Maryland’s Department of Education has announced plans to expand curriculum guidelines to include LGBTQ and disability rights history.
The announcement comes after state lawmakers advocated for the curriculum update last month. Del. Eric G. Luedtke (D-Montgomery) created a letter to send to the department, calling on it to update the history curriculum. Forty-seven state lawmakers signed the letter. In the letter Luedtke wrote, “These are important stories for our teachers to tell, not only for those students who are themselves [LGBTQ+]… but so all of our students have a basic understanding of the challenges faced by significant segments of American society.”
Maryland joins California, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, and Illinois in mandating curriculum includes LGBTQ history. Critics of California’s law, the first such law passed, called it an attempt to indoctrinate students into LGBTQ culture. New Jersey’s law has also been criticized by some for supposedly infringing on parents’ religious rights. Luedtke responded to such criticism saying, “Telling the truth isn’t indoctrination … I think people who believe it’s indoctrination are coming from a place where they don’t want these stories told for their own political reasons.”
The Department of Education plans to have a draft framework for the new guidelines available in 2020.