Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban Has National Ramifications, Warns U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva

[Judi Lynn]

Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban Has National Ramifications, Warns U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva
Posted: 05/11/11 10:00 PM ET

As daily protests continue at the Arizona state capitol in Phoenix, US Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) called Arizona's controversial Ethnic Studies ban a "dangerous precedent" not only for Tucson's besieged Mexican American Studies program, but "for the entire nation."

Coordinated by statewide Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies advocates, the Capitol protests follow two weeks of upheaval in Tucson, where actions by students and community members derailed a hasty resolution by the Tucson Unified School District officials to demote the acclaimed program.

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal, whose campaign ran an ad "to stop la raza" last fall, is now awaiting results of a costly and discredited audit of Tucson's Ethnic Studies Program. Despite the school district's own internal assessment of the program's nationally praised achievements, the district risks losing over $15 million in funds if state officials declare the program to be out of compliance with the highly politicized law.

"This legislation against diversity might be focused on Tucson," Grijalva told me in a brief phone interview, "but it has significant ramifications across the country."

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/arizonas-ethnic-studies-b_b_860860.html

[notesdev]

1. What kind of career

does an "ethnic studies" degree make one qualified to pursue?

[izquierdista]

2. Social work

law school, teaching (language, social studies, etc.), actually, any career that deals with people, not just the ethnicity studied.

[notesdev]

4. It doesn't seem to be well suited for any of that

All the people who went into law and social work that I have known have started as psych undergrads, which seems to be far more generally applicable in these fields than ethnic studies; and for teachers, an education degree seems to be the obvious choice.

I don't really get how an ethnic studies program can help in a people profession when dealing with people who are not culturally aligned with the studied ethnicity. Also all of those professions already suffer from a glut of applicants, and the country as a whole from a glut of paper pushers rather than people who actually produce something.

If I had a job applicant with an ethnic studies degree on the resume, I'd be dumbfounded trying to evaluate what, if any, marketable skills that person possessed.

[Tesha]

10. Perhaps you're not the right person to be interviewing that applicant?

If your user name refers to Lotus Notes, you're certainly not
going to be interviewing folks for non-technical positions.

Tesha

[notesdev]

14. I run my own show now

So... yes it is me interviewing - small business - the primary generator of jobs in the US economy - works like that.

As you might imagine, ethnic studies at any level scores exactly zero points in IT. It has no practical use that anyone here has been able to name.

[Tesha]

16. As I said, you're not the target audience.

On the other hand, if a museum, say the Smithsonian
Museum of American History were hiring a curator (etc.),
they might think very well of a person with a degree in
Ethnic Studies and all your experience would rate
exactly zero points in their eyes.

Life's like that.

Tesha

[notesdev]

17. And how many of those are needed?

Let's say a few dozen.

Oh whoops, anyone with a History degree, or any of a dozen other more appropriate degrees, is going to stand head and shoulders above them.

Let's try a different approach. Can you name one single person who has achieved success on the strength of their ethnic studies education, where that success isn't predicated on simply promoting more ethnic studies?

[marmar]

5. What does that have to do with this story? It's about a program in a school district......

....... and believe or not, the sole purpose of academics is not career preparation. Learning about one's history and identity is important in building pride - an important element of overall success.

[notesdev]

6. Pride goeth before the fall

One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in life is that pride is an expensive luxury. It is NOT the same thing as well-grounded confidence.

"believe or not, the sole purpose of academics is not career preparation"

Maybe not for each and every individual, but for a society that's exactly what the purpose of academics is. Navel-gazing is a leisure activity.

As far as what it has to do with the story, I wonder who really benefits from these ethnic studies programs. I don't think it's the students who benefit, not after taking on obscene levels of debt for a degree which can't help them improve their lots in life in any material way.

[marmar]

7. This is about a school district ethnic studies program. Exactly what debt are they incurring.....

..... in high school?

[notesdev]

8. In high school that's even worse

High school is for general skills preparation. Reading, writing, arithmetic. Getting off those subjects into others of dubious value is exactly how our educational performance ended up in the toilet.

