Dive Brief:

• The Wyoming Select Committee on Tribal Relations unanimously approved the Indian Education for All bill last month, opening the door for the full legislature to consider the issue in the coming session.
• The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports the bill would require the state board of education to work with tribal governments to create a set of standards for teaching Native American history to all students.
• Both the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes are expected to contribute to the standards development, bringing Wyoming in line with neighboring Montana in educating all students about historical and present-day contributions of Native Americans.

Dive Insight:

Individual districts around the country have taken steps to incorporate ethnic studies into their traditional curricula. In many places, there is a general recognition that traditional history textbooks, especially, do not include enough information about the roles and contributions of minority groups. With more than half of U.S. public education students now minorities, educators have looked to more culturally inclusive teaching as a strategy for student engagement.

Chicago Public Schools became a pioneer in 2015 after spending more than a year developing an interdisciplinary Latino and Latin-American studies curriculum that it released to schools complete with lessons and entire units for teachers of kindergarten through 10th grade in a range of subjects, including the arts, literacy, math and science.