This is a really good report by John Fensterwald in EdSource. Research evidence points strongly to the positive impact of Ethnic Studies curricula over the long term with respect to key outcomes about which we should care—when taught, of course, by well-prepared teachers. 

Although it most certainly is a movement unto itself, support for Ethnic Studies is evidence-based and shouldn't at all get caught up under today's "culture war" frame that opposes the teaching of Critical Race Theory. Why, when Ethnic studies is the antidote to to student alienation from school contexts that are often sterile, unfriendly, or even hostile to children of color? Why, when, as Stanford researcher Thomas Dee states, such classrooms create "spaces where they [students] feel a sense of belongingness and engagement?" The short answer is that with changing demographics, many leaders in power do not want to empower these youth with either the precious knowledge or uplift that ethnic studies classrooms provide.

Regardless of the intention behind those shrill voices making the case against Critical Race Theory—which is but one methodological orientation—among many utilized by our Ethnic Studies teachers, the benefits that accrue to ALL, including white, children merit mention. 

These courses simply make school more interesting because they speak to students' lived experiences while opening the creative door to personal or individual expression—and freedom of expression is everybody's inalienable right in a democracy.

Someday, I trust, what we know today as "Ethnic Studies" will simply be called "a good and virtuous education."

-Angela Valenzuela

Research finds ethnic studies in San Francisco had enduring impact

Ninth grade course engaged and motivated students who hadn't shown prior success in school 

by John Fensterwald | September 7, 2021 | EdSource.org

Research released Monday found that the benefits for San Francisco Unified students who took an ethnic studies course in ninth grade lasted throughout high school, resulting in higher attendance, higher graduation rates and increased enrollment in college, compared with similarly matched students who didn’t take the course.

The update of an often-cited 2017 study provides the first quantitative evidence of the longer-run academic impact of ethnic studies. Not only did the strikingly large benefits from the course not fade after ninth grade, but the course produced “compelling and causally credible evidence” of the power to “change learning trajectories” of the students targeted for the study — those with below-average grades in eighth grade, said Thomas Dee, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-author of the research.

Those historically underserved students “experience school environments as unwelcoming, or even hostile,” Dee said. The course appeared to succeed in changing their expectations at an important time, when students are deciding if they belong in high school. San Francisco Unified succeeded by engaging students “critically in an honest discussion of U.S. history and creating classroom spaces where they feel a sense of belongingness and engagement,” Dee said.

The peer-reviewed study appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dee’s co-authors are Emily Penner, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Sade Bonilla, a former Stanford Graduate School of Education doctoral student who is now an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Its publication coincides with a final vote later this week in the California Legislature on a bill that would require all students to take a semester course in ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement, starting with the class of 2030. High schools would have to start offering ethnic studies by 2025-26. Assembly Bill 101, authored by Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, is expected to pass easily. Gov. Gavin Newsom will have a month to decide whether to sign it.

Dee and the co-researchers caution, however, not to generalize the results of a study of 1,405 ninth-graders, only 13% of whom — about 180 students — took the ethnic studies course. The study was designed to measure the effect on at-risk students by comparing the results of students with grades of C or slightly below in eighth grade, who were assigned ethnic studies by default, to students with average grades of C or slightly above.

Whether the positive impact would apply to all students, especially those already thriving academically, is “an important, open question,” Dee said. Another caveat, the study noted, is that in San Francisco Unified, the ethnic studies course, developed over several years, was taught by well-trained teachers.

“It’s exciting because it’s a proof point about what this type of pedagogy can do for students, but the fact that it was a smaller-scale pilot should create some agnosticism about our capacity to replicate and scale this up,” Dee said.

The initial study, which measured the course’s impact on students in ninth grade, produced surprisingly positive results. Attendance of the students who took the course improved 21%; grade point average grew 1.4 out of 4 points, and credits earned improved 23 credits, out of 60 possible credits.

