Giving Compass' Take:

· According to Education Dive, New York City schools have decided to implement a culturally responsive curriculum plan to remove ingrained patterns of bias and promote inclusion.

· What are culturally responsive curriculum plans? How will this new curriculum plan reduce bias and promote inclusivity? What are the trade-offs with this newly adopted curriculum?

· Read more about culturally responsive curriculum plans and the path to integration and equity in NYC schools.

The focus on inclusion continues to grow as schools across the nation become more diverse, and culturally responsive approaches are among the ways to make curriculum more relevant for students. In New York City schools, the district's School Diversity Advisory Group also wants the district to hire a chief integration officer to improve school diversity.

Recently released data shows that black and Hispanic students, which make up 70% of the enrollment in city schools, received only 10.5% of the invitations to the city’s elite specialized schools. Admission to those schools is based on results for the Specialized High School Admissions Test. Integration effortsinclude a new system in which students applying for 11 middle schools in Brooklyn are no longer screened on categories such as test scores, absences and being tardy, which has been viewed as discriminating against black and Latino students.

Breaking down racial barriers is one of New York’s Chancellor Carranza’s top priorities. Carranza, who was an English learner student in school, says it's important for students to see diversity both in the school and in the curriculum. Schools also need to do more to understand how heritage and culture fit into a students’ view of the world and leverage that to help them learn, he has said in the past.

Read the full article about culturally responsive curriculum plans by Shawna De La Rosa at Education Dive.