Ethnic Studies and Culturally-Relevant Pedagogy Under Attack

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Text from Democracy Now:

An Arizona administrator has ruled that the public school district in Tucson must end its acclaimed Mexican American Studies program for grades K-12, saying it violates a new state law that bans the teaching of any class designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote[s] resentment toward a race or class of people." But the program’s supporters say the classes push the district’s largely Latino student body to excel academically while teaching them long-neglected perspectives. We speak to Tucson Mexican-American history teacher Lorenzo Lopez and his daughter, Korina, a high school sophomore. Both are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit to stop the ban from taking effect. We’re also joined by Dr. Rodolfo Acuña, author of "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos," considered the definitive introduction to Chicano history in the United States. Dr. Acuña warns copycat laws are likely to follow in other states as part of a growing campaign against ethnic studies programs, in particular Chicano studies, throughout the country.

John Huppenthal, Dangerous Racist Fool

With every brief and successive generation of Tea Party spokesmen and nutjob officials, particularly in Arizona, the current ones make the previous ones seem like lily-livered liberals.  If Ronald Reagan were alive today, for instance, he would have to run as a socialist.

Earlier this year John Huppenthal replaced racist Tom Horne as Arizona's Superintendent for Public Instruction, and since taking over the state's anti-cultural bureaucracy for the perpetuation of whiteness, he has made Horne's earlier efforts to end ethnic studies seem tepid.  When will the Department of Justice take notice of Huggenthal's hate speech?  A clip from HuffPo:

As a state administrative judge deliberates on the fate of Tucson Unified School District's Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies Program (MAS), Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal compared the nationally acclaimed program to the Hitler Nazi Jugend paramilitary organization at a Pima County Republican luncheon last week.

In an astounding affront to Mexican American veterans and military families, the disturbing comments were issued a week after the 61st anniversary of the Medal of Honor award for Arizona war hero Sylvestre Herrera, whose famous capture of Nazi troops was hailed as one of numerous acts of bravery by Mexican American soldiers during World War II.

While Huppenthal, who aired a controversial radio ad last fall that he would "stop la raza," is no stranger to inflammatory speech making, this latest episode comes on the heels of Attorney General Tom Horne's recent charge that the Mexican American Studies program "must be destroyed" and shocking testimony by a Tea Party activist at a Tucson school board meeting with his scenario for "civil war."

At the same time, Huppenthal recently endorsed the recall campaign of disgraced Senate President Russell Pearce, who has openly associated with neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations.

The questions beg:: Have the extremist Arizona politicians and their Tea Party supporters gone too far in their witch hunt of the Ethnic Studies Program, and at what point will the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice be summoned for an investigation?

Or, at the very least, does Huppenthal owe Mexican American veterans and MAS supporters an apology?
The Arizona Independent Daily blog posted Huppenthal's comments from the GOP gathering last week on the Tucson Citizen site:

"Huppenthal discussed the MAS practice of victimizing, or "racismizing" students. He stated that these same practices were used in the development of the Hitler Jugend. He talked about Nazi's efforts to demonize one group of people in young people's minds. He stated that sheer intellectual power will win over the public when they look at the anti-intellectual nature of the MAS program."

According to the Wikipedia entry, the Hitler Jugend was the second oldest paramilitary organization in Nazi Germany that trained youth in weapons training and assault tactics, and propagated white supremacist and anti-Semitic beliefs.

The comment is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that the Arizona Anti-Defamation League came out against Arizona's controversial Ethnic Studies ban and declared the Mexican American Studies program "so obviously resuscitated the desire to learn in so many students."

Earlier this summer, in fact, an independent audit commissioned by Huppenthal found that the Mexican American Studies program did not violation the state ban, and concluded: "No observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment toward a race or class of people. The auditors observed the opposite, as students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people." The audit noted that courses in the Ethnic Studies Program "graduate in the very least at a rate of 5 percent more than their counterparts in 2005, and at the most, a rate of 11 percent more in 2010," and "are designed to improve student achievement based on the audit team's finding of valuable course descriptions aligned with state standards, commendable curricular unit and lesson plan design, engaging instruction practices, and collective inquiry strategies through Approved State Standards."

Despite the findings of the costly audit, Huppenthal kept his campaign promise and disregarded the report in a bizarre press conference this summer and charged that the MAS program was non-compliant. As part of the appeal process, TUSD and MAS administrators have appeared before a state administrative hearing, which will recommend a decision to the state superintendent. In essence: Once the shoutin' is over, Huppenthal still has the ultimate power over whether the MAS program should be banned or not. . . .

Civil Disobedience and Non-Violent Resistance by Students in Tucson

Phoenix has the only high school Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies program in the United States.  Here's what students thought about the racist notion to bring that program to an end.  Below the video is a clip from a piece at HuffPo:

While the occasional spasms of extremist rhetoric and legislative initiative are often dismissed as nutty episodes in Arizona Gone Wild politics, some observers are wondering if state Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal crossed the line of lawlessness in his latest Ethnic Studies bombshell announcement.


