Does TUSD's ethnic studies program violate Arizona's new law?
Posted: May 13, 2010 2:35 PM EDT Updated: May 14, 2010 1:15 AM EDT

Reporters: Forrest Carr and April Madison

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Tucson Unified School District has insisted repeatedly that its ethnic studies program does not violate the terms of Arizona's new law placing restrictions on such courses. Are those statements true? A closer look at TUSD's teaching materials casts doubt on some of TUSD's denials. But even so, that does not answer the larger question of whether students have a right to study the material or whether Arizona has a right to stop them.

Arizona House Bill 2281 has led to student and teacher protests and threats of lawsuits, and has drawn sharp criticism from United Nations human rights experts. The backlash erupted even though the measure does not ban ethnic studies programs outright. Instead, it places restrictions on them. Specifically, schools cannot present instructional material that advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government, promotes resentment toward any race or class of people or advocates ethnic solidarity. Nor can schools design courses for pupils of any particular ethnic group. TUSD insists that its program does none of those things and has said it will make no changes in the course.

What are the facts?

9 on Your Side took a closer look. One of the textbooks that TUSD uses in its ethnic studies program is Chicano!, by F. Arturo Rosales. The book teaches the history of racism and oppression in the United States directed against the Mexican, Mexican-American, and Hispanic populations. As the name implies, a large portion of the textbook is devoted to the Chicano movement that sprang up to fight social injustice and to push for civil rights. There are some similarities between the Chicano movement tactics that the book documents and the tactics some TUSD students have practicing recently.

The cover of the book features graphic art of protesters with their fists in the air. Pages 248, 249 and 253 feature photographs of Chicano movement members with raised fists. The photograph on page 253 shows a student with a raised fist sitting in a classroom with other students; the text on that page makes the point that Chicano studies programs in the Southwest are "the most visible vestige" of the Chicano movement. A review of KGUN9 News footage over the past week shows many TUSD students raising their fists in the same fashion as those shown in the textbook.

Page 185 shows a picture of students walking out of school as part of a protest. Such student walkouts have been a major component of recent protests in Tucson against the ethnic studies restrictions and against Arizona's controversial immigration crackdown.

And then there is the brown beret issue. Pages 193 and 199 of the textbook show pictures of demonstrators wearing brown berets. The book acknowledges a link to Che Guevara as an inspiration for the berets. Interestingly, the textbook does not explain who Guevara was. Guevara was a Marxist revolutionary leader and a major figure in the Cuba's communist revolution, revered by some as an inspiration to the downtrodden, but reviled by others as a ruthless killer who bragged about personally shooting defectors.

When the sun came up at Tucson High School on Friday morning of last week, the light of the new day found several protesters wearing brown berets and revolutionary-style garb. At his Tucson press conference on Wednesday, state schools superintendent Tom Horne presented an enlarged photograph of that protest culled from a Los Angeles newspaper and pointed to it as an example of how TUSD students are learning hatred and what he calls "ethnic chauvinism."

There is a big flaw in that argument, though, according to Sean Arce, TUSD's director of Mexican American/Raza studies. In an interview with KGUN9's April Madison on Thursday, Arce insisted that not one of those beret-wearing protesters was a TUSD student. He told Madison that those particular protesters were adults from other communities.

Arce did not deny that protesters seen walking out of class and pumping their fists in the air in recent days were TUSD students. But he was not willing to concede that in doing so, they took any inspiration from his course. "These are historical episodes. We look at all historic episodes in their totality.... We don't have workshops on how to protest or how to organize in the community. These are simply historical episodes." When asked directly if there's any chance students might be emulating what they saw in the textbook, Arce replied, "Not whatsoever."

If that statement might seem like a stretch to some, Arce has other important facts that are much harder to argue with. He grows most passionate when talking about the academic success of his ethnic studies students. "We have increased academic achievement levels, we have increased literacy rates in our classes, our college matriculation rates of students in our classes are around 80% for Latinos, and a national average is 25%."

According to Arce's figures, kids participating in the ethnic studies program have a graduation rate of nearly 98%. By contrast, the national graduation rate for Mexican Americans is only 44%. In addition, Arce's figures show that his ethnic studies students are three times more likely to pass the state's AIMS reading test, 4 times more likely to pass the writing section, and 2.5 times more likely to pass the AIMS math test.

A new report released on Thursday gives even more meaning to those figures. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that when Hispanics drop out of high school, less than one in ten ever goes back to earn a GED, or high school equivalency degree. The GED success rate is twice as high for African-Americans, and three times as high for whites.

Arce also added that regardless of what's in the Chicano! textbook, his classes do teach the full story of who Che Guevara was and what he was all about.

If Arce is making no concessions, neither is Horne. On Thursday he told Madison by phone, "We do have performance objectives in our standards that relate to contributions of Hispanics, as well as other groups. What's wrong is to have a whole course just teach the history of the ethnicity of the race you happen to be born into."

It's clear that the sight of those fists in the air are part of what has Horne so hot under the collar. In Wednesday's Tucson press conference, Horne alluded to a 2007 incident where a group of students turned their backs and raised their fists to a Republican guest speaker -- Margaret Garcia Dugan. She is Horne's deputy assistant and a candidate to replace him as the state's top educator. Horne insists that the students learned to do that in class, and believes such instruction is wrong. He told Madison, "You can't just say people can teach whatever they want to because you end up with what we see in Tucson, which is that they're teaching kids to be revolutionaries."

Horne's objectives are clear: he's on record as saying he wants to get rid of Tucson's Mexican-American/Raza program. He admitted to Madison that he's never visited any Tucson ethnic studies classrooms, but said he has sources who have. "I have a lot of quotations. Teachers and former teachers, that are my sources about revolutionary things that have been taught to these kids."

Even if it's true that TUSD's protesting, fist-waving students are drawing at least some of their inspiration from the ethnic studies program, is that a violation of the new law? And if it is, who's morally right -- the teachers who presented the material, or the Arizona politicians who would define those teachers as lawbreakers? Is there a difference between teaching students and indoctrinating students? Is it even possible to teach history without having students of any and all races react emotionally to some of the historical injustices they're learning about?

The answers to those questions will have to be left as an exercise for a larger class -- the people and voters of Arizona.

Supporting documents for this story, including the 2010 PowerPoint presentation to the TUSD board documenting the success of ethnic studies students, can be found in the "Also on KGUN9.com" box on the left side of this page, beneath the story photographs.

http://www.kgun9.com/global/story.asp?s=12477521