Public Reception and Conversation with Texas State Poet Laureate, Dr. Carmen Tafolla, April 1, 2016 at 6:00PM

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.  If you are interested in, and and care about, a lack of presence or representation in the state curriculum of culturally relevant children's books, consider joining us for a spectacular evening with Texas State Poet Laureate, Dr. Carmen Tafolla who will present on state in the Black Box Theater at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Culture Center four moving children's characters, as well as dramatized excerpts from her children's book on legendary leader, Emma Tenayuca.  Her book is titled, That's Not Fair: Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice.  We will follow with a conversation that reflects on Dr. Tafolla's presentation and addresses how we are to address the paucity of children's books for children of color in our schools.  Many thanks to all of our co-sponsors: 

LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies & Collections, Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, City of Austin Parks & Recreation, Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Culture Center, Austin Independent School District English Language Learners, Austin Area Association for Bilingual Education, Nuestro Grupo, Academia Cuauhtli, National Latino Education Research and Policy Project.

We begin with a 6:00PM reception catered by El Sol y La Luna, with the program beginning at 6:30PM.  This is our third annual book event and we are grateful to our numerous co-sponsors.  Looking forward to another wonderful evening!   

Angela Valenzuela

@AISDBilingual @EdAustin_Tx #AISDproud

Tejanos through Time by Emilio Zamora & Andrés Tijerina (Eds.) Texas State Historical Association

Help yourself to this FREE eBook out of the Texas State Historical Association edited by Emilio Zamora and Andrés Tijerina titled, "Tejanos through Time," downloadable from this link once you sign on.  The eBook includes selected articles generated by the Handbook of Tejano History Project that will appear in the Handbook of Texas.  The Handbook of Texas is an electronic encyclopedia that gets 1 million visits a month and is the leading resource on Texas and as a consequence, Tejano history. 

Here is the volume's introduction:



-->

E

Ditors’ Preface

 

Texas has a special place in history and in the minds of people throughout the world. Texas also has the distinction of having been a province of colonial Spain, a state in the Republic of Mexico, and an independent country before it became a part of the United States. Once the war between Mexico and the United States ended and Texas joined the American union, its history followed a distinct course of socio-economic incorporation, modernization, and identification with the American South and Southwest. Tejanos, descendants of the indigenous and colonial inhabitants of Texas, have been an integral part of Texas history as this eBook amply demonstrates.

No one would have imagined in 1952, the year that the Handbook of Texas was first published, that the Texas State Historical Association would expand its major reference source on the history of Texas with new entries on Tejanos. Nor would the founders of the Handbook have anticipated the extraordinary and relatively recent growth of Tejano history with notable and even award-winning works that contribute to the stature of the field and explain the growing number of entries that grace the pages of the Handbook. We would be remiss if we did not also credit the enlightened and path breaking spirit among the community-oriented, critically conscious, social justice Mexican American luminaries emerging in the late 1960s. This has given impetus and inspiration to what has become an enduring commitment to historical recovery and restoration projects of which the Handbook of Tejano History and this eBook are now a significant part. They meet up with the legacy agenda to extend voice, presence, and power for underrepresented, misrepresented and disjointed parts of our diverse communities’ histories and stories both within and outside the academy.

The Association recognized Tejano history as an emergent and promising field of study worthy of attention during the development of the six-volume New Handbook of Texas, which lasted from 1982 to 1996. In 1988 TSHA leadership secured funding from the Texas Committee for the Humanities to hire several staff researchers, including Cynthia Orozco, Teresa Palomo Acosta, María-Cristina García, and others. From 1988 to 1996, these writers worked with a number of advisory editors, including Arnoldo de León, Jesús F. de la Teja, Robert S. Weddle, Donald E. Chipman, and Paul D. Lack, to expand the Handbook’s content on Mexican American history. In doing so, the Handbook improved its claim of representativeness as it grew into the largest and most accessed encyclopedia on Texas history.

The Tejano Handbook Project, the Association’s more recent and concerted effort to add to the Mexican American presence in the Handbook, began in 2014 when Drs. Emilio Zamora and Andrés Tijerina proposed the idea and secured the necessary financial support from the Tejano Monument, Inc. and the sponsorship of the Association. The Tejano Handbook Project held two workshops, one at the Association’s 2014 annual meeting in San Antonio, and another in June 2014 at the Texas General Land Office in Austin, to encourage new submissions and to ensure that the contributions abide by a well-defined process of writing and production, and meet the highest standards of excellence for an encyclopedia entry. The process involved solicitations for entries, followed by submissions that Zamora and Tijerina, the co-directors of the project, reviewed and subsequently referred to the Handbook’s editorial staff for fact checking, copy editing, and online posting. Mike Campbell, the Association’s Chief Historian, made the final decision on the entries.