In short: Did Huppenthal commit a felony at his extremely odd press conference this Wednesday at the Arizona Department of Education in Phoenix if he knowingly presented the results of an independent audit of Tucson's Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies Program in a false manner, in order to justifying his ruling that the program was out of compliance with the state's controversial Ethnic Studies ban?
 
While the Tucson Unified School Board voted today to appeal Huppenthal's decision, the Ethnic Studies teachers' attorney Richard Martinez also announced his intention to file a preliminary injunction to halt Huppenthal's 60-day deadline for the school district to bring the program into compliance or lose 10% of its state funding.

Despite Huppenthal's charges to the contrary, the 120-page audit concluded: "During the curriculum audit period, no observable evidence was present to suggest that any classroom within Tucson Unified School District is in direct violation of the law A.R.S. 15-112."

Huppenthal, who campaigned for the state's top education post last year with the inflammatory slogan that he was "one of us" and would "stop la raza"--raza means race or people in Spanish, and refers to the Mexican American community -- used the audit results by the private Cambium firm as part of his rationale to find the Ethnic Studies Program in violation of the state law for promoting resentment towards a race or class, advocating ethnic solidarity, and using a curriculum designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic race.

But, for example, did Huppenthal violate Arizona Article 38-423, which refers to public officers, and stipulates: "A public officer authorized by law to make or give any certificate or other writing, who makes and delivers as true such a certificate or writing containing a statement which he knows is false, is guilty of a class 6 felony"?

At his press conference and in a written statement, Huppenthal specifically noted:

The materials gathered by, and submitted to, the Arizona Department of Education, as well as the materials the auditors reviewed contained context promoting resentment towards a race or class of people.

In truth, the audit results contradicted every single one of Huppenthal's charges, including his misrepresentation above. According to the audit:

No observable evidence exists that instruction within Mexican American Studies Department promotes resentment toward a race or class of people. The auditors observed the opposite, as students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people. -- pg. 55

To be fair, Huppenthal did note that the "two-thirds of the final audit report was beyond the scope of the legal determination I am making today." . . .

Arizona's Chief Anti-Culturalist, Tom Horne, Declares Ethnic Studies Unlawful

Tom Horne has been trying to root out the evils of solidarity among minorities for a long time, and his special target has been the ethnic studies program in the Tucson schools.  Never mind that the program remains in place as part of a federal civil rights settlement from 2007.  And never mind, too, that Horne, former state Schools Superintendent, is now the Attorney General, that person who is supposed to be responsible for enforcing the laws of the land.

The laws that Horne is really interested in upholding are the ones that support the continuation of white rule in Arizona, which is now ground zero for what is likely to happen across the U. S. as populations become browner.  We will see between now and 2050 if our "democratic" republic can survive the transition of whiteness to minority status, or if the Koch Brothers and the other John Birchers will be able to whip scared whites into a fascist frenzy that will make democratic rule a thing of the past.


Valerie Strauss has the latest:

By Valerie Strauss

An Arizona state official has declared that an ethnic studies program on Latino culture is illegal under a new law that went effect on Jan. 1.

The official is Tom Horne, the newly elected state attorney general who wrote the law last year when he was Arizona’s education superintendent.

District officials say they aren’t breaking the law, and a group of teachers has filed suit challenging the law, which prohibits any classes that:

• Promote the overthrow of the United States government, including any suggestion that any U.S. lands once part of Mexico be returned.

• Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

• Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

• Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Horne insists that the program violates all four tenets of the law; the district says that’s nonsense.

Horne started blasting the program several years ago after learning that Hispanic civil right activist Dolores Herta told Tucson high school students that “Republicans hate Latinos.” When he sent a top aide to a school to present a different view, some of the students turned their backs on her and raised their fists in the air, angering Horne, The New York Times reported.

For three years he pushed the legislature to pass a law banning the program, and finally succeeded in 2010, when it was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer. At the time the state was making national news for a tough crackdown on illegal immigration that remains a highly controversial issue.

In his final hours as superintendent late last week, he said he had decided that the program in the Tucson Unified School District violated the new law, which gives a 60-day period for the system to fix the problem.

However, Horne said the only way to do that was to scrap the program altogether, and if school officials refuse, the school district should lose 10 percent of its state funding, which amounts to almost $15 million.

The state’s new education superintendent supports Horne’s position.

According to The Arizona Republic, the Mexican-American studies program includes high-school class work about historical and contemporary Mexican-American contributions, social justice and stereotypes. Students may examine U.S. history from a Chicano perspective.

The program was first adopted as part of a desegregation order, which stemmed from a 1974 federal lawsuit by an African-American couple alleging racial bias. The Tucson school district started an African-American studies program and added Mexican-American studies in 1997.

