Recommended Changes to a future DREAM Act

Although the DREAM Act was not passed by the current Congress, it will undoubtedly come up again for consideration. At its recent convention in October, the Illinois Federation of Teachers had recommended that the bill include more options. Concerned with the militarization and the limited options of the current bill, the IFT had recommended four changes for a more just version of the bill. Perhaps, a future bill will accommodate these changes:

1. Include a community service path to legalization

2. Include a vocational path to legalization

3. Allow undocumented youth access to Pell Grants and federal financial aid money to offer an honest chance to go to college

4. Allow youth to petition their parents for legal status

Student Sues School District after Enduring Years of Harassment

The problems of bullying, harassment, and the "school to prison pipeline" are some of the tragic incidents that plague our young people and our public school system. We have approached this issue several times in this blog and are planning to have an entire issue of the journal devoted to it. Below is an account from the ACLU of some litigation that it is taking on behalf of a student here in Washington State who has endured six years of harassment all during his middle and high school years.


Student Sues School District after Enduring Years of Harassment

ACLU Suit Says Aberdeen Failed to Take Steps Needed to End Severe Harassment


A student who endured severe and persistent harassment throughout junior high and high school is suing the Aberdeen School District, the ACLU of Washington announced today. The suit says that school district officials were aware of the harassment but failed to take steps reasonably calculated to end it. The ACLU of Washington is representing the student in the suit, which was filed today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.

The school district’s failure to act created a hostile educational environment for the student. His academic progress was hindered, he was isolated at school, he felt discouraged from using his locker, and he avoided extra-curricular activities that put him in contact with his peers. Further, the student suffered extreme emotional distress and psychological damage, including an inability to concentrate on studies, serious depression, despair, and anxiety. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Public school officials must be held accountable when they fail to meet their responsibility to act decisively when a student is subjected to harassment by his peers. We hope that in the future other students will not have to endure what this young man faced,” said Sarah Dunne, legal director for the ACLU of Washington.

Russell Dickerson III, now 19, is an African-American resident of Aberdeen. For six years, from 2003 when he entered junior high until 2009 when he graduated high school, Dickerson was harassed by other students on the basis of his race, sex, and perceived sexual orientation.

As a student at Miller Junior High, Dickerson was called names by other students and found notes in his backpack and taped to his back calling him “stupid nigger” and “dog.” He found notes in his locker and in his school binder with viciously derogatory insults. Students tripped him in the hallways and threw food at him in the cafeteria. In one incident, three students pushed him to the floor in the hallway and smashed a raw egg on his head; only one of the students was disciplined.

The student and his parents reported the harassment to school administrators. The district Superintendent was aware of the harassment yet took no steps reasonably aimed at ending it. But an assistant principal recommended that the student consider changing his style of dress to avoid further harassment. Only after his father went to the school board did the district initiate a formal investigation of the ongoing harassment. A school insurance professional hired by the district to investigate concluded that Dickerson had been harassed but recommended no adjustments to the district’s anti-harassment policies or its implementation of them.

At Aberdeen High School, the harassment escalated, with Dickerson subjected to derogatory names including “nigger,” “nappy ho,” and “faggot.” Because he did not fit gender stereotypes for a young man and was perceived by other students to be gay, he endured derisive comments about his physical appearance and suspected sexual orientation. Dickerson suffered physical harassment, with other students pinching and fondling his chest, spitting on his head, and throwing objects at him.

In 2007 students in the district created a website mocking Dickerson and his perceived sexual orientation, and posted threatening racist comments on it. Students discussed the website at school. The district did nothing to prevent or mitigate the continuing harassment on school grounds, even after being put on notice that Grays Harbor Superior Court had issued a no contact order between Dickerson and one of his harassers who had threatened on the website to lynch him. Rather, Dickerson became the target of retaliatory harassment after reporting the website to school authorities.

In his first year in high school, an assistant principal discouraged Dickerson from reporting misconduct by the student’s peers. Nevertheless, the student and his parents repeatedly reported incidents of harassment to district administrators, both verbally and in writing. The district failed to take other steps reasonably designed to end the persistent harassment.

The lawsuit says that the deliberate indifference to ongoing harassment by Aberdeen School District, which receives federal funds, violated federal law –

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The district’s inaction also violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination’s protections against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and perceived sexual orientation.

The lawsuit is seeking monetary damages to cover costs of counseling for Russell and post-secondary or vocational schooling.

Representing Dickerson are ACLU-WA cooperating attorneys Michael Scott, Joseph Sakay, and Alexander Wu of Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson P.S. and ACLU of Washington staff attorneys Sarah Dunne and Rose Spidell.


See also:

KUOW News
KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio. A service of the University of Washington

Huffington Post

American Civil Liberties Union of Washington


ACLU Related Links
•Read Russell Dickerson’s statement
•Read Russell Dickerson's father’s statement
•Read the Legal Complaint
•Watch the press conference
•Hear what Dan Savage says about the suit

Do Teachers have Free Speech Rights? An Update on Recent Court Decisions

Readers will remember the article by author Sam Chaltain in our winter 2008 issue of the journal, entitled, "Ways of Seeing (and of Being Seen): Visibility in Schools." Sam has his own website and blog at: "Democracy,Learning,Voice." Check it out. Sam gave us permission to reprint his article on teachers' rights from his website.


Free Speech for Teachers? Think Again . . .

by Sam Chaltain

Reprinted by permission from Democracy, Learning, Voice.


In case you missed it, there was a major case last week involving the First Amendment rights of teachers to make curricular content decisions. And the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling puts another nail in the coffin of the free-speech rights of public employees.