By all accounts, the Tejano Handbook Project has been a resounding success. Prominent authors and new researchers, as well as faculty who assigned topics to their undergraduate and graduate students, responded with high-quality entries on historical figures, events, and themes. The overwhelming response made it necessary to extend the project into a second year, to the point that contributors have now exceeded by a hundred percent the original goal of 100 new entries to more than 200.

We can also measure the success of the Tejano Handbook Project by noting the significance of the new entries to both Tejano and Texas history. Emma Tenayuca, a major labor organizer from San Antonio, for instance, reminds us that we cannot speak about Texas history without acknowledging the important Tejano contributions to intellectual, working class, women’s, and labor rights history. Nor can we deny the extraordinary record of military service and battlefield sacrifice by servicemen like José de la Luz Sáenz in World War I and Frank Tejeda in Vietnam. Moreover, new entries on Spanish Texas, elected officials, community leaders, ethnic conflict, education, and influential organizations reflect the vitality and continued development of Tejano history. The article on the Tejano Monument is especially emblematic of the importance of Tejanos in Texas history. The statuary, located prominently on the south lawn of the Texas Capitol, commemorates their history as a charter community in Texas and serves as a landmark statement on the lasting and indelible influence of embodied memory in the Tejano community. Taken as a whole, the new entries re-figure the constitution of the Handbook of Texas and in so doing, extend the value and fair use of Texas history in our times.

The attention given to the Tejano Monument is also appropriate because its board had the foresight to advance historical knowledge by funding the current effort to increase the presence of Tejanos in the Handbook of Texas and other initiatives like the Tejano History Curriculum Project, an Austin enterprise that is broadening the social studies curriculum in our public schools. In both cases, Tejanos are demonstrating that despite historic difficulties, they can find comfort in the recurring observation heard at the 2012 unveiling of the Tejano Monument, “We are still here.”

The Association, with the approval of its board of directors, decided to mark the achievement of the Tejano Handbook Project by sharing a representative sample of the new entries generated by the project along with some previously published articles as a tribute to Tejano history, but also as a demonstration of our commitment to its development and use by researchers, teachers, students and the general public.   

As co-editors of this eBook, Tejanos Through Time: Selections from the Handbook of Tejano History, we especially wish to thank our contributing authors, the staff and board of directors of the TSHA, and the many persons who have labored long and hard to make Tejano history the important field of study and lived experience that it is. It has been an honor and a privilege for us to play a role in the enriching of our collective, narrative past and in continuing to expand the scope of the Texas State Historical Association and the Handbook of Texas.

                   

Emilio Zamora
C0-Editor
Professor, Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin

Andrés Tijerina
Co-Editor
Professor, Department of History
Austin Community College

 

Another excellent must read by Ian Haney-López and Heather McGhee in The Nation.  Quote from within:

 The reactionary economic agenda made possible by dog-whistle politics is responsible not just for the devaluing of black lives but for the declining fortunes of the majority of white families. College costs have soared because anti-government dog whistling has mainstreamed extreme cuts to state budgets. Union busting, which drives down wages and benefits for all workers, has become popular because the image of the union worker has been tarred: now not a white man in a hardhat but a black woman behind a bureaucrat’s counter. When conservatives vilify every modest public benefit, from healthcare subsidies to unemployment insurance, as handouts to the undeserving, the social contract is shredded for everyone. By exposing how the political manipulation of racial anxiety has hollowed out of the middle class, Sanders can elevate a simple message: When racism wins, everyone loses.

Dog-whistle politics involve the metaphorical use of" racial dog whistles to transmute white anxiety into support for conservative economic policies that have harmed us all."  While Donald Trump will undoubtedly go down in history for his mastery of this, the point about this piece is that either most politicians use this harmful form of politics or they, like Bernie Sanders, are insufficiently skilled in knowing how to circumvent this reactionary framing of Black folks and other people of color in order to forge a progressive, multi-racial, multi-ethnic voting bloc.  Because they're afraid of antagonizing  whites that decry anything that comes close to advocating for "race-conscious" programs, they emphasize economic hardships faced by people of color. Hence, class and economics, as opposed to race and white supremacy.  The authors argue that both class and white supremacy need to get simultaneously addressed as follows:

 We think a different approach is necessary, one that links, rather than counterposes, class and race. The progressive movement should expand from a vision of racism as violence done solely to people of color to include a conception of racism as a political weapon wielded by elites against the 99 percent, nonwhite and white alike. It’s time for Sanders and other white economic populists to take up the race conversation with white voters, by directly addressing racial anxiety and its role in fueling popular support for policies that hand over the country to plutocrats.

I totally agree that whites would benefit greatly from open discussions of white racial anxiety seeing how these kinds of politics are about dividing and conquering in a way that has successfully worked historically to fracture the 99% and in so doing, unwittingly reconstituting our highly unequal status quo.