The impact continued throughout high school with impressive effects. The ethnic studies students’ graduation rates were 16 to 19 percentage points greater than similar students who didn’t take the course. Ethnic studies takers neared the district’s 220 credit requirement for graduation; the non-takers had 20 fewer credits. By between 10 and 16 percentage points, more ethnic studies takers enrolled in college within a year or two of graduation.

The demographics of students in the study and San Francisco Unified significantly differ from that of the state and the nation; 60% were Asian, 23% Latino, 6% Black and 5% white. Asian and Latino students showed significant gains in graduation; the numbers of white and Black students in the study were too small for reliable comparisons, the study said.

San Francisco Unified was one of the first districts to develop an ethnic studies curriculum; the study covered students who took the course between 2011-12 and 2013-14.

The state’s model ethnic studies curriculum, approved in March after two years, with multiple drafts and heated debates over what it should include, is optional; districts can pick and choose elements they like — or choose none of them. Assembly Bill 101 would not prescribe the content, although a district must offer a course that the University of California approved as meeting A-G admission criteria.

In a letter to the State Board of Education in January, three dozen professors from across the nation argued there was insufficient evidence to support assertions in the proposed model curriculum that research had found extensive benefits from ethnic studies. The evidence was overstated or unfounded, it said, and should be removed from the document.

Most of the 10-page letter was directed at the writing of Christine Sleeter, an author and emerita professor at California State University, Monterey Bay, and a strong advocate of ethnic studies. But in a section about the San Francisco Unified study, the writers criticized Dee and Penner for not including low-performing students who declined to take the ethnic studies course in their comparison. They also said the authors had glided over data showing that taking ethnic studies did not lead to improvement of students with a higher or lower GPA than the students at the center of the study.

San Francisco course’s anti-racism focus

The study summarized the themes of San Francisco’s course as “social justice, anti-racism, stereotypes, and social movements led by people of color from U.S. history spanning the late eighteenth century until the 1970s.” It stressed ties to the Third World Liberation Front, the coalition of Black, Latino and Asian student groups whose 1968 strike at San Francisco State University led to the nation’s first ethnic studies courses. The learning objectives of the course included “student knowledge of and ability to combat racism and other forms of oppression, increased student commitment to social justice, and improvement of student pride in their own identities and communities.”

Districts outside the Bay Area might steer clear of the course that promotes activism, comes across as ideological and could alienate some parents, ethnic groups and students in the class.

The study itself draws no conclusion about whether the particular course content contributed to the positive results.

What’s more essential, Dee said, is “culturally relevant” instruction that motivates and engages students. “So it’s not clear to me those mediating mechanisms require really doctrinaire, inflammatory content,” he said.

“There’s something I found impoverishing about the public debate over ethnic studies and, more recently, critical race theory,” he said. “And it’s because it has a cultural war frame” instead of focusing on “what’s going on with teaching and learning and student motivation and engagement.”

To get more reports like this one, click here to sign up for EdSource’s no-cost daily email on latest developments in education.

So happy to read these news about the ground that Ethnic Studies is gaining throughout the country.  This despite the anti-immigrant rhetoric and the racial and ethnic bias we still face as a country even if it's getting more attention from the news media—and as noted squarely at the Oscars this weekend, too.  

We ourselves here in Austin had a first-ever Ethnic Studies summit last Friday evening that brought together UT Ethnic Studies students and faculty with AISD school district staff, teachers, and high school students to talk about the first year of the roll out.  Currently taught in 8 high schools, AISD is the first district in the state of Texas to implement Ethnic Studies to scale—and with plans to offer it next year at the high school level districtwide.  You can view the summit at this link since we recorded it live on Facebook.

 Clearly Ethnic Studies is making a massive difference in these students' lives along the very same lines as the encouraging news story below.  Thanks to my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Roberto Calderón, for sharing.