In the most recent case, an Ohio teacher’s contract was not renewed after controversy erupted over a few book assignments she made with her High School English class. As recently as a decade ago, the teacher may have had a legitimate chance in court (although not neccesarily). That’s because, prior to 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court evaluated public employee free-speech claims by using a test with two basic prongs. First, the court would determine whether the speech in question touches on a matter of public concern. If it did not, the teacher would receive no First Amendment protection whatsoever. If the speech did touch on a matter of public concern, the court would proceed to the balancing prong of the test, in which it would balance the teacher’s interest in commenting upon a matter of public concern against the school officials’ interest in promoting an efficient workplace of public service.

Prior to 2006, courts sometimes sided with school officials even though the public school teachers’ speech touched upon a matter of public concern. In one 2001 case, for example, the Eighth Circuit determined that a school principal did not violate the First Amendment rights of three teachers who were ordered to quit talking about the care and education of special needs students. Subsequent appeals in the case acknowledged that the teachers’ complaints about the lack of care for special needs students touched on matters of public concern. Nonetheless, the appeals court noted that the teachers’ speech “resulted in school factions and disharmony among their co-workers and negatively impacted [the principal's] interest in efficiently administering the middle school.”

Conversely, in 1993 the Eleventh Circuit reached a different conclusion in the case of Belyeu v. Coosa County Board of Education. In this decision, a teacher’s aide alleged that school officials failed to rehire her because of a speech she made about racial issues at a PTA meeting. The aide said the school should adopt a program to commemorate Black History month. Immediately after the meeting, the principal asked to speak with her and told her he wished she had raised this issue privately rather than publicly. A lower court determined that the speech clearly touched on a matter of public concern, but that the school system’s interest in avoiding racial tensions outweighed the aide’s right to free speech. On appeal, however, the Eleventh Circuit reversed, writing that the aide’s “remarks did not disrupt the School System’s function by enhancing racial division, nor, based on the nature or context of her remarks, was her speech likely to do so.”

This is all a precursor to 2006, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively eliminated the free-speech rights of public employees in its 5-4 decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos. As my friend and former First Amendment Center colleague David Hudson explains, since Garcetti “public employers are able to defend themselves against allegations of retaliation by claiming that employees’ criticisms of government operations were made as part of their official duties.”

Indeed, a pattern has emerged in this post-Garcetti world, in which it has become almost impossible to mount a successful First Amendment lawsuit based on speech that relates to the workplace. In other words, a teacher who wishes to claim First Amendment protection for decisions about curricular content must do so knowing that the same protections s/he would be afforded as a private citizen will not apply to anything so directly related to his or her official duties.

Ironically, the 1969 case that is hailed as the high-water mark for student free-speech, Tinker v. Des Moines, features these lines: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This has been the unmistakable holding of this Court for almost 50 years.”

No longer.

(Postscript: If you’re a junkie for First Amendment law, check out my three books on the subject, including answers to all of the most frequently asked questions as they pertain to First Amendment issues in schools.)



Sam Chaltain is a DC-based educator and organizational change consultant. Previously, he was the National Director of the Forum for Education & Democracy, an education advocacy organization, and the founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, a national program that helps K-12 educators create more democratic learning communities. Sam spent five years at the First Amendment Center as the co-director of the First Amendment Schools program. He came to the Center from the public school system of New York City, where he taught high school English and History. Sam also spent four years teaching the same subjects at a private school in Brooklyn.

Sam’s writings about his work have appeared in both magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post, Education Week and USA Today. A periodic contributor to CNN and MSNBC, Sam is also the author or co-author of five books: The First Amendment in Schools (ASCD, 2003); First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights (Oxford University Press, 2006); American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); We Must Not Be Afraid to be Free: Stories Of Free Expression in America (Oxford, 2011); and Faces of Learning: 50 Powerful Stories of Defining Moments in Education (Jossey-Bass, 2011).

The Latest from Arizona: Teachers Set To Sue Over Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban

To see the latest from Arizona go to:
Teachers Set To Sue Over Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban

Students Flock to Ethnic Studies Courses despite Controversy

For an update on our post below, check out the September 21st article in Education Week, entitled, “Tucson Students Aren't Deterred by Ethnic-Studies Controversy.”

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/09/22/04ethnic_ep.h30.html

The Latest News from Arizona’s Ban on Certain Ethnic Studies Classes

According to an Education Week article today, Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne is moving ahead in his threat to reduce the Tucson Unified School District’s budget by 10 percent for not conforming to the new state legislation banning ethnic studies courses that are geared toward one particular ethnic group. The law goes into effect on December 31st. As we mentioned in our earlier blog posts, the districts believe they are not violating the law. They argue that their ethnic studies courses are open to all students, and therefore, do not violate the new law, H.B. 2281.

In his disagreement with their characterization of their program, Horne requested in a letter to John Carroll, the Superintendent of Tucson Unified, that all the classes be videotaped in their entirety. Apparently, if the district refuses to videotape them, Horne “will offer that refusal as evidence to the administrative law judge that the school district has deliberately hidden facts that would show that the district is in noncompliance with H.B. 2281."

Below is the letter sent by Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne to John Carroll, the Superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District so our readers can read it for themselves.


August 3, 2010

John Carroll, Ed.D.
Tucson Unified School District
Interim Superintendent
1010 East 10th Street
Tucson, Arizona 85719

Dear Dr. Carroll:

It has been brought to our attention that the TUSD is declining to end any of its ethnic studies courses, despite the passage of H.B. 2281, which prohibits courses that, among other things, “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” or “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” Arguably, all TUSD Ethnic Studies courses are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group. However, in particular, we have received numerous complaints about the Mexican-American/Raza Studies course, with respect to violations of this statute.