Angela Valenzuela
c/s

 How Populists Like Bernie Sanders Should Talk About Racism

To mobilize a multiracial coalition, progressives need to demonstrate how racism hurts us all.

By Ian Haney-López and Heather McGhee

January 28, 2016

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders poses for photos with supporters in Grinnell, Iowa. (AP Photo / Charlie Neibergall)

 

Bernie Sanders’s remarkable popularity going into the Iowa caucus shows that economic populism is ascendant on the left. And yet the notable whiteness of his followers forces an uncomfortable question about this emerging progressive coalition. It’s been 50 years since a Democratic presidential candidate won a majority of the white vote in a general election, and many liberals are understandably excited over the prospect of bringing white Reagan Democrats back into the fold. But what about the Obama Democrats, the multiracial coalition that forms the party’s present and the country’s future? Whether we can combine these constituencies is a fundamental question for the left. Can progressives finally come together around a unifying message that resonates with whites on class, people of color on race, and the 99 percent on both? 

We emphatically believe it’s possible, but first, the left will have to challenge its own orthodoxy that defines racism as something that wholly benefits whites and solely victimizes people of color. The truth is, in the post-war era, racism helped create the white middle class. Since the Reagan era, racism has helped destroy it. 

Continue reading here. 

Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote by Michelle Alexander

This is piece by Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, in The Nation is a must-read. She argues persuasively that the Clinton administration did more harm to the Black community than Reagan ever did.

-Angela

 Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote

From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.

By Michelle Alexander

February 10, 2016

Hillary and Bill Clinton in 1992. (Reuters Pictures)

 

Hillary Clinton loves black people. And black people love Hillary—or so it seems. Black politicians have lined up in droves to endorse her, eager to prove their loyalty to the Clintons in the hopes that their faithfulness will be remembered and rewarded. Black pastors are opening their church doors, and the Clintons are making themselves comfortably at home once again, engaging effortlessly in all the usual rituals associated with “courting the black vote,” a pursuit that typically begins and ends with Democratic politicians making black people feel liked and taken seriously. Doing something concrete to improve the conditions under which most black people live is generally not required.

Continue reading here.

Saving Spanish in Miami, by Matt Vasilogambros

Subtractive cultural assimilation is taking place in Miami where Spanish speaking is widespread.  That is, Spanish-English biliteracy is challenged in the land where dual language as a kind of bilingual education began.  The latter can be subtractive if the goal is less about promoting biliteracy and getting children into the English language curriculum.  Dual language education, however, is additive as it fosters literacy in both languages—not unlike Spanish language immersion, late-exit bilingual education programs.

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

Saving Spanish in Miami

Fifty years ago, hundreds of thousands of Cubans immigrated to the southern tip of Florida. Now, the city has to teach a new generation how to thrive in a bilingual economy.

Outside Little Havana's Cafe Versailles, a man reads The Miami Herald's Spanish-language newspaper. Alan Diaz / AP

• Matt Vasilogambros / The Atlantic
• Mar 15, 2016
• Next America: Communities

MIAMI—Spanish is an integral part of daily life here. In downtown restaurants, men in suits order cafecitos and huevos in Spanish before heading into their Brickell Avenue jobs. At night young professionals sipping on craft cocktails at outdoor Wynwood bars banter in their parents’ native tongue. Even disc jockeys on Top 40 radio stations speak in a way that’s distinctly Miamian, effortlessly cutting in and out of English, Spanish, and local slang before playing the latest hit.

Over the last 60 years, Miami has been the gateway to America for Hispanic immigrants. And ever since waves of Cuban exiles came to South Florida in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, the city’s economy and culture has been intertwined with Spanish. The local economy grew around immigrants who spoke Spanish (sometimes only Spanish), which in turn brought increased business opportunities, media operations, and tourism exchanges with Latin American countries.

As a result, Spanish speakers did well and built wealth, a fact that differentiates Miami from many other major cities, where Spanish is more commonly spoken by low-income residents. Here, Spanish is used across the socioeconomic spectrum. In Hialeah, a community just northwest of Miami with a median household income of $30,000, over 90 percent of residents speak Spanish, according to Census figures. In Key Biscayne, a wealthy enclave just south of Miami Beach that has a median household income of $121,000, around 70 percent of residents also speak Spanish.

Miami is a bilingual city with an economy that is dependent on both languages, says Phillip Carter, a professor of linguistics at Florida International University. But things are changing. While Spanish may have been spoken in homes growing up, recent research has shown younger generations of Miami Hispanics are less inclined to speak Spanish as they grow older and are far less likely to be able to read it.

“It’s important to have a workforce that can accommodate and work with the Spanish-speaking community.”

