Tucson, AZ, March 8. Texas lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a bill that would make Mexican-American or African-American studies courses taken by students count toward the state’s high school graduation requirement. .
“This proposal will give students options to experience different perspectives on history,” Democratic state legislator Christina Morales, the proposal’s sponsor, said at a press conference at the state Capitol in Austin, TX.
Morales assured that this HB45 initiative has bipartisan support.
Currently, only a few public schools in Texas offer ethnic studies courses, but these are only considered “elective” courses and do not count toward student graduation requirements.
The lawmakers said research has shown that students who take these ethnic studies courses are more likely to graduate and go on to college.
“These programs already exist in schools, so there will be no additional cost to taxpayers,” Morales explained.
HB45 comes as conservative lawmakers backed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott push through measures limiting minority-related classes, including one that would ban sexual orientation and preference classes for students before ninth grade in colleges. public schools.
In recent years, Texas has implemented a series of laws limiting the teaching of ethnic studies and has banned a number of books related to Mexican American, African American, and LGBTQ studies from public school libraries.
“Our communities have lived through these attacks in different parts of United States history, basically there are people who don’t want us to remember history, the sacrifices our communities have made for this great country, we can’t let our history be erased from the books,” said Gene Wu, a Democratic state legislator from Texas.
He assured that as immigrants, minority communities want their children to learn how the United States was built and continues to be built.
“We want ‘comprehensive’ history books that tell the story of all the communities that made this country what it is, our communities refuse to be just a small paragraph,” Wu said.
52% of Texas public school students are of Latino descent.EFE
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