Teachers and former teachers have reported, among other things, as follows:

1. The whole inference and tone was anger. (They taught students) that the United States was and still is a fundamentally racist country in nature, whose interests are contrary to those of Mexican-American kids.

Individuals in this (Ethnic Studies) department are vehemently anti-Western culture. They are vehemently opposed to the United States and its power. They are telling students they are victims and that they should be angry and rise up. By the time I left that class, I saw a change (in the students). An angry tone.

2. A teacher describes how the TUSD administration intimidated him by removing him from his class, and calling him a “racist,” even though he himself is Hispanic. This tactic, he writes:
is fundamentally anti-intellectual because it immediately stops debate by threatening to destroy the reputation of those who would provide counter arguments.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one to have been intimidated by the Raza studies department in this way.

3. A teacher reports: TUSD uses tax payer funded programs to indoctrinate students, based primarily on ethnic divisions, in the belief that there is a war against Latino culture perpetrated by the white, racist, capitalist system.

TUSD has hired a group of radical socialist activists who promote an anti-capitalist and anti-Western Civilization ideology. They use ethnic solidarity as their vehicle of delivery. A climate of outright intimidation has stopped many from standing up to this group for fear of being labeled racists.

Impressionable youth in TUSD have literally been reprogrammed to believe that there is a concerted effort on the part of a white power structure to suppress them and relegate them to a second-class existence. This fomented resentment further encourages them to express their dissatisfaction through the iconoclastic behavior we see—the contempt for all authority outside of their ethnic community and their total lack of identification with the political heritage of this country.

4. I have, during the last two years been attacked repeatedly here at Tucson High by members of the Ethnic Studies department because I question the substance and veracity of their American History and social Justice Government classes. I have been called racist by fellow Tucson High teachers, members of the Ethnic Studies department, and students enrolled in the departments’ classes. These charges come simply because I ask the department to provide the primary source material for the perspective they preach. The teachers of these classes not only refuse to stop the name calling but openly encourage the students’ behavior. The curriculum advanced in these classes openly attacks the founding fathers…

5. I heard him tell his students that America is a “Meritocracy” in which Latinos have no opportunity. I heard him tell his students that the U of A is a racist organization because only 12% of students are Latino and they do not support the Latin students there. I heard him tell students that they need to go to college so they can gain the power to take back the stolen land and give it back to Mexico. He personally told me that he teaches his students that Republicans hate Latinos.

6. Augustine Romero, who is in charge of the Ethnic Studies program for the district, was asked in television program why the course uses the word “Raza” (which means “the race” in Spanish) rather than just Mexican-American studies. This was his response.

…so that our students could recognize and connect to their indigenous side, just like the word “dine” for the Navajo translates to “the people,” like the word “O’odham” for the Tohono O’odham translates to “the people.” The word “Yoeme” for the Yoeme people translates to “the people.”

It was an attempt to connect to our indigenous sides, as well as our Mexican side.
This would appear to us to be an admission, not only that the course violates the provisions of H.B. 2281, but that it was intended to do so by those who designed and implemented it.

It is my understanding that the District denies these charges. The best way to determine the nature of these classes is to videotape them. Please consider this a formal request to video tape the Ethnic Studies courses, and in particular, the Mexican-American/Raza Studies course, in their entirety, in the coming semester. To protect privacy of students, the videos should focus on the teacher alone. The videos should be of all classroom hours, and not selected.

It is our expectation that, when the law takes effect on December 31st, the Department of Education will announce that TUSD is to have ten percent of its entire budget withheld, until it complies with H.B. 2281. At that time, you will have the right to appeal to an administrative law judge. If you agree to this video tape, it will be helpful evidence to the administrative law judge. If you refuse, we will offer that refusal as evidence to the administrative law judge that the school district has deliberately hidden facts that would show that the district is in non-compliance with H.B. 2281.

Sincerely,

Tom Horne
Apparently, Carroll's office has been inundated with telephone inquiries. We will watch for his response and relay it to our readers.

The Arizona Bill and the Politicizing of Education: A Response to NY Times Commentator Stanley Fish

The meaning of Arizona HB 2281 that we posted below is perhaps best understood by analyzing it within the political and social context that motivated its passage. In the May 17th issue of the New York Times, commentator Stanley Fish chooses instead to examine the conflict within two philosophical paradigms. Fish’s concern is not with the motivation behind HB 2281 but rather with arguments around its justification or lack of justification. His argument leaves open many questions.

What is Fish’s argument? On the one side, Fish portrays the ethnic studies program at the Tucson Unified School District as an example of attempts to politicize education by indoctrinating students into certain beliefs about social justice that will lead to actions consistent with that political agenda. He writes:

The Social Justice Education Project means what its title says: students are to be brought to see what the prevailing orthodoxy labors to occlude so that they can join the effort to topple it. To this end the Department of Mexican American Studies (I quote again from its Web site) pledges to "work toward the invoking of a critical consciousness within each and every student" and "promote and advocate for social and educational transformation."

While students may act on beliefs they are exposed to, Fish objects to teaching that sets out to agitate rather than educate. Fearing indoctrination, Fish sees the Tucson program as a “Trojan horse of a political agenda” and one that ”the people of Arizona should indeed be concerned.” Let’s disentangle a few points first. Is Fish intending to include in his charge that the ethnic studies program is violating the new Arizona bill. If one looks at the website http://www.tusd1.org/contents/depart/mexicanam/model.asp , nothing that is mentioned seems to violate the details of the law that stipulates that curriculum should not: "promote the overthrow of the United States government, 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." And, of course, this is the argument that the school district is making. Perhaps, Fish isn’t accusing the district of this. His argument is more subtle, and as a result, more in need of critical examination.