Like many young Cuban Americans, Paul Hernandez learned Spanish as a child from his grandparents, who couldn’t speak English. “I learned out of necessity,” he says. If the 28-year-old Hialeah city councilman one day does have children, he says he would teach them Spanish and would continue speaking the language on a daily basis. But he thinks he’s in the minority among Cuban Americans his age. “It’s not a matter of necessity for them,” he says. “It’s dying out. My generation speaks a very broken Spanish. It’s not proper at all. It’s very common to misuse words. And the generation that came after us speaks Spanish even less.” He says there is “absolutely” a decline in Spanish literacy in Miami.

This decline in biliteracy may lead to an employment gap in the coming decades, says Susan Martin, the elementary lead teacher at Coral Way Bilingual K-8 Center, a dual-language school in Miami. “Everywhere you go in Miami, you’re confronted with someone who will speak to you in Spanish,” says Martin. “Even in business, any office or bank you go, you will find someone who speaks Spanish and you may need to communicate with that person in Spanish. It’s important to have a workforce that can accommodate and work with the Spanish-speaking community.”

So, to say nothing of the value of preserving a vibrant and historic culture, it is in most Miamians’ economic interest to secure a bilingual future. The best way to do that is to focus on dual-language programs throughout the public school system, says Carter. In those programs, students learn in both Spanish and English. Miami-Dade County already has a strong foundation of such programs.

In 1963, shortly after Cuban exiles started arriving, Miami-Dade County Public Schools launched the first bilingual school in the United States at Coral Way Elementary School, which serves students in an area that extends from Little Havana to Brickell Avenue. In the decades since its launch, Coral Way, which now instructs 1,500 students from kindergarten through eighth grade in both English and Spanish, has become a national model for dual-language education. This isn’t a private school. When I visit her classroom, Maida Yanes asks her third-grade class in Spanish if anyone wants to recite a poem about Frida Kahlo. The entire class raises its hand in unbridled excitement. She picks one student, Nadia. Though her parents do not speak Spanish, she glides through the poem like a native speaker. On the wall, along with quotes and posters in Spanish, hangs a picture of Cuban national hero José Martí, who was the subject of several stories the class read last month. Today, the students are reading a Cuban folktale about a woman looking for a suitor. As they answer questions about what they’re reading on handouts, students whisper to each other in Spanish asking for help.

The Spanish-language curriculum is almost identical to the English one, in which students learn about grammar, literature, and writing in both languages. In the mornings, Yanes teaches language arts, math, and social studies in Spanish. Later in the day, another teacher instructs students in language arts, social studies, and science in English. “When you want a child to learn two languages at home, you want one parent to speak in English and the other parent to speak in Spanish so the child has a good distinction,” says Mayte Dovale, Coral Way’s principal. “We do the same thing here with teachers so they are departmentalizing throughout the entire school beginning in kindergarten.”

When the students get to the sixth grade, they learn language arts, science, and social studies in English and language, literature, humanities, and math in Spanish. By the time students are in eighth grade, they’re ready to take the Advanced Placement Spanish exam, which almost everyone passes, says Dovale. Even though 85 percent of the students who attend Coral Way are Hispanic, it doesn’t guarantee they would have achieved this level of Spanish comprehension at home, says Martin. “We do see that some of those families do not have the foundation in writing,” she says, “or in the proper, formal way of speaking that you would need for a work situation.”

If they choose, students can move on to a bilingual high-school education, either through local college-preparatory or international-baccalaureate schools, which not only earns them a high-school diploma but also a diploma from the Spanish government. This is the first step for students who want to participate in the bilingual job market.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools have begun moving toward more Spanish literacy education, though the district has been criticized for not doing enough. Last year, the district proposed a $4 million curriculum overhaul, boosting its extended foreign-language program to 146 schools—where students can learn subjects in both Spanish and English every day—and offering more opportunities for teachers to boost their training in bilingual teaching. FIU has also begun offering a graduate certificate in bilingual education to address this Spanish-language shortage among teachers in Miami-Dade County.

The economy in Miami evolved naturally to thrive with a bilingual population. But to sustain that, interventions are required. If Spanish-language education isn’t harnessed at the local level, says Carter, the linguist at FIU, then it puts Miami’s place as a bilingual economic hub at risk. “It’s just presumed that the high rates of bilingualism will continue into the future,” he says. “Bilingualism in Miami is not inevitable.”

Growing critically conscious teachers by A. Valenzuela (Ed.) is out!

I am happy to report that Growing critically conscious teachers: A social justice curriculum for educators of Latino/a Youth is out!

This was a collective effort, a labor of love that draws on the actual work that so many of us are doing in the area of teacher preparation, participatory action research (PAR), and  social justice. 

We hope that this book will inspire better and deeper thinking on how best to educate not only Latino/a youth—and youth of color, generally—but also future teachers of Latino/a youth since that's where the education for a linguistically and culturally diverse demographic should optimally begin.
 
