Antisemitic curriculum alleged
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Parents tell school board to fire firm
By Braden Cartwright
Daily Post Staff Writer
Jewish parents at the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District are calling for the school board to fire a company that was hired to train teachers in Ethnic Studies but allegedly pushes antisemitic curriculum.
The district cancelled a training for teachers on Monday after more than 400 people signed a petition calling for the firing of Acosta Educational Partnership, or AEP.
AEP pushes anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic lessons and its leaders encourage teachers to "shut their doors" so they can push controversial material, parents said.
Owner Curtis Acosta is connected to the Teach Palestine Project, "a blatantly antisemitic source of lesson plans for teachers," parents said in a letter to the board.
Board President Phil Faillace wrote back to the Jewish parents that board members didn't know AEP was controversial when they approved the contract in November. Administrators and lawyers are looking at how to remove any bias "before the nascent Ethnic Studies course is tainted by suspicions of hostility to persons of Jewish ethnicity," Faillace said.
The local dispute reflects a battle at the state level over Ethnic Studies, which lawmakers made a high school graduation requirement starting for freshmen in the 2025-2026 school year. On one side are groups that support Liberated Ethnic Studies, which includes AEP, while the Jewish parents support Constructive Ethnic Studies, which they said isn't political.
The Liberated Ethnic Studies supporters were responsible for the rejected first draft of the state's Ethnic Studies model curriculum, which Gov. Gavin Newsom said would "never see the light of day" due to its biased and offensive language, said parent Lia Rensin, also a board member of the Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies.
Acosta declines interview
The Post reached out to Acosta to get his response, and he said that he is waiting for guidance from district officials before sitting down for an interview with the newspaper.
Superintendent Nellie Meyer hasn't responded to a request for comment since Friday.
Parents showed up at Monday's board meeting to call for the district to fire AEP and Acosta, which was hired on Nov. 17 for $45,000 using a state grant.
"We cannot stop bigotry, but we don't have to pay for it either," said David Roseman, a parent of a junior at Mountain View High School.
"In modern America, Jews are too often dismissed as European colonizers or white people," parent Mark Balch. "We have every right to be treated with the same protections as any other ethnic group."
Parent Brad Newman said that AEP snuck into the ex- district.
"Now that we know who they are, they need to be shown the door. Because you cannot teach high school children not to be racist but teach antisemitism — soft, subtly hidden, snuck in," Newman said. "There are plenty of providers who can come in here and teach students about equality, antiracism, etcetera, without bringing in the hustle of, 'Oh but there's this bad group because of their religion."'
Board wasn't aware of controversy
The board couldn't respond to the parents because a discussion wasn't on the agenda.
But Faillace said in his letter that the board unanimously approved AEP's hiring on the consent calendar, which is a list of items that can be approved on a single vote without discussion.
The item's two-sentence description and its place on the consent calendar misled the board into believing it was non-controversial, he said.
"I'm confident that none of the three persons responsible for setting the agenda was aware of the information that makes (the contract's) approval abhorrent to so many members of our community and also especially threatening to so many of its Jewish members,” Faillace said.
All classes, and especially Ethnic Studies, "should avoid suspicions of bias, conscious or not, against any ethnicity," Faillace said.
Parents were pleased by the response, but they want the board to do the following:
Terminate the contract with AEP
Hire a company to train teachers in Constructive Ethnic Studies
Post all Ethnic Studies teaching materials, training materials and consultant information online
Allow for community review of the Ethnic Studies course before making it a mandatory class
Pass a resolution prohibiting any instruction materials from containing any antisemitic or anti-Zionist content.