On the other side, Fish sees HB 2281 attempts to ban certain ethnic courses in the public school as a similar attempt to politicize education. Rather than removing politics from schools, House Bill 2281 mandates an opposing political ideology of individual rights. Fish writes:

The idea of treating people as individuals is certainly central to the project of Enlightenment liberalism, and functions powerfully in much of the nation’s jurisprudence. But it is an idea, not a commandment handed down from on high, and as such it deserves to be studied, not worshipped. The authors of House Bill 2281 don’t want students to learn about the ethic of treating people equally; they want them to believe in it (as you might believe in the resurrection), and therefore to believe, as they do, that those who interrogate it and show how it has sometimes been invoked in the service of nefarious purposes must be banished from public education.

Fish is right in seeing the state’s solution to what it sees as politicizing education by politicizing it to serve its own agenda as wrongheaded. In his attempt to avoid both the school district and the state legislature's attempts to politicize education, Fish proposes that we should return to an objective, neutral concept of education as a pursuit of knowledge where all sides are presented in a fair-minded way. Fish’s concept raises a number of questions that need to be further examined because his critique of an approach that apparently is serving an underserved population well will have consequences.

What does it mean to politicize education? What would constitute a neutral, objective approach to education? In one sense, public education is a political endeavor in the broadest sense of the word. It serves to reproduce in the young the necessary skills, knowledge and dispositions to function effectively in the political life of the nation. But perhaps Fish has in mind a more narrow sense of politicizing, one which narrows the choices available consistent with a particular ideological stance. Indeed, this more narrow sense is contradictory to the larger understanding of the political philosophy of a liberal democratic society. Although this larger political philosophy rules out the narrowing of the curriculum to reflect only a particular partisan view, it isn’t clear that a neutral presentation of both sides of an issue will necessarily provide the kind of critical awareness that Fish values. If students come with certain assumptions that are often embedded in the conventional thinking of their time, would a neutral presentation of sides largely leave the dominant assumptions unexamined in any meaningful way? And would students really care about the implications of their thinking?

This is the thinking that not only underlies Paulo Freire’s thought that Fish criticizes, but it also underlies the approach that goes back to Socrates. For in any philosophical dialogue, Socrates always starts with where his opponents are and simply challenges them with questions until they come to see the problems in their own ways of thinking and realize that what they thought they knew they never really knew at all. Creating cognitive dissonance was part of the educational journey. Indeed, an education that reveals and uncovers the injustices embedded in the dominant forms of thinking that have been internalized in the minds of the students leads to a truer, more objective understanding of the reality that Fish so values. That such an education becomes transformative and may lead to action follows not from the attempt to indoctrinate or agitate that Fish claims, but rather from the journey that the student has embarked upon. Of course, any particular incident of teaching can involve a betrayal of the intent here, but it shouldn’t lead us to the kind of generalizations that Fish makes.

Stanley Fish, "Arizona: The Gift That Keeps On Giving," New York Times, May 17, 2010

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/arizona-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/

Arizona’s Other Bill: What Does it Say

While much of the nation’s attention has been on Arizona’s law on illegal immigration and its implications for racial profiling, another bill has surfaced over the elimination of certain ethnic studies programs in the schools. While we will have more to say about HB 2881 later, we thought readers would want to read the bill for themselves.

From the Arizona State Legislature Website:
House of Representatives
HB 2281
prohibited courses; discipline; schools


HB 2281 prohibits a school district or charter school from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

History

The State Board of Education (SBE) must prescribe a minimum course of study, incorporating Arizona’s academic standards, to be taught in Arizona public schools (Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) § 15-701). School district governing boards must approve the course of study, including the basic textbook for each approved course and all other units recommended for credit before implementing each course in both elementary and high schools. Pursuant to A.R.S. § 15-701.01, a governing board may adopt courses of study that are in addition to or higher than that prescribed by the SBE.

Current law requires the principal of each school to ensure that all rules pertaining to the discipline, suspension, and expulsion of pupils are communicated to students at the beginning of each school year. All cases of suspension must be for good cause and must be reported within five days to the governing board by the superintendent or person imposing the suspension. The school district governing board is required to post regular notices and take minutes of any hearing concerning the discipline, suspension, or expulsion of a pupil (A.R.S § 15-843).

Provisions

• States that the Legislature finds and declares that public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people.

• Prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that:

Ø Promote the overthrow of the United States government.

Ø Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

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

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

• States that if the SBE determines that a school district or charter school is offering a course that violates this act, the SBE must direct the Superintendent of Public Instruction (Superintendent) to notify the school district or charter school that it is in violation.

• Stipulates that if the SBE determines that the school district or charter school has failed to comply within 60 days after a notice has been issued by the Superintendent, the SBE may direct the ADE to withhold up to 10% of the monthly apportionment of state aid that would otherwise be due to the school district or charter school and requires ADE to adjust the school district or charter school’s apportionment accordingly.

• Specifies when the SBE determines that the school district or charter school is in compliance with not offering a prohibited course, ADE must restore the full amount of state aid payments to the school district or charter school.

• Stipulates that actions taken under this act are subject to appeal pursuant to laws relating to uniform administrative hearing procedures.

• States that this act cannot be construed to restrict or prohibit:

Ø Courses or classes for Native American pupils that are required to comply with federal law.

Ø The grouping of pupils according to academic performance, including capability in the English language, that may result in a disparate impact by ethnicity.

Ø Courses or classes that include the history of any ethnic group and that are open to all students, unless the course or class violates this act.

• Prohibits rules pertaining to the discipline, suspension, and expulsion of pupils from being based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or ancestry.