You can order the book here: http://store.tcpress.com/0807756830.shtml

All royalties will go to our national organization, the National Latino/a Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAP) in support of our grow your own Latin@ Teacher Education Institutes Initiative in 5 cities in 5 states at present. Contributors: Carmen Mercado Barbosa​Adele Arellano, Jennifer Ayala, Margarita Margie Ines Berta-Avila​, Julio Cammarota​, José Cintrón, Barbara Flores, Melissa Rivera, and Louie Rodriguez​. Thanks to Sonia Nieto​, Christine Sleeter​, and Antonia Darder for the foreword, afterword, and blurb, respectively.

Thanks to all the great folks at Teachers College Press at Colombia University, beginning with Marie Ellen Larcada who has since retired but who encouraged this work at the beginning and also to Sarah Biondello who has been superb throughout the volume's many stages.  

Thanks, as well, to gifted artist Tanya Torres​, for the book's beautiful cover that captures the spirit and intent of the whole book, namely, to not only create a pathway for teachers into the teaching profession, but to also grow their critical consciousness--together with our own--through the rooted, organic, community-based curriculum and model that we collectively devised. This book represents literally years of work and hundreds of years of wisdom.  You'll see....

Angela Valenzuela
c/s

An open letter from the César E. Chávez Institute in support of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University

HAPPENING TODAY AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY.  SUPPORT ETHNIC STUDIES.  If you're wondering whether ethnic studies "works," check out my other posts from this week on this.  The jury is in.  Ethnic Studies promotes academic achievement, actual learning, and a positive sense of belonging not only in K12, but also at the higher education level.  Let's all support ethnic studies in SFSU and beyond. Let's not eliminate the very program that helped birth the well-developed program in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) that is now receiving accolades as a result of the rigorous Dee and Penner study that showed very positive findings regarding its benefits.

Dee, T. & Penner, E. (2016). The causal effects of cultural relevance: Evidence from an Ethnic Studies curriculum. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 21865.  http://www.nber.org/papers/w21865

 

To wit, see this morning's post on Ethnic Studies featured in The Atlantic.
 
Angela Valenzuela
c/s

#ethnicstudiesnow


An open letter from the César E. Chávez Institute
March 15, 2016

Dear Familia,

Campus rally tomorrow Wednesday 3/16/16

We at the Cesar Chavez Institute are reaching out to our extended community of colleagues and supporters to let you know what is happening here at our home campus of San Francisco State University.

You may have already heard that our parent institution, the College of Ethnic Studies, the birthplace of ethnic studies and the Third World Strike that transformed San Francisco and the nation, is today fighting for its very survival. The Institute is fighting alongside it to defend fully accessible, fully funded, high-quality, relevant public higher education.

Campus-wide budget cuts were introduced during the Great Recession, as the State slashed funding to California State University; all units were affected, but being the smallest of the five colleges on campus, the decade of reduced funding has had an exponentially larger impact on ours - and disproportionately so, as recently admitted by President Wong.
An intended additional funding reduction announced by the President and Provost recently will cut our College to the bone, resulting in dismissal of all CoES lecturers, a 40% reduction in undergraduate and graduate courses, loss of faculty lines, untenable reductions in departmental support, shutting of the college's vital Student Resource Center, and the mandated closure of our Institute.

There has been a tremendous reaction of outrage and manifest solidarity across campus and from institutions and student bodies across the State and country. Our own students have inspired and moved everyone with their swift, cohesive and courageous mobilizations, spear-heading a nationally connected movement to not only defend ethnic studies but advance them by demanding increased institutional support.

The students, faculty, alumnus, administrators and staff are standing firm, armed with facts, numbers, and a clear contextual focus, and responding to the fundamentally disrespectful and devaluing rhetoric and actions coming from individuals in the higher University administration. This administration's approach echoes the historical treatment of marginalized communities everywhere - increasing disinvestment and disengagement, leading to deterioration and a prolonged struggle for resources, then blaming the communities for the crisis and watching silently while displacement and disempowerment silence us.

As our Dean just wrote in his public letter:

"We live in an historical moment when the state of California and the United States are experiencing unprecedented personal wealth, albeit held in the smallest percent of the population ever. At the same time, political leaders have chosen to provide the smallest share of that wealth for the public good, particularly public higher education. Public higher education is a proven pipeline to success for the poor and working classes and the backbone of the nation's real economic strength. Moreover, we are experiencing one of the most vitriolic backlashes against people of color, the poor, gender or sexually non-conforming communities and others in recent history. Our local challenge is apparently a flashpoint for systemic state and national challenges."

The Institute

At the César E. Chávez Institute we have worked diligently to obtain outside funding to support a high quality research agenda directly linked to community's needs. For the last 20 plus years, the Institute has been one of the more prolific research centers on campus, seeding efforts like Jim Quesada's grant on immigrant day laborers, Caitlyn Ryan's nationally recognized project on family acceptance for LGBTQ youth, the powerful work with youth of color by Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Sean Ginwright and Antwi Akom, and more recently Leticia Marquez-Magana's NIH grant to support students of color in the sciences, which emerged from our own educational equity work.