-Angela Valenzuela

 

Historia Chicana

4 March 2018

Amid Anti-immigrant and Racial Clashes, Ethnic Studies Programs Blossom in Public Schools

By Tribune News Service on March 4, 2018 3:34 pm

As public debates swirl around “Dreamers,” President Donald Trump’s border wall and Black Lives Matter, the study of race and ethnicity is booming in public schools.

Nationwide, states and school systems are refining, expanding or adopting courses that explore history, literature and politics through the eyes of people who aren’t white. The programs, which until recently were banned in Arizona and derided as anti-American, are thriving in unexpected places. Some districts are making ethnic studies compulsory — for whites as well as minorities.

Teacher Jr Arimboanga shows his ethnic studies students a video about racism at John O’Connell High School in San Francisco on Jan. 22, 2018. (Josh Edelson/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

“In our current political context, especially with the president, there has been a huge gain in the critical study of race and ethnicity, and the desire for students to see themselves reflected in what they are learning,” said Julia Jordan-Zachery, a professor at Providence College in Rhode Island and president of the National Association for Ethnic Studies. “The interest predates Trump, but it’s only growing now. It’s a way of flipping the script on what teaching is traditionally supposed to be.”

It’s a profound shift from just seven years ago, when the closing of a Mexican-American studies program in Tucson caused a national uproar.

Last May, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb — who took over the job from Mike Pence, now the vice president — signed a law requiring every high school to offer an ethnic or racial studies elective each year. The move came after years of failed attempts to get similar laws on the books. What changed?

Republicans teamed up with Democrats and called for classes to be electives instead of requirements. Students need the “opportunity to take a class that relates to their experiences and heritage,” the bill’s co-sponsor, Republican state Rep. Robert Behning, said at the time.

Indiana leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People launched an aggressive lobbying effort, spurred in part by police shootings of unarmed black Americans.

In June, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill requiring ethnic studies for all public school students between kindergarten and 12th grade. As in Indiana, racial minority groups — emboldened in part by a number of hate crimes in one of the country’s whitest states — were behind the change.

The law compels Oregon educators to look at where they fail “to recognize the histories, contributions and perspectives of ethnic minorities and social minorities.” It includes women, the disabled, refugees, immigrants and LGBT people among “social minorities.”

Also last June, the Seattle school board said it would weave ethnic studies into its schools’ curriculums after coming under NAACP pressure.

While previous campaigns to establish ethnic studies programs around the U.S. targeted minority groups, the Seattle NAACP made a different case, asserting on its website, “Ethnic studies courses benefit white students, who disproportionately have the privilege to be unaware of the realities of racism.” The argument was similar in the mostly black and Latino city of Bridgeport, Conn., where last October school administrators decided to require students to take a half-year class on African-American studies, Caribbean/Latin American studies or a course on race to graduate.

“Even in places where it hasn’t fully blossomed, there are steps being taken to incorporate ethnic studies,” Jordan-Zachery said. That includes Kansas and Texas, where legislators are pushing measures that would institute Mexican-American studies classes and those on other ethnic groups.

“For much of the history of education in the U.S., we have been deleted and erased in textbooks,” said Georgina C. Perez, a Latina Democrat on the Texas state Board of Education. Through ethnic studies, she said, “we’re reclaiming our history.”

States and cities are following California, where education officials are standardizing what’s taught in ethnic studies classes after highly touted programs in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.

Ethnic studies grew out of the civil rights and anti-colonial movements of the 1960s. San Francisco State University was a pioneer, with its College of Ethnic Studies that launched in 1968. UC Berkeley opened an ethnic studies department a year later. In 1994, Berkeley High School became one of the first public high schools to offer ethnic studies.

A key for many programs is their reading lists. At Barack and Michelle Obama Elementary School in St. Paul, Minn., kids in an African-American studies class read “Desmond and the Very Mean Word,” a story based on the childhood of future Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu in apartheid South Africa.

At John O’Connell High School in San Francisco, ninth-grade ethnic studies students look at how news and entertainment media portray minorities, and they read from the autobiography of black nationalist Assata Shakur and the Eddie Huang memoir on his experience as an Asian-American, “Fresh off the Boat.”