• States that if the ADE, the Auditor General, or the Attorney General determines that a school district is substantially and deliberately not in compliance with pupil disciplinary actions and if the school district has failed to correct the deficiency within 90 days after receiving notice from the ADE, the Superintendent may withhold the monies the school district would otherwise be entitled to receive from the date of the determination of noncompliance until the ADE determines that the school district is in compliance.

Whose History Should We Teach?

We reported in several postings below some of the conservative pressures on the curriculum decisions made by the Texas Board of Education on its proposed social studies curriculum. As a journal devoted to the discussion of the controversies in education, we ought to become clearer about the nature of the controversy that is surrounding the recent decision that Texas made. Certainly, introducing the conservative tradition in American political and social life is a legitimate topic in any history textbook. In his article below, Eric Foner from The Nation discusses some of the deeper issues underlying the Texas decision.


Twisting History in Texas
Comment
By Eric Foner
This article appeared in the April 5, 2010 edition of The Nation.


“Reprinted with permission from the April 5, 2010 issue of The Nation magazine. Portions of each week’s Nation magazine can be accessed at http://www.thenation.com/.”


The changes to the social studies curriculum recently approved by the conservative-dominated Texas Board of Education have attracted attention mainly because of how they may affect textbooks used in other states. Since Texas certifies texts centrally rather than by individual school districts, publishers have a strong incentive to alter their books to conform to its standards so as to reach the huge Texas market. Where was Lee Harvey Oswald, after all, when he shot John F. Kennedy? In the Texas School Book Depository--a tall Dallas building filled with textbooks.

Most comment on the content of the new standards has focused on the mandate that high school students learn about leading conservative figures and institutions of the 1980s and '90s, specifically Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the Contract With America and the NRA. In fact, there is nothing wrong with teaching about modern conservatism, a key force in recent American history. My own textbook has a chapter called "The Triumph of Conservatism" and discusses most of the individuals and groups mentioned above.

More interesting is what the new standards tell us about conservatives' overall vision of American history and society and how they hope to instill that vision in the young. The standards run from kindergarten through high school, and certain themes obsessively recur. Judging from the updated social studies curriculum, conservatives want students to come away from a Texas education with a favorable impression of: women who adhere to traditional gender roles, the Confederacy, some parts of the Constitution, capitalism, the military and religion. They do not think students should learn about women who demanded greater equality; other parts of the Constitution; slavery, Reconstruction and the unequal treatment of nonwhites generally; environmentalists; labor unions; federal economic regulation; or foreigners.

Here are a few examples. The board has removed mention of the Declaration of the Seneca Falls Convention, the letters of John and Abigail Adams and suffrage advocate Carrie Chapman Catt. As examples of "good citizenship" for third graders, it deleted Harriet Tubman and included Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, and Helen Keller (the board seems to have slipped up here--Keller was a committed socialist). The role of religion--but not the separation of church and state--receives emphasis throughout. For example, religious revivals are now listed as one of the twelve major "events and eras" from colonial days to 1877.

The changes seek to reduce or elide discussion of slavery, mentioned mainly for its "impact" on different regions and the coming of the Civil War. A reference to the Atlantic slave trade is dropped in favor of "Triangular trade." Jefferson Davis's inaugural address as president of the Confederacy will now be studied alongside Abraham Lincoln's speeches.

In grade one, Veterans Day replaces Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the list of holidays students should be familiar with. (Later, "building a military" has been added as one of two results of the Revolution--the other being the creation of the United States--an odd inclusion, given the founders' fear of a standing army.) The Double-V Campaign during World War II (blacks' demand that victory over the Axis powers be accompanied by victory over segregation at home) has been omitted from the high school curriculum. Japanese-American internment is now juxtaposed with "the regulation of some foreign nationals," ignoring the fact that while a few Germans and Italians were imprisoned as enemy aliens, the vast majority of people of Japanese ancestry who were interned were US citizens.

Students in several grades will be required to understand the "benefits" (but none of the drawbacks) of capitalism. The economic system, however, dares not speak its name--it is referred to throughout as "free enterprise." Labor unions are conspicuous by their absence. Mankind's impact on the environment is apparently entirely benign--the curriculum mentions dams for flood control and the benefits of transportation infrastructure but none of the problems arising from the exploitation of nature. Lest anyone think that Americans should not fall below a rudimentary standard of living, the kindergarten curriculum deletes food, shelter and clothing from its list of "basic human needs."

Americans, the board seems to suggest, do not need to take much notice of the rest of the world, or of noncitizens in this country. Kindergartners no longer have to learn about "people" who have contributed to American life, only about "patriots and good citizens." High school students must evaluate the pros and cons of US participation in "international organizations and treaties." In an original twist, third grade geography students no longer have to be able to identify on a map the Amazon, the Himalayas or (as if it were in another country) Washington, DC.

Clearly, the Texas Board of Education seeks to inculcate children with a history that celebrates the achievements of our past while ignoring its shortcomings, and that largely ignores those who have struggled to make this a fairer, more equal society. I have lectured on a number of occasions to Texas precollege teachers and have found them as competent, dedicated and open-minded as the best teachers anywhere. But if they are required to adhere to the revised curriculum, the students of our second most populous state will emerge ill prepared for life in Texas, America and the world in the twenty-first century.

About Eric Foner
Eric Foner, a member of The Nation's editorial board and DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is the author of Give Me Liberty, an American history textbook.

Schooling as if Democracy Matters

The focus of our Winter 2008 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy was on the topic, “Schooling as if Democracy Matters.” In that issue, we raised the question about the ways we should teach the young about the foundations of our democracy and our collective identity in an age of the patriot act, NSA surveillance, extraordinary rendition, preemptive wars, enemy combatants -- all likely to involve violations of civil rights and liberties and a curtain of government secrecy? We asked, what story do we tell our young about who we are, who we have been, and who we are becoming?