Previously the Institute had three faculty lines, a full-time Director and a full-time Director of Administration, and full administrative support. The still-deepening reductions in institutional support by the University have seriously hurt the Institute and we now rely only on a part-time Director and one staff member.  Despite these severe cuts from 2008 to today, the Institute generated $1,070,000 in external funding during the same time period. Today, the university provides no support to the Institute, and advocates for its closure next fall as a cost-saving measure.

Even now, as this battle for appropriate resource allocation heats up, the Institute is able to meet all its current commitments and the new commitments being contracted for the near future. New grants will sustain the staffing and operations specifically outlined in their respective proposals. But one thing is clear - solid institutional support is needed for a research institute to expand its grant funding, support new projects that reap benefits for both the university and the community, and attract the talent needed for expanding our work in honor of César Chávez' legacy.

What you can do:

Join us tomorrow Wednesday at a student-led protest on campus (see flyer below) to demand increased, fully accessible, fully funded, high-quality, relevant public higher education.

Write President Leslie Wong
Write the Provost Sue Rosser
¡Ya basta!
Defend our communities
Defend the vital institutions we have created
Defend  our  ideas  our  stories

In respect and solidarity,
Belinda Reyes
Director

The Ongoing Battle Over Ethnic Studies

Glad to see the Dee and Penner study featured in The Atlantic.  I posted on this earlier this week, too (link here).  The evidence of the positive impact of ethnic studies is unequivocal.  Read the actual study here:  

Dee, T. & Penner, E. (2016). The causal effects of cultural relevance: Evidence from an Ethnic Studies curriculum. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 21865.  http://www.nber.org/papers/w21865

 Now ethnic studies is at risk at San Francisco State University under the guise of budget cuts.  A rally take place there today and this is a program worth defending. And yes, it's just as important for Anglos.  It's potentially liberating.

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

#saveethnicstudiesnow

The Ongoing Battle Over Ethnic Studies

A new study suggests that such courses can dramatically elevate the achievement of at-risk students. But is that enough proof that they’re worth the investment?

Ross D. Franklin / AP

• Melinda D. Anderson
• Mar 7, 2016

In Tucson, Arizona, Che Guevara posters and Paulo Freire’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed are the spark that set off a heated conflict over ethnic studies that has made national headlines for years. For critics, including two former state schools superintendents, the Mexican American studies program in the Tucson Unified School District is little more than divisive propaganda: “ethnic chauvinism” with a “very toxic effect … in an educational setting.” For supporters, reading literature on Chicano history in America and critical race theory is intended to close cultural gaps in the curriculum—and to close academic gaps for the district’s Hispanic students.
The intense controversy in Tucson over ethnic studies—best described as the study of the social, political, economic, and historical perspectives of America’s diverse racial and ethnic groups—might seem like a new debate, but it’s over a century in the making. The educator and historian W.E.B. DuBois as early as the 1900s called for teaching black history in U.S. schools to challenge the prevailing narrative of black inferiority. More than half a century later, Freedom Schools emerged out of the 1960s civil-rights movement as alternative schools with a curriculum steeped in black culture and lessons drawn from black students’ lived experiences. About the same time the discipline of ethnic studies ignited on college campuses, as students of color considered the Eurocentric dominance in textbooks and lessons, and demanded multicultural courses.

Eventually the concept trickled down to K-12 schools. In 1994, Berkeley High in California became one of the first high schools in the country to offer ethnic studies, the program facing opposition even in a town known to be a bastion of progressive thinking. More recently, Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school district, added an ethnic-studies course to its high-school graduation requirements. (Interestingly, the country’s higher-education pioneer in the field is now struggling to stay afloat as budget cuts threaten the small, iconic program at San Francisco State University.)
For more than 20 years ethnic studies in American public schools has slowly evolved and grown, with the value for students becoming clearer over time. Yet even as enthusiasts have called for more ethnic-studies programs—and the debate rages on over making the identities of black, Asian, Native American, and Latino students the centerpiece of class instruction—notably absent was data linking culturally relevant pedagogy specifically to measurable student gains. This changed this year with new research that shows ethnic-studies classes boost student attendance, GPAs, and high-school credits for a key student group—a pivotal finding that brings hard evidence to the dispute over adding these courses in public schools.

“The critical-thinking skills and self-esteem they develop in ethnic studies helps them advance in their education, communities, and careers.”

