In the wake of President Donald Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education through executive orders and the confirmation of the DOE’s new secretary, the Big Apple is doing their own thing.
In September of 2024, New York City introduced a new PK-12 curriculum 一 Black Studies as the Study of the World: A Black Studies Curriculum for New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) 一 aimed at highlighting Black history, going as far back as early African civilization, to the era of enslavement in America, to current-day Black America. The curriculum places emphasis on the roles of men and women throughout time and gives culture relevance through what is being taught.
In more specific terms, as described on the WeTeachNYC website, the curriculum aims to provide a more “critical, interdisciplinary, curricular framework through which learners of all ages can study, understand, and appreciate an African-centered perspective that predates slavery and values unity, wholeness, cooperation, liberation, and education as the practice of human freedom.”
As New York City Council Speaker Adirenne Adams said, “In New York, we are trying our best to be Trump-proof” after President Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29, 2025, aimed at getting rid of “anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies” being taught to kids 一 i.e., the truth about slavery and discrimination against minorities in American throughout the nation’s history.
In a city as diverse and large as New York City, where around 40% 一 if not more 一 of the city’s population are immigrants and at least 23% is black, understanding and feeling connected to the history being taught in both charter and public schools is important. Feeling connected and that what one is being taught is relevant in life currently piques a student’s interest.
By banning all-inclusive history and social studies curricula, students are less likely to feel that what they are being taught matters and more likely to feel disconnected to their peers if their racial and ethnic histories are taught in tandem.
What New York City is doing is creating space for these students to feel connected to a past that president Trump would rather wipe from history.
“When students connect with the material, they are more engaged, develop critical thinking skills and build a deeper sense of belonging,” said New York City School Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. “I am proud to lead a school system that values inclusion and the powerful truth that our diversity is our strength.”
Students in New York City have been responding positively to the new curriculum. Reported by The New York Times, when seventh-grade social studies teacher Peta-Gaye McLean began teaching a lesson on the roles of women in pre-Colonial America and Africa, 12 year-old student Tristan Vanderhorst “said his takeaways were ‘don’t take women for granted. Respect them highly.’”
Teaching male students to respect their female counterparts is a basic skill, but unfortunately one that is gravely needed in today’s political and social climate, especially when the President is trying to ban such a teaching, among others, for being “too woke” and a harmful, anti-American value.
It remains to be seen whether or not the Trump Administration will pull funding from the over-200 schools in New York City that have adopted this new curriculum.