I’d like to raise this same question in light of today’s events. In an interesting NY Times op-ed article, “The Rage Is Not About Health Care,” Frank Rich talks about some of the underlying reasons for the rise in rage, venomous rhetoric, violence, and anxieties in today’s demonstrations against the recently adopted health care bill. Comparing the bill’s passage to earlier bills that shook the country – the Medicare Act of 1965 and the Social Security Act of 1935, Rich describes the rhetoric and the upheavals that these bills also caused. But the bill that comes closest to the type of vitriolic criticism that today’s bill is evoking, Rich argues, is the Civil Rights Bill of 1964.

This may sound like a strange claim given that the present Health Care bill actually contains many of the recommendations of the Republican Party, falling far short of the single payer system or public option plan that more liberal proponents advocated. Rather than a “government takeover,” it extends the free market’s involvement in health care. While there are legitimate arguments over health care entitlement, the type of reaction we are experiencing seems to be disproportionate. Rich argues that the health care bill is just a spark that is galvanizing anxieties at a deeper level.

He offers the following explanation for today’s rising tide of rage:

"The health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

"In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

"If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

"They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded." (The New York Times, March 27, 2010)

Both the 1964 and 2010 bills have become the catalyst for shaking the nation’s core understanding of itself. Rich notes the silence resulting from the lack of leadership among today's political leaders, who often tend to exploit the anxieties and fears instead. And this leaves us with the question with which I began this post. What is the responsibility of our teachers and public intellectuals for addressing these deeper issues in the classrooms and in the public square. We hope to address these more profound questions in our summer 2011 issue of the journal on “The Education our Children Deserve.”

(cross-posted on Social Issues blog)

David Saxe, litigant in Saxe v. State College Area School District, tells his own story

We have added a new article to our rejoinder section of the Journal of Educational Controversy. In the first issue of our journal, we focused on a controversy that emerged from the court case, Saxe v. State College Area School District, that was decided by Judge Samuel Alito before he was appointed to the US Supreme Court. The case reflects the tension between two values – liberty and equality – that both form the bedrock of our liberal democracy.

David Saxe, the litigant in the case, has decided to end his silence of ten years and tell his own story. Saxe argues that the characterization of his motives as “homophobic” or “religious fanaticism” was unfounded. On the contrary, he argues that he was actually defending the first amendment of the US constitution. You can find his article in our Rejoinder Section or go directly to:

Union next to our liberty most dear: Anatomy of Saxe v State College Area School District and Constance Martin, Righting Wrongs in the Sea of Rights

Judge Alito had found that the anti-harassment policy that David Saxe challenged was too vague and couldn’t pass constitutional muster. How might an anti-harassment policy be written that would be found constitutional?

We invite readers to add their thoughts with a formal rejoinder or a more spontaneous comment on our blog.

Historians Speak Out Against Proposed Texas Textbook Changes

Historians speak out against proposed Texas textbook changes
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 18, 2010

Historians on Tuesday criticized proposed revisions to the Texas social studies curriculum, saying that many of the changes are historically inaccurate and that they would affect textbooks and classrooms far beyond the state's borders.
The changes, which were preliminarily approved last week by the Texas board of education and are expected to be given final approval in May, will reach deeply into Texas history classrooms, defining what textbooks must include and what teachers must cover. The curriculum plays down the role of Thomas Jefferson among the founding fathers, questions the separation of church and state, and claims that the U.S. government was infiltrated by Communists during the Cold War.

To read the entire article go to: Washington Post

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
New York Times
Published: March 12, 2010

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

To read the entire article, go to: New York Times

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The 2011 summer issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy will engage readers in a conversation on "The Education Our Children Deserve." The Times article reports that "there were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings" of the board. It is time for public intellectuals, scholars, and teachers to join parents, community leaders and the general public in a conversation about the public purposes of our schools in a democratic society. We encourage a wide-range of voices to enter the dialogue and to submit manuscripts.

Go to our "call for submissions" for more information.

Washington State Legislature passes two bills on Civil Rights in Schools and Anti-bullying

The Washington State Legislature has passed two bills that will be of interest to readers concerned with the rights and protections of our students. We would be interested in learning about actions taking place in other states.

The Safe Schools Coalition has provided the following analysis of the bills and has permitted us to post it to our blog for our readers.

The bills are:
(1) HB 3026 -- civil rights in schools
(2) HB 2801 -- bullying bill

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(1) HB 3026 -- civil rights in schools

From the Safe Schools Coalition’s Law & Policy Work Group Co-Chairs Jennifer Allen and Lonnie Johns-Brown:

Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 3026 was passed by the Senate as the very last bill before the cut-off. Both of the harmful amendments to the bill were defeated, and the bill passed on a vote of 30-18.

Thank you Rep. Sharon Tomiko-Santos for serving as the bill's prime sponsor and providing leadership and thank you to the communities of color that have championed the bill from its birth.

Background

Since 2006, Washington State law has prohibited discrimination in employment (which applies to teachers) and public accommodations (which applies to students) on the basis of sexual orientation, gender expression and identity, and HIV status (as well as race, creed, religion, color, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status, and disability). Individuals could file discrimination complaints with the Washington State Human Rights Commission. But there was no state agency with authority, short of a specific claim of discrimination, to monitor or enforce the law.

HB 3026: What it does

In a nutshell, it gives the law teeth with respect to schools.

Engrossed Substitute House Bill 3026 will establish a new chapter in the Common School Code of Washington State that prohibits discrimination based on race, creed, religion, color, national origin, honorably discharged veteran or military status, sexual orientation including gender expression or identity, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability, or the use of trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability. The bill will authorize the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to make rules and regulations to eliminate discrimination and – this is the crucial piece -- to monitor local school district compliance with the anti-discrimination policies.