Stanford University researchers examined the impact of an ethnic-studies curriculum for struggling ninth-grade students who participated in a pilot program in San Francisco high schools from 2010 to 2014. The academic performance for these students, identified as being at high risk for dropping out, was compared with that of classmates who weren’t enrolled in such classes. The improvements were significant: Attendance jumped by 21 percentage points, grade-point average by 1.4 points, and students in ethnic-studies courses covering discrimination, stereotypes, and social-justice movements earned 23 more credits toward graduation. Overall, the largest gains were found among boys and Hispanic students, and in the subjects of math and science.

Thomas S. Dee, the study’s co-author and a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, says the notable growth attributed to ethnic studies is important, more so because of the age group studied. “The transition [from middle school to high school] can be a difficult one for disadvantaged children,” Dee said, explaining that low grades, poor attendance, and the failure to accumulate credits can derail them in the freshman year. “Taking ethnic studies not only improved the academic performance of students but also promoted their academic engagement and discouraged dropping out.”
Dee hopes the study will promote more interest in ethnic-studies offerings, though he admits that it can be difficult to replicate and scale up a pilot program without the “planning, professional development, and collaboration among teachers” that is crucial to its success. The effects of ethnic studies for the broader population of students—youth not classified as a dropout risk—also remain uncertain, he said.
But some scholars find no reason for that caveat. Camille Z. Charles, a professor of sociology, Africana studies, and education at the University of Pennsylvania, says there are distinct advantages to all students taking ethnic studies, regardless of whether they are academically at-risk. “For students of color, who often feel so alienated in school settings no matter their class backgrounds, I don’t think we should minimize the ‘feel good’ component,” she said, asserting that it’s vital for all children of color to see themselves “in the important parts of [American] history, as well as in the history being made right now.” Siobhan King Brooks, an assistant professor of African American studies at Cal State Fullerton, also points to far-reaching benefits for all students of color—inside and out of the classroom. “The critical-thinking skills and self-esteem they develop in ethnic studies helps them advance in their education, communities, and careers,” said Brooks, describing the feelings of empowerment that come from knowing the full extent of one’s involvement in U.S. history.

Indeed, today, school leaders and student activists, in communities of all sizes, are embracing ethnic-studies courses as a way to expand and diversify classroom content. Earlier this year members of the Providence Student Union, a youth-led organizing group, kicked off a new campaign advocating for ethnic studies for all high-school students. In making their case, student leaders called attention to the glaring disparity between the city’s public-school curriculum and the students it teaches; 90 percent of those enrolled in Providence schools are students of color. The student union’s review of a nearly 2,000-page history textbook found that less than 5 percent of the book was devoted to the contributions of people of color. "I’m Nigerian. I’m Muslim. I’m also an American,” the high-school student Latifat Odetunde told The Providence Journal, noting stories like his are what history books “leave out."
But both Brooks and Charles state that this shift in knowledge and understanding is equally important for white students. Ethnic-studies courses dispel myths, Brooks said, and build connections among students as opposed to divisions. “Similar to students of color, white students have been miseducated about the roles of both whites and people of color throughout history,” she said, and culturally relevant lessons allow white children to “not only learn about people of color, but also white people’s roles as oppressors and activists fighting for racial change. This is very important because often whites feel there is nothing [they] can do to change racism.”
Likewise, Charles is adamant that all students need ethnic studies to unlearn watered-down versions of historical events and learn America’s inconvenient and necessary truths. “The way that we teach our history and culture … the way that we exclude and minimize certain groups and their experiences, while privileging others, feeds prejudice and negative stereotypes,” said Charles. She insists that ethnic-studies classes, and rethinking traditional courses to be more accurate and inclusive, is the path to countering centuries of misinformation—what W.E.B. DuBois critiqued.
“I tell my students that prejudice and discrimination is in our cultural DNA, because the vast majority of American holidays and rituals, and our understanding of American history and culture, all of these things reinforce the superiority of Anglo-American or white American history and experience,” she said. “And we all suffer the consequences of that.”

This article is part of our Next America: Higher Education project, which is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Why The Arts Are As Important As Science Or Math

Harvard professor Ellen Winner is featured in this piece on the importance of the arts in education. I think that this is a beginning, important statement that arts are important to culture regardless of any "non-arts" benefits and that all civilizations are prized on the basis of their art.   Dr. Winner further makes the "creative class" argument, if you will, that art engenders the "artistic creators of the future," as well as the "innovative leaders."  

These are good liberal arguments, but there are clearly other important concerns.  Let's start with equity.  Arts for the wealthy is not in jeopardy while the arts for the poor and disenfranchised is.  Another is fairness.  Art by the poor frequently gets appropriated (stolen) and monetized by the wealthy, undermining the productions of community artists. Relatedly, identity and representation, and thusly, power, politics, and cultural integrity are profoundly at play.   

To justify the arts in liberal terms, risks their portrayal as a luxury when for our communities, these looming issues of equity and fairness make them squarely about survival as our Austin Chican@/Latin@ artists and community are often quick to note.  That is, when your community is constantly subjected to marginalizing forces like gentrification, job insecurity, and poverty, artistic productions are a meaningful, historic way to find a place on the seemingly always contested American landscape and in so doing, to write oneself into history in a way that both honors this heritage and renders it visible, complex, and powerful.
 
