Newton Teachers, School Committee Defend History Curriculum

NEWTON, MA — The Newton school system has been under fire for the past few years by outside groups accusing it of anti-Israel bias in its high school history curriculum. Tuesday, hundreds of teachers showed up to support the administration and the curriculum.

The School Committee called a special hearing at Newton South High School to consider a petition that asked to overhaul the curriculum and fire Superintendent David Fleishman.

School Committee members said the curriculum was developed from guidelines set by the state, and the program isn’t biased and doesn't use anti-Semitic materials, according to the Boston Globe.

The committee then voted 9-0 to reject the request to fire the superintendent. On the curriculum, the committee voted against proposals to overhaul, and voted to take no action on the grounds that the issues were outside the panel’s authority, the Globe reported.

Teachers and the administration have been grappling with accusations of anti-conservative bias and antisemitism in the district for years. They have even had to address more muted recent concerns from the American Defamation League.

"There is substantial reason to believe that the allegations made in the ad are without merit" according to a joint statement issued by the ADL and JCRC of an advertisement campaign in 2013.

CAMERA, a lobby and research organization in the wake of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon to curb criticism of Israel in media, has taken special issue with the “Middle East, Asia and Latin America,” known as MEALA, class curriculum. Charles Jacobs (who has been a vocal critic of the district's curriculum) cofounded the Boston branch.

The class included a unit on “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict” in the past year, according to CAMERA researchers.

"The course presents competing Palestinian and Zionist accounts of the history of the conflict. However, the Zionist version contains errors and deficiencies that render it less persuasive than the Palestinian account," says Steven Stotsky in his latest analysis.

Read the full Boston Globe story: Newton Teachers Defend History Curriculum

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Photo by Jenna Fisher/ Patch Staff. Fisher be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).