The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is banning a celebrated series of fifth-grade musical plays about American history at a local charter school because, the district says, they are “culturally insensitive.”
For nearly three decades, the fifth-graders at Marquez Charter Elementary in Pacific Palisades have performed musicals about crucial periods in the formation of the United States.
These include Miracle in Philadelphia, about the Constitutional Convention; Hello, Louisiana!, about the voyage of Lewis and Clark; and Water and Power, about the Industrial Revolution. (A fourth-grade play, Gold Dust or Bust, focuses on the history of California.)
The musicals, co-written by Jeff Lantos (with music composed by the late jazz pianist Bill Augustine), are so successful in conveying historical details that Marquez students consistently score off the charts in history assessments.
A 2004 academic study of the Marquez plays observed: “Students who attended Marquez Elementary School scored more than twice as many items correctly [on history tests] as did students from other schools.”
Hellbound and Down 