
Teaching Race And History In America's Schools

Teaching Race And History In America's Schools

Students line up for a school bus outside a school in Los Angeles. RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Students line up for a school bus outside a school in Los Angeles.
RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty ImagesThe latest culture war is playing out in the American classroom.
Several states including Idaho, Tennessee, and Oklahoma have banned teaching Critical Race Theory, an academic pursuit examining how race intersects with history. Many may not know the fundamentals of the theory, but the decades-old concept was pushed into the public consciousness by former President Donald Trump last year.
Now, law makers are critical of the theory itself. Republican-led state legislators say it's anti-American and sows division. But opponents of the bans on its teaching say that the theory's framework is misunderstood.
What exactly is Critical Race Theory? And what's the right way to teach America's complicated racial history?
Anya Kamenetz, Clint Smith, and Fedrick Ingram join us for the conversation.
A full transcript of the episode can be found here.
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