Oakland schools to reinstate curriculum about Mumia Abu-Jamal

Oakland school officials, under pressure from supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal, have agreed to reinstate a controversial curriculum that includes a lesson comparing the convicted cop killer to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The optional curriculum, which the school district hasn’t sanctioned since 2004, was removed from an old district website in April after Fox News reported on it. The widow of slain Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner, whom Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing in 1981, told the conservative TV network the comparison to King was a disgrace. Abu-Jamal’s supporters believe he was framed by Philadelphia police and politicians.

Superintendent Antwan Wilson ordered a review of the curriculum after teachers and others, including the activist group Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal, protested the decision to remove the material.

The review found the lessons sound, noting they “do not impress upon students that they must adhere to one perspective or another,” Wilson said in a statement released to The Chronicle on Tuesday.

“The Urban Dreams curricular materials provide students an opportunity to read texts that provoke debate,” Wilson said. “When used as intended, the material will allow students to dissect issues for diverse perspectives and arrive at their own unique conclusions.”

Wilson planned to announce the reinstatement of the optional curriculum at Wednesday night’s school board meeting. The Urban Dreams curriculum should be re-posted to the district’s website in the next week or so, district spokesman Troy Flint said.

The high school lessons were created by Oakland teachers with support from a federal grant nearly 15 years ago and include 27 lesson plans on a range of topics that include genocide, capitalism’s compatibility with democracy, awareness of mental disorders and analysis of social-justice literature, among others. It’s unclear how many teachers continued using it after the grant expired in 2004.

There has been no assessment, support or oversight of the material in the years since, Flint said.

“There wasn’t enough structure around it,” he said. “We want to reintroduce it, but with those supports in place.”

The part of the curriculum that includes Abu-Jamal, written by an Oakland teacher, is in the “additional activities” section of a larger set of lesson plans on King.

The section asks students to “critically examine a possible parallel between Martin Luther King Jr., and someone else many believe is currently targeted by the U.S. government, Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

The lesson suggests students “consider the claim by Abu-Jamal’s supporters that the government sees him as enough of a threat to want to kill him. Do students agree that this is a possibility?”