Much to consider here. I am happy, in any case, to at least see some attention accorded to this matter, particularly when our arts programs (like physical education) in many of our low-income schools are getting abolished.  This tragedy of policy, politics, and political will symbolizes the ways in which so many of our children are systematically deprived of essential content areas like the arts that breathe identity, intellectual depth, and a sense of what it means to be human, into the curriculum.  For all of this, too, we must continue to struggle.

Angela Valenzuela
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Why The Arts Are As Important As Science Or Math

Posted: 19/02/2016 08:12 IST Updated: 19/02/2016 08:12 IST

"Cultures are judged on the basis of their arts; and most cultures and most historical eras have not doubted the importance of studying the arts. Let's assume then, that the arts should be a part of every child's education and that they are given serious treatment as is the case with mathematics, or history, or biology. Let's remember why societies have always included the arts in every child's education. The reason is simple. The arts are a fundamentally important part of culture, and an education without them is an impoverished education, leading to an impoverished society. Studying the arts should not have to be justified. The arts are as important as the sciences: they are time-honoured ways of learning, knowing, and expressing." -- Ellen Winner, Lois Hetland et all, "The Arts and Academic Achievement"

With the sciences increasingly gaining in importance, this is an interesting juncture in which to review the state of the arts in education, along with their importance, relevance and influence on students.
"When schools cut short the time reserved for the arts and reallocate the time for some other 'important' subject, they may not just be losing their ability to produce the artistic creators of the future, but also innovative leaders who can improve upon the world they have inherited," say Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland, both experts on arts education.
What is the role of the arts in moulding a person? The question assumes great significance today in the backdrop of a culture - including in India -- in which arts are seen as unimportant, perhaps even a waste of time, as compared to 'strategic' subjects. This trend has raised the hackles of education experts across the world, who argue that arts can indeed contribute tremendously to the overall development of a student and should not be ignored at any cost.

According to research, students who study the arts show improvement in their capabilities in other areas as well, including in the sciences, math and reading.

According to various research studies, students who study the arts show improvement in their capabilities in other areas as well, including in the sciences, math and reading. Practicing the arts develop imagination, innovative thinking and creativity, thus adding value to non-arts academic outcomes as well.
However, experts like Ellen Winner point out that it is dangerous to classify arts education as secondary or supplementary in comparison with the "super" non-arts subjects. Doing so puts the arts in a weakened and vulnerable position.
"Arts educators must build justifications on the relevance and significance of these subjects based on what is inherently valuable about the arts, even when they contribute secondary benefits other than purposeful orientation. Just as we do not (and cannot) downgrade history and overrate mathematics, we must not allow policy-makers to justify the isolation or inclusion of the arts for the sake of other academic subject matters," Winner says.
According to Winner, the arts are the only school subjects that have been challenged to demonstrate their usefulness. If we deprioritize physical education and give more attention to science, the results will only prove to be detrimental. Perhaps, with more attention to the potential of the arts to foster transfer (of knowledge applicability in other spheres), we can begin to understand their importance better. But even when the relationships are understood, the justification for arts programmes must be based on their inherent merit.

Image: www.ellenwinner.com

The arts are good for our children, irrespective of any non-arts benefits. They must be considered as an integral part of a well-rounded education.

The arts can help a person cultivate a way of thinking that is not possible in other disciplines. The same might be said of athletics. What if coaches begin to claim that playing baseball increases students' mathematical ability because of the complex score- keeping methodology? Once researchers put such a claim to test, they will only find that it doesn't hold true. In such a scenario, would school boards take a hard stand against baseball by cutting the budget for the game? Of course not. Because irrespective of the positive academic effects of baseball on students, schools believe sports are inherently good for kids.

We should make the same argument for the arts: the arts are good for our children, irrespective of any non-arts benefits. They must be considered as an integral part of a well-rounded education.
Winner sums it up best in the paper "The Arts and Academic Achievement":

"Let's bet on history. Of course, we do not know for sure what is the best education for children to ensure that they will grow up to lead productive and happy lives. But the arts have been around longer than the sciences; cultures are judged on the basis of their arts; and most cultures and most historical eras have not doubted the importance of studying the arts.
Let's assume then, that the arts should be a part of every child's education and that they are given serious treatment as is the case with mathematics, or history, or biology. Let's remember why societies have always included the arts in every child's education. The reason is simple. The arts are a fundamentally important part of culture, and an education without them is an impoverished education, leading to an impoverished society. Studying the arts should not have to be justified in terms of anything else. The arts are as important as the sciences: they are time-honoured ways of learning, knowing, and expressing."

A version of this article was published in Education Insider magazine