In Sarah Rodriguez’s ethnic studies class at Santa Monica High School, a recent lesson revolved around students discussing activism against gentrification in Boyle Heights, where art galleries and coffee shops have attracted white and more well-off newcomers in the traditionally Mexican-American, working-class neighborhood.

Activists celebrated last year after an arts nonprofit called PSSST shut down amid criticism that it was helping to displace locals.

Rodriguez told the 17 students — a mix of sophomores, juniors and seniors — to discuss a Boyle Heights blog that suggested gentrification counted as a form of racist state violence.

She asked students if they agreed that the transformation of a neighborhood, often fueled by government policies that cater to business interests, could be described that way. Some said yes. Some said the answer wasn’t so simple, especially after they watched a documentary about a Latina artist who praised the arrival of galleries and said the neighborhood was now safer than when she grew up there.

“The class really challenges you to think about your identity yourself,” said Diana Hernandez, a Mexican-American sophomore. “It helps us make more sense of what we’re learning throughout the school day.”

Nationally, supporters of ethnic studies say they lead to better grades and graduation rates. They often cite a 2016 Stanford University study assessing the San Francisco Unified School District’s ethnic studies program when it was a pilot, from 2010 to 2014. The study found that students who took ethnic studies courses, including many who came from lower-income families, performed better overall than other students.

Ethnic studies students’ attendance rates were 21 percentage points higher, they earned more points toward graduation and their grade-point averages rose by 1.4 points. Students made the biggest gains in science and math, and boys and Latino students made the greatest improvements.

Jr Arimboanga, an ethnic studies teacher at John O’Connell High, one of the schools in the San Francisco study, said confidence and study skills have increased among students who have taken the classes.

“When you look at traditional world history that many of our students take, the textbook is the dominant narrative,” Arimboanga said. “It focuses on a Eurocentric experience. People of color are mentioned in negative or simplified ways. The African-American experience only starts with slavery and forgets the previous rich history in Africa. Latinos and Mexican-American students often have a paragraph around the Mexican-American War, but don’t read about the native experience of Latinx peoples before colonialism.”

His syllabus includes a screening of “Precious Knowledge,” a PBS documentary about the fight for Mexican-American studies in Tucson.

The school district shut down the program in 2012 after state officials threatened to withhold more than $14 million for violating a newly passed law banning courses tailored for a particular ethnic group or that were deemed to fuel anti-American sentiment.

Then-Arizona Superintendent of Education John Huppenthal said a Tucson class he observed — where a Che Guevara image hung on a wall and he said a lecture described Benjamin Franklin as racist — seemed anti-white. Kids “understood the framework that was being laid out — that Hispanics are the oppressed and Caucasians are the oppressors. That’s very troubling,” he told The Times at the time.

In response, the district introduced a program for “culturally relevant” teaching that didn’t run afoul of the law but still allowed classes on government and history with Mexican-American and African American perspectives.

In August, a federal judge in Phoenix declared the ban on ethnic studies unconstitutional, saying it violated Latino students’ First Amendment “right to receive information and ideas.”

In December the same judge banned Arizona from enforcing the law, and cited Huppenthal’s crusade against the courses.

Ethnic studies supporters hailed the decision, hoping it would spur the growth of such programs across the U.S.

But in Arizona, the subject remains touchy. State education officials said they want to preserve elements of the ban. Trustees of the Tucson Unified School District, although given the green light by the federal judge, held off on resuming Mexican-American studies courses in January.

“While it’s growing in California and elsewhere, it’s still a controversial issue here,” said school board member Kristel Foster, who sponsored the proposal to once again allow Mexican-American studies. “Every election here people still ask about Mexican-American studies. The ban is gone, and things have moved in many places nationally, but it’s still having an effect here.”

