Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource
Decades of institutionalized racism and inadequate funding have left California with a racial achievement gap in its schools. All of our students deserve the chance to learn and succeed, but all too often, students of color have been failed by an education system that still bears the marks of a long history of racism and inequality.
To address this persistent structural problem, Gov. Gavin Newsom has allocated funding that will be directed toward the poorest schools, to be used specifically to help all student groups improve academic achievement in this year’s proposed budget.
The governor did not, however, explicitly allocate funding to support Assembly Bill 101, the mandate that all public high schools offer an ethnic studies course in the 2025-26 school year and require all students to complete a one-semester ethnic studies course for graduation, beginning with the school year 2029-30. The lack of explicit funding has emboldened opponents of ethnic studies education, who now argue that the ethnic studies requirement must be delayed or withdrawn.
Delaying or abandoning the state’s commitment to ethnic studies would not only break the promise that the governor and the Legislature made to the people of California at a time when this kind of education is more important than ever, but also threaten efforts to close the racial achievement gap. Although ethnic studies isn’t designed with the specific goal of reducing or closing racial achievement gaps, it has a track record of doing exactly that.
For example, Stanford researchers Thomas S. Dee, Emily K. Penner and Sade Bonilla found San Francisco’s ninth-grade ethnic studies course to improve students’ GPA, school attendance, and graduation rate. University of Arizona researchers Nolan L. Cabrera, Jeffrey F. Milam, Ozan Jaquette and Ronald W. Marx found that participation in Tucson’s Mexican American studies program raised students’ achievement on the state’s reading, writing and math achievement tests and virtually closed racial achievement gaps.
San Francisco State University researchers found that students who major in ethnic studies graduate within six years at a much higher rate (92%) than students in other majors and students in other majors who take at least one ethnic studies course boost their graduation rates compared with students who do not. At the University of Louisville, researcher Tomarra A. Adams found that Black students who major in Pan-African studies have a higher graduation rate than Black students who major in something else.
Ethnic studies has consistently positive impacts on the academic achievement of students from racially marginalized backgrounds. By offering a relevant curriculum that speaks to issues of concern to their lives and communities, ethnic studies taps into and engages the knowledge students bring to the classroom, allowing them to draw from and recognize their own expertise.
Ethnic studies classes offer an environment where important and relevant issues related to race and ethnicity can be addressed openly rather than be belittled or ignored. Further, as students come to see education as relevant to addressing problems and needs in their communities, and themselves as academically capable, they gain confidence to thrive in school more generally.
Ethnic studies benefits all California students while helping to close the racial achievement gap and preparing the workforce of tomorrow for the multicultural reality of our state. It was in recognition of these benefits that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 101, declaring as part of the signing statement that “these courses boost student achievement over the long run — especially among students of color.”
Recently, Assembly Bill 1468 was introduced to authorize the development of content standards for high school ethnic studies. This bill is unnecessary and potentially harmful. Ethnic studies is a highly contextual approach to curriculum and teaching because it connects with the local cultures and issues of specific communities in which it is being taught.
For that reason, there can be no standardized ethnic studies curriculum. Within the current Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, we already have a set of six guiding values and principles that are broad enough to allow for diverse contextualized approaches to ethnic studies, while they are also sufficiently direct as standards.
I worry that further specification of what should be in an ethnic studies curriculum will authorize one version of ethnic studies to the exclusion of others. This has been my experience with content standards for decades. In addition, ethnic studies is interdisciplinary, which means that the standards for that subject (such as history or English) should be used along with the seven ethnic studies guiding principles. AB 1468 unnecessarily adds layers to the standards we already have.
Ethnic studies needs to be a part of the curriculum offered to California’s students, and it is incumbent on the governor and the Legislature to make good on that promise by resolving any ambiguities about the funding of AB 101.
•••
Christine Sleeter is professor emerita in the College of Education at California State University Monterey Bay, known for pioneering research into multicultural education and anti-racism.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
A version of this commentary originally appeared in the Sacramento Bee.