'll tell you what happens if you take away AP classes, for
every Asian parent will be furious, okay?
And who will they be furious at?
Well, then you'll tell them, it's because Latino students didn't have enough
representation in these schools, so we took them away from all of the students.
Well, they'll be furious at Latinos, but
Latinos didn't even ask you to take them away.
You made that up in your head, okay?
You have some better way to handle it.
It's not complicated.
You do your job, you reach out to the Latino community,
you reach out to Latino students, and you help them.
You don't punish others.
That's so obvious.
Look, I would argue, and I think, anyone who lives in America will tell you it's
kind of true, even if you're not supposed to say it.
Asians and Latinos are probably the two hardest working groups in America, okay?
So, if you've got an incredibly hard working group like Latinos, and
you say, hey, if you work in this direction, you might get a higher income,
etc, etc, I bet they're super open to that, okay?
But instead of doing that hard work, you're like, let me take it away from
Asians, let me take it away from everyone else and make them fight each other.
That doesn't help at all.
Look, the other thing is, so when I was very young, I was a very sensitive kid,
I loved to wallow in self pity, bad self esteem, all of that,
until I came across Ms. Robson in fifth grade, okay?
Ms. Robson had no patience for feeling bad about myself, okay?
Her whole motto was, I can and I will, she had a sign in front of the classroom.
And any time there was even an inkling of, I don't know if I can do this,
she would not physically, but, she would try to smack it out of you, right?
No, no, there's no feeling bad for yourself, you can and you will,
you canand you will, until it was drilled in my head and I started to believe it.
Educators feeding into the lack of self esteem that students might be feeling and
indulging in that is not helpful, okay?
They should give them the self esteem to be able to challenge themselves and do so
confidently.
I just think there's so much indulgence, so much, my gosh,
let's wrap the children in bubble wrap because they feel bad about themselves.
No, help them see the light and
help them build the confidence that they need to move forward in life.
What are we doing?
>> Yeah, I remember when I came in as a young immigrant,
I started at the lowest reading level, right?
If we went with this new approach, they'd be like, okay, that's it.
Stop all the higher reading levels.
No, well, because Cenk's discouraged, he's a young immigrant,
doesn't know English yet.
He's super discouraged.
We don't want him discourage, wrap him in bubble wrap.
No, what happened was I worked hard, Ms. Rosenberg in fourth
grade believed in me and moved me up to the highest reading level.
I've told the story before and I love her for it, okay?
That's how it's supposed to go.
If you have faith in the students, you teach the students the right things, etc.
What if they had said, okay, you know what?
We're taking away all AP classes, all honors classes.
And you Cenk, you're a Muslim, Turkish immigrant to this country,
you're not allowed to go in them anymore.
Wait, why am I being punished?
I'm also a person of color, why don't I get to go in those countries?
No, it's hurting the feelings of some people.
So we wrapped all of you in bubble wrap and none of you are allowed to advance.
It's beyond crazy.
So, there they are, the right wing in Florida going,
if you're teaching real things, we don't like it.
We want propaganda instead.
Tomorrow we'll probably share a story for
you guys where they're now trying to put in Christian themed testing instead.
Pure propaganda will not give the kids actual education.
And then we got California going, yes, but we don't want education that's too good.
Instead, let's make it racial and have everybody fight one another.