100 signatures reached
To: Curriculum Associates, the writers of Ready and iReady curriculum
Tell Curriculum Associates to Center BIPOC Stories Not whiteness
We have three specific demands:
1. Examine texts across all grade levels and subjects and answer the following questions about them:
- Whose story is being told?
-Whose story is missing?
-What stereotypes and biases are being reinforced?
2. Revise or replace current texts and images with texts and images across all genres that reflect the everyday lives of BIPOC. They should not be centered around BIPOC overcoming adversity.
3. Hire BIPOC writers and editors to write and evaluate current and future texts to answer these questions.
1. Examine texts across all grade levels and subjects and answer the following questions about them:
- Whose story is being told?
-Whose story is missing?
-What stereotypes and biases are being reinforced?
2. Revise or replace current texts and images with texts and images across all genres that reflect the everyday lives of BIPOC. They should not be centered around BIPOC overcoming adversity.
3. Hire BIPOC writers and editors to write and evaluate current and future texts to answer these questions.
Why is this important?
Curriculum Associates is the education company that is responsible for Ready, a mathematics, writing and reading curriculum, and iReady, a personalized online learning platform. The curriculum from Ready and iReady reaches over 9 million students across the United States.
We reviewed the texts used in the fourth grade Ready units and this is what we found:
-Less than 10% of approximately 130 texts centered around the lives of BIPOC, while three times that many texts centered around the lives of white people.
-There are 4 images of Black people present in texts, 9 images of non-Black people of color, and 28 images of white people in texts.
This shows that the stories and images of BIPOC are underrepresented and/or omitted altogether, while the stories and images of white people are centered. One example is a text titled “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow,” which discusses how people throughout time “used their hair to make unusual statements.” This text is problematic because it provides a limited perspective of hair, centering the history of white hair and hairstyles. It omits any other hair types, specifically any other mention of Black hair or the history of Black hair or hairstyles. This text, and others like it need to be replaced in the 2021 workbook.
We have started a conversation with representatives from Curriculum Associates. While they are willing to work with us, we need them to know that anti-racist work is important, and needs to be taken seriously. We need your help in spreading the word of how important this is.
We want our students to learn through an anti-racist lens. We teach them that when they look at a text, they question the role of power in the stories being told. We teach our students to ask: “Whose story is being told? Whose story is missing?” We demand that Curriculum Associates go through this same process as they revise their workbooks and texts for the future, so that curriculum serves as windows and mirrors for our students and centers the lives of BIPOC people, rather than whiteness.
Please sign this petition to demand that Curriculum Associates center BIPOC stories in their upcoming curriculum. Then share this petition on your social media platforms and with friends and colleagues to get the word out.
We reviewed the texts used in the fourth grade Ready units and this is what we found:
-Less than 10% of approximately 130 texts centered around the lives of BIPOC, while three times that many texts centered around the lives of white people.
-There are 4 images of Black people present in texts, 9 images of non-Black people of color, and 28 images of white people in texts.
This shows that the stories and images of BIPOC are underrepresented and/or omitted altogether, while the stories and images of white people are centered. One example is a text titled “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow,” which discusses how people throughout time “used their hair to make unusual statements.” This text is problematic because it provides a limited perspective of hair, centering the history of white hair and hairstyles. It omits any other hair types, specifically any other mention of Black hair or the history of Black hair or hairstyles. This text, and others like it need to be replaced in the 2021 workbook.
We have started a conversation with representatives from Curriculum Associates. While they are willing to work with us, we need them to know that anti-racist work is important, and needs to be taken seriously. We need your help in spreading the word of how important this is.
We want our students to learn through an anti-racist lens. We teach them that when they look at a text, they question the role of power in the stories being told. We teach our students to ask: “Whose story is being told? Whose story is missing?” We demand that Curriculum Associates go through this same process as they revise their workbooks and texts for the future, so that curriculum serves as windows and mirrors for our students and centers the lives of BIPOC people, rather than whiteness.
Please sign this petition to demand that Curriculum Associates center BIPOC stories in their upcoming curriculum. Then share this petition on your social media platforms and with friends and colleagues to get the word out.