The desegregation order was lifted in 2007 but the ethnic-studies programs were a key part of the settlement and they remained in place.

It is not clear, the Republic said, whether the new law will affect other programs or other school districts. . . .

The Corporate School to Corporate Prison Pipeline

Arizona is second only to California in the number of corporate charter schools and first in per capita enrollment.  Now with help from the private prison industry lawyers and lobbyists in passing Arizona's "show me your papers" law,  the state is vying to become #1 in corporate prison population. No, this is not a joke.

A brief clip from an in-depth investigative piece from NPR:

. . . . The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally.

When it was passed in April, it ignited a fire storm. Protesters chanted about racial profiling. Businesses threatened to boycott the state.

Supporters were equally passionate, calling it a bold positive step to curb illegal immigration.

But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry. . . .

Tom Horne Goes After Paulo Freire Books While Sanitizing American History

The latest bout of virulent racism at the state level in Arizona features, of all people, Arizona's state superintendent of public instruction. Tom Horne (R), who is running for state attorney general, is all about banning ethnic studies courses, except, of course, the white studies course that is sold across the U. S. as American History.

In so doing, Horne is focused on atomizing any constituency that could coalesce to challenge white Republican rule in Arizona, and in the process, he seems intent also upon arresting any book that may be deemed appropriate to encourage people to live as authentic human beings and to participate actively in shaping their own lives. From the New York Times:

. . . . The new law, which takes effect at the end of the year, is a victory for Tom Horne, the state superintendent of public instruction, who has fought for years to end Tucson’s ethnic studies programs, which he believes teach students to feel oppressed and resent whites.

“The most offensive thing to me, fundamentally, is dividing kids by race,” Mr. Horne said.

“They are teaching a radical ideology in Raza, including that Arizona and other states were stolen from Mexico and should be given back,” he continued, referring to the Mexican-American studies classes. “My point of view is that these kids’ parents and grandparents came, mostly legally, because this is the land of opportunity, and we should teach them that if they work hard, they can accomplish anything.”

Mr. Horne, a Republican who is running for state attorney general, said he also objected to the textbook “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire.

The schools in Tucson, where about 56 percent of the students are Hispanic, offer Mexican-American studies classes in history and literature and African-American literature classes. Although the classes are open to all students, most of those who enroll are members of the ethnic or racial group being discussed.

In June 2007, in an open letter to the residents of Tucson, Mr. Horne said, “The evidence is overwhelming that ethnic studies in the Tucson Unified School District teaches a kind of destructive ethnic chauvinism that the citizens of Tucson should no longer tolerate.”

In that letter, he said he believed that students were learning hostility from La Raza teachers, citing an incident in which students at the Tucson High Magnet School walked out on a speech by his deputy, a Republican Latina, who was trying to refute an earlier speaker who had told the student body that Republicans hate Latinos.

Sean Arce, director of Tucson’s Mexican-American studies department, said the ethnic studies courses do teach students about the marginalization of different groups in the United States through history.

“They don’t teach resentment or hostility, in any way, shape or form,” Mr. Arce said. “Instead, they build cultural bridges of understanding, and teach the skills students need to understand history.”

Furthermore, Mr. Arce said, the ethnic studies courses have been highly effective in reducing students’ dropout rates and increasing their college matriculation well above the national average for Latino students.

Mr. Arce and Ms. Burns said that they had repeatedly invited Mr. Horne to visit the ethnic studies classes, but that he had declined the invitations.

“We wish he’d come see it, so he’d know what we do, and not just go on hearsay,” Ms. Burns said.

Mr. Horne acknowledged that he had never sat in on a class, but said he did not believe that what he would see would be representative of what regularly took place.

Sorry, Tom, you're too late to turn back history. You have poked your big stupid finger into a hornet's nest, and you are about to get stung--big time. See Democracy Now interview below with two very determined Latinas who are representative of millions of others who are not intimidated by racist political opportunists like Tom Horne.

Mission: Build Economic Fence Around Arizona

Yesterday the freight train of fascism rolled on in Arizona, where Chicano and Mexican-American studies were banned. The only way to get Arizona's racist legislation killed is by withholding any and all commercial exchange with any enterprise in or associated with Arizona. A clip from the LA Times:

. . . . HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

The bill was written to target the Chicano, or Mexican American, studies program in the Tucson school system, said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Horne.

School districts that don't comply with the new law could have as much as 10% of their state funds withheld each month. Districts have the right to appeal the mandate, which goes into effect Dec. 31.

Tucson Unified School District officials say the Chicano studies classes benefit students and promote critical thinking. "We don't teach all those ugly things they think we're teaching," said Judy Burns, the president of the district's governing board.

She has no intention of ending the program, which offers courses from elementary school through high school in topics such as literature, history and social justice, with an emphasis on Latino authors and history. About 3% of the district's 55,000 students are enrolled in such classes. . . .