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Historia Chicana

Mexican American Studies

University of North Texas

Denton, Texas

 
This post offers a practitioner perspective on San Francisco Unified School District's (SFUSD)  partnership with Ethnic Studies at Cal State San Francisco, and Stanford University as research partners.


From the district's website, you can read more on what students say Ethnic Studies is:

“We’re learning about power — political, economic, social — our race, ethnicity, culture, nationality,” says 14-year-old freshman James Liu.

That’s because ethnic studies is not simply a history course detailing the achievements of members of different racial groups; the curriculum is conscious of and sometimes analytical about how race and ethnicity are intertwined with power.

SFUSD is in the great situation of improving its Ethnic Studies curriculum whereas, in most other places, it's mostly non-existent.  That said, as I've blogged previously, the movement is growing precipitously and it's very exciting and inspiring, to say the least.

-Angela

Using Evidence to Improve Ethnic Studies Curriculum for San Francisco Students

By Urban Education Contributor on August 3, 2017 6:00 AM |

This post is by Bill Sanderson, Assistant Superintendent of High Schools, and Daisy Santos, Executive Director of Humanities at San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD, @SFUnified). Today's post is the practitioner perspective on the research introduced by the Stanford-SFUSD Partnership (@StanfordSFUSD) in Monday's post: Can Ethnic Studies Courses Help Students Succeed in School? Evidence from San Francisco.

The Stanford-SFUSD Partnership previously blogged about the effects of Transitional Kindergarten in San Francisco and how these research findings impacted practice.

When San Francisco Unified School District's commissioners passed a resolution to pilot an ethnic studies course in a select group of five high schools, it stated that "a growing body of academic research shows the importance of culturally meaningful and relevant curriculum."

We already knew that the resolution was on the right track when it said that the course itself would "help close the achievement gap, reduce dropout rates, and increase graduation rates."

We were ready.

However, we knew the school board commissioners would want to know if the ethnic studies course piloted across a set of San Francisco high schools in fact achieved that intended outcome.

We turned to our partnership with Stanford University to find a researcher who could help us analyze the pilot course outcomes. We wanted to have evidence when our school board considered expanding the resolution beyond a small group of schools.

We engaged in many hours of discussions and data review, first with Stanford Professor Tom Dee, and then with Post-Doc (now Assistant Professor at UC Irvine) Emily Penner, about the implementation of the pilot course. Tom and Emily shared the results with us just a few days before the board was to consider a resolution to expand the pilot. 

The Stanford study showed the pilot course boosted students' GPA and attendance in significant ways. This gave us full confidence to support the expansion of the ethnic studies course across San Francisco high schools.

We were then tasked with scaling the ethnic studies course to a broader array of our high schools. While Tom and Emily brought the expertise of the original data, as economists, they could not help us think about how to adapt the piloted course curriculum.

SFUSD teachers, in collaboration with SF State University, originally designed the course. After reviewing the current state of the curriculum, we were aware that we needed to revisit the curriculum in order to make it a viable course for all public high schools in San Francisco.

So, we turned to the expertise of our own teachers to redesign the curriculum and make adjustments to the course to implement at scale. Four important steps we took were:

• Engaging the teachers who taught the pilot course (and with strong backgrounds in ethnic studies content) in the revision of the ethnic studies curriculum
• Updating the ethnic studies curriculum to make the key elements about content more accessible to teachers with less of a background teaching ethnic studies
• Creating units of study and lesson plans in alignment with state standards for history and social science
• Providing teachers who were new to the course with professional development prior to the new school year as well as monthly meetings to support their instruction throughout the year. (This provided teachers with a community where they could discuss their practice).

We are now in talks with our Stanford partners to start the next phase of research on SFUSD's ethnic studies courses. We hope to study the longitudinal outcomes of the students in the original pilot, but to also understand the implementation and the outcomes of our expanded ethnic studies course.

In addition to working with our Stanford research partners, we look forward to our continued work with our teachers on the ethnic studies course as we continue on our learning journey.