Also our schools are supposed to be integrated - how can ethnic identity programs do anything but de-integrate, if they teach kids to see themselves as members of an ethnic group rather than as countrymen?

These kinds of "studies" are the domain of the family, they have no place in schools.

[marmar]

9. 'if they teach kids to see themselves as members of an ethnic group rather than as countrymen?'

Bull. They're learning things that they're not going to learn in an American history class.

[notesdev]

11. Such as?

Please do list for me the things that these kids would be deprived without having a state school teach to them, that somehow all other kids in the country are not deprived from being without it.

Seriously, don't take me for a naif. The vast majority of kids in any "Chicano Studies" class are going to be Hispanic. The vast majority of kids in any "African Studies" class are going to be black. And so on, for however many ethnicities there are programs for.

These kids are being targeted for these programs due to their race, a practice which cannot be justified as a policy of government. The phrase that the racists of old used for this is "separate but equal". It seems they have improved their P.R., but it's the same ugly racist policy underneath: teach colored kids useless crap instead of the math and language skills they need to succeed.

[marmar]

12. The students WANT these programs......

Students take various and sundry elective classes in high school - for example, I took a British literature that had no real 'career preparation' value for me. Why is it that an ethnic studies class raises such a howl, particularly among people who are not members of the ethnic group?

And no offense, but your perspective seems to be very limited. Perhaps you might want to talk to those students or families and find out why they think the ethnic studies program is important.

[notesdev]

13. They are told to want them by the people interested in running them

You can get kids to demand anything with just a little encouragement. I remember seeing kids being trained to frothily demand fascist anti-drug programs back in the day, so their demands are neither reason nor excuse. Moreover, by the very definition of what is occurring here (education of minors), those being educated are not qualified to say what is and what is not in their best interest to know. Kids doing what they're encouraged to do by adults has no weight as a point of argument.

Ethnic studies is going to get these kids nothing more than a spot on a welfare line. This is training useless, unskilled labor and orienting them to be consigned to the bottom rungs of the economy. The kids who learn math and science and language skills will be the lawyers, doctors, and businessmen, while these poor ethnic studies kids will be angry and ignorant about things that really do have an impact on their lives. This stuff has no more place in a public school than religious studies - in this country all people should be given the same opportunity in life.

The KKK could never have in its wildest imaginings come up with such a plan. Get the dark skins exiled to the ghetto and have them willingly go along with it, even celebrate it?

My view on the subject is limited, and purposefully so. It is limited to the actual purpose of education, which is to provide children the skills they need to succeed as adults. Ethnic studies provides skills that are useful only to those who ghettoize themselves, and to the political prostitutes who tap into the revenue stream of the programs. They are worthless in the melting-pot, post-racial society of the future.

Just look around the world, look who is kicking our ass in education now. Think they're doing ethnic studies? No, they're doing math and language and history. And until we do we will be grossly mis-serving our kids.

Useless nonsense is NOT benign. It displaces learning that can truly benefit these kids and society as a whole.

[marmar]

15. You make it sound like the ethnic studies curriculum is replacing math and science, which it is not.

It's an intellectually dishonest argument. And I don't see how confident, self-aware students don't benefit society as a whole. At schools in Detroit and Toronto with Afrocentric curriculums, the students are outperforming their peers at the other public schools in all subject areas. Is that not a good thing?

Again, it seems that these arguments against ethnic studies programs are coming from people with no real clue about the communities they serve.

[notesdev]

18. It sure is replacing those other things

Those kids weren't sitting in classes staring at a blank wall before these programs came into town.

"Again, it seems that these arguments against ethnic studies programs are coming from people with no real clue about the communities they serve."

And again, it seems that the arguments for ethnic studies programs are nothing but a new dialect of segregationism.

[classysassy]

3. American history

failed to address the story of other groups other than the Europeans,if we are to be truly united we need to know each other.The white historians have been too busy putting a spin on the bad behavior of the white man,blaming the Indians for most of the problems that happened in the past.There are still enough white racist in America(especially Arizona) to disrupt any meaningfully studies of other ethnic groups.