As much as the political left enjoys ripping the country apart by fostering racial (among other) grievances, there is more good news from Arizona. An AP article reports:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district’s ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.

Like some tragic comedy, the United Nations has authoritarian governments that routinely engage in genuine human rights abuses on their commission for “human rights.” Their so-called experts have no moral authority.

State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district’s Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.

Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.

…The measure signed Tuesday prohibits classes that advocate ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group.

Classes now banned are the “La Raza” studies courses — also called Chicano studies or Mexican American studies.

An article at the NAS describes some of the textbooks:

We observed that two of the main books for the TUSD program were Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolpho Acuña. Freire’s book, of course, argues that teachers must train students to acquire “critical consciousness” (an understanding that they are oppressed); to give voice to their grievances; and to liberate themselves from the bonds of imposed assimilation.

…The Raza studies program housed its revolutionary aims in terms of “transformation” and social justice.” Among its goals were to “Advocate for and provide curriculum that is centered within the pursuit of social justice,” “Work towards the invoking of a critical consciousness within each and every student,” and “Promote and advocate for social and educational transformation.”

You should see a huge red flag (no pun) whenever you hear the words “social justice” and “critical consciousness” described as goals.

Sean Arce, director of the district’s Mexican-American Studies program, said last month that students perform better in school if they see in the curriculum people who look like them.

If people like this are instructing children, is it any wonder why test scores are so low in real subjects like math and science — but ask these kids with their iPods and cell phones why they are ‘oppressed’ in America; that they know.

The article concludes with: “This bill will help refocus Arizona public schools’ attention on unity and patriotism, and will prevent them from giving students a skewed, racially prejudiced history of the United States.”

Hopefully this is the beginning of a new trend that will purge the corrosive social theories in our schools that for too long have been dividing and crumbling society.