Under current law, the protected classes identified in E2SHB 3026 are required to file complaints with the Washington State Human Rights Commission or file a civil suit in order to seek relief from actual or perceived discrimination. This legislation will enable the OSPI to help preclude litigation against school districts through compliance monitoring and dispute resolution.

What needs to happen next

The bill's costs need to be included in the budget … still being negotiated.

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(2) HB 2801 -- bullying bill

Thank you to Equal Rights Washington for this summary:

It’s a victory for everyone in Washington State, especially students, and a milestone in how far society has come in their understanding of LGBT Washingtonians.

Yesterday the Washington State Senate passed HB 2801, An act relating to anti-harassment strategies in public schools. What made this vote so impressive was that it was 48-0 in the State Senate. Earlier in the session the bill passed the State House 97-0.

Background


In 2002 the Washington State legislature passed an anti-bullying law. At the time the bill that was meant to protect ALL students from bullying was controversial because it included sexual orientation. The anti-bullying law required schools to adopt an anti-bullying policy that covered, at a minimum, all the classes contained in Washington State’s hate crimes law and this included sexual orientation. In 2009 the definition of sexual orientation was amended to include gender identity and expression.

In 2007 the scope of the anti-bullying law was expanded to include electronic acts, and the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) was directed to develop a model policy and sample materials prohibiting acts of harassment, intimidation, or bullying conducted via electronic means by a student while on school grounds and during the school day.

Meanwhile, the legislature commissioned a report to study the effectiveness of the State’s anti-bullying law. The Report was released in late 2008 and found that bullying in Washington Schools had not diminished. New legislation was needed.

You can read the full report here:

http://equalrightswashington.org/pdfs/Bullying%20in%20Washington%20Schools_electronic%20version_FINAL.pdf

Representative Marko Liias who serves on the education committee immediately responded to the report and introduced legislation in the 2009 and 2010 legislative sessions. Among the challenges facing the legislature was how to address the persistent problem of bullying in the context of the economic crisis. HB 2801 is an important step in reducing bullying in our schools and reflects the legislature’s ability to address important issues even during the economic downturn.

HB 2801: What it does

The new law begins with an assessment of the current situation and a strong desire to improve the situation.

“The legislature finds that despite a recognized law prohibiting harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students in public schools and despite widespread adoption of antiharassment policies by school districts, harassment of students continues and has not declined since the law was enacted. Furthermore, students and parents continue to seek assistance against harassment, and schools need to disseminate more widely their antiharassment policies and procedures. The legislature intends to expand the tools, information, and strategies that can be used to combat harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students, and increase awareness of the need for respectful learning communities in all public schools.”

The law that will now go to Governor Gregoire to be signed into law includes the following provisions:

• By august 1, 2011 each school district must adopt or amend its anti-harassment policy and procedures to at a minimum incorporate the revised model policy that will be drafted by the superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with representatives of parents, school personnel, the office of the education ombudsman, the Washington state school directors' association, and other interested parties.

• Each school district shall designate one person in the district as the primary contact regarding the antiharassment, intimidation, or bullying policy. The primary contact shall receive copies of all formal and informal complaints, have responsibility for assuring the implementation of the policy and procedure, and serve as primary contact on the policy and procedures between the school district, the office of the education ombudsman, and the office of the superintendent of public instruction.

• The superintendent of public instruction shall publish on its web site, with a link to the safety center web page, the revised and updated model harassment, intimidation, and bullying prevention policy and procedure, along with training and instructional materials on the components that shall be included in any district policy and procedure.

• The superintendent shall adopt rules regarding school districts' communication of the policy and procedure to parents, students, employees, and volunteers.

• Each school district shall by August 15, 2011, provide to the superintendent of public instruction a brief summary of its policies, procedures, programs, partnerships, vendors, and instructional and training materials to be posted on the school safety center web site, and shall also provide the superintendent with a link to the school district's web site for further information. The district's primary contact for bullying and harassment issues shall annually by August 15th verify posted information and links and notify the school safety center of any updates or changes.

• The office of the education ombudsman shall serve as the lead agency to provide resources and tools to parents and families about public school antiharassment policies and strategies."

To be certain much work remains to be done to combat bullying in Washington Public Schools but HB 2801 is an important step forward. A key finding of the 2008 report was that anti-bullying programs need to be funded. When the economic crisis lessens we will need to return to address the budgetary needs of anti-bullying programs. Happily Washington State has a strong Safe Schools Coalition that will continue to work with the legislature to make sure that Washington State Law reflects best practices in combating bullying in schools. The Safe Schools Coalition website is an important resource for Parents, Educators and students alike.

Today let us celebrate the leadership of Representative Marko Liias who championed this legislation, the commitment of the legislature to ensuring that every student enjoys a safe learning environment and the ongoing work of the Safe Schools Coalition.

Joshua A. Friedes
Advocacy Director
Equal Rights Washington

Writing at the Master’s Table

Teri McMurtry-Chubb, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Educational Controversy, has published an article in a recent law review that we believe our readers will want to check out. Teri uses Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminism to examine possible causes, problems and solutions concerning the low numbers of women of color among legal writing professors, a field that is dominated by women. As a lawyer and law professor, Teri has brought an important legal perspective to our editorial board that reviews papers coming from all disciplinary areas. She provides a brief summary of the article below.

By Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb

"Writing at the Master's Table: Reflections on Theft, Criminality and Otherness in the Legal Writing Profession" by Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb is now available in the online version of the Drexel Law Review (Fall 2009). You may access the article using the following link: http://www.drexel.edu/law/lawreview/current.aspx


This article considers the convergence of race and gender marginalizations in the legal writing profession, a profession comprised almost entirely of women. Prior to its publication, scholarship on the marginalization of women in legal writing was written only about and from the perspective of white women. The content of this article seeks to deepen the discussion introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her seminal work on race and gender intersections, which argues that a single-axis framework of analysis that examines race and gender discrimination separately is insufficient to deal with the overlapping oppressions women of color face. Thus far, the literature on how legal writing programs discriminate against women lacks this intersectional dimension. The article draws on the narrative traditions of Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminism to examine issues of race, gender, and status three-dimensionally within the racialized, gendered, and elitist structure that is the legal academy. The theoretical framework is provided by Adrien K. Wing’s multiplicative theory and praxis of being, in which Wing describes women of color as indivisible persons with multiple race and gender consciousnesses. The author examines the multiple race, gender, and status consciousnesses of women of color who are legal writing professionals.

Part I of the article highlights the precarious position of women of color in the legal academy and in the legal writing profession. Part II examines the characteristics of LRW programs that deter women of color from seriously considering legal writing instruction as a profession. Part III explores how the low number of LRW faculty of color affects how all law students are taught legal writing and reasoning skills. Finally, Part IV proposes some solutions.

Friday is the 20th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: When will the U.S. Sign On?

In our first issue of the journal, Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union shared the following concern with our readers in her article, ” Keeping The Constitution Inside The Schoolhouse Gate--Students' Rights Thirty Years After Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District.”

She wrote:

“Most importantly, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,[7] which the United Nations General Assembly adopted unanimously in 1989, broke all records as both the most rapidly ratified and the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history.[8] Out of all 193 nation-states in the world, only two have not ratified this convention.[9] It recognizes broad rights for minors….
“Alas, though, of the two countries in the entire world that have not ratified this convention, one is our very own United States.[11] The only other country that is our companion in this tiny category of non-ratifiers is Somalia.[12] And that is only because Somalia does not have an internationally recognized government, so it is literally unable to ratify-an excuse that is not available to the United States![13] The United States Government's refusal to ratify this international convention protecting minors' and students' rights in part reflects our country's longstanding general isolationism concerning international law.[14] But it also reflects the recent subversion of young people's dignity and rights throughout our domestic political and legal systems.[15]”


This Friday, November 20th, will mark the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States has still not ratified this treaty in which the world community recognized the universal human rights and protection needs of children. During his presidential campaign, President Obama recognized the need to review our treaties in order to ensure that the United States resumes its role of global leadership in human rights. This Friday, on its 20th anniversary, would be a good day for the Senate to finally ratify the treaty. (It had been signed by President Clinton in 1995 but never ratified by the Senate)

For more information on the Convention on the Rights of the Child , go to Unicef website.

Understanding the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Are Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall Too Radical for Our Students?

Having just posted (below) Nino's song honoring the death of Agustin Gudinon, the farmworker who died of a heat stroke in the fields, we happened to notice this petition on the website of the United Farm Workers. In their petition, they alert the public to a debate taking place over the adoption of new social studies curriculum standards before the Texas State Board of Education. Why are figures like Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall even being challenged?

To read the concerns of the United Farm Workers in their own words, go to their website and see their petition: "Tell Texas not to remove Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall from school books." You can also find news clips on the subject at their website also.

Supreme Court Decides Student Strip Search Case

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on the student strip search case was announced today. The ACLU , who represented April Redding, the mother of the Arizona student, Savana Redding, calls it the first victory for student rights in the last twenty years. The High Court ruled that the search that took place when honors student Savana was 13 years old was an unconstitutional violation of her rights. The search was done by school officials on the basis of an uncollaborated accusation by another student that Savanna had ibuprofen in her prosession. Now nineteen years old, Savanna wrote about her experience and her court victory on the ACLU blog today.

Read Savana's own words about her court victory from the ACLU blog:


Civics 101
by Savana Redding

"People of all ages expect to have the right to privacy in their homes, belongings, and most importantly, their persons. But for far too long, students have been losing these rights the moment they step foot onto public school property -- a lesson I learned firsthand when I was strip-searched by school officials just because another student who was in trouble pointed the finger at me. I do not believe that school officials should be allowed to strip-search kids in school, ever. And though the U.S. Supreme Court did not go quite so far, it did rule that my constitutional rights were violated when I was strip-searched based on nothing more than a classmate's uncorroborated accusation that I had given her ibuprofen. I'm happy for the decision and hope it helps make sure that no other kids will have to experience what I went through.

"Strip searches are a traumatic intrusion of privacy. Forcing children to remove their clothes for bodily inspection is not a tool that school officials should have at their disposal. Yet, until today, the law was apparently unclear, potentially allowing for the most invasive of searches based on the least of suspicions. Every day, parents caution their children about the importance of not talking to strangers, looking both ways before crossing the street, and following directions at school. But I imagine they never think to warn them that a school official, acting on a hunch, may force them to take their clothes off in the name of safety. And now, thankfully, they won't have to.

"Our fundamental rights are only as strong as the next generation believes them to be, and I am humbled to have had a part in preserving and promoting the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights."

Readers can read the U.S. Supreme Court decision here.

Editor: The journal recently published some articles on another student rights case, Morse v. Frederick, decided by the U.S Supreme Court in 2007. Readers can read two articles on the case in our Winter 2008 issue on "Schooling as if Democracy Matters."

Visions of Public Education In Morse v. Frederick by Aaron H. Caplan

"Bong Hits 4 Jesus”: Have students’ First Amendment rights to free speech been changed after Morse v. Frederick? by Nathan M. Roberts

(Cross-posted on the Social Issues Blog)