As we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, our San Francisco high school students need to be equipped not just for today’s colleges and careers but also for changing conditions and circumstances not yet even imagined. Ethnic studies have an important and appropriate place in their education, especially in the current environment where public institutions, and even democracy itself, are being challenged and targeted. As presently taught in San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) high schools, ethnic studies is not up to this important task. Our leaders — educators, parents, students, and community members — must work hard to get it right, even if that means pausing the course for incoming ninth graders.
Free public education originated in the 19th-century grounded on two basic principles: (1) The classroom is the place for children to spend their youth, not the factory, mine, or field. (2) Public education prepare children and young adults, including those born in other countries, to be responsible and engaged citizens in our democratic society.
SFUSD’s ethnic studies program began in 2010 with a student-focused curriculum that Stanford University researchers credited for potentially lasting academic and attendance improvements. But, in an article on the SFUSD website cited by former SFUSD Superintendent Vince Matthews, the same researchers warned, “asking teachers to discuss unusually sensitive topics in the classroom without the proper training to do so effectively . . .” could “trigger unintended and negative consequences.”
The current SFUSD ethnic studies courses have been widely criticized for lack of planning and accountability, inadequate balance, imposition of doctrinaire views, and not following the law. Too many of the current class offerings fail to provide students a solid foundation for making thoughtful inquiries about the past and present, and assessing their own values while determining what they want their futures to be. The serious curricular and other shortcomings have been shown to SFUSD leaders and are particularly egregious when they delve into disputes or movements far from California, including the Red Guard of the People’s Republic of China from the 1960s. Some students have expressed safety fears and have experienced the very marginalization that ethnic studies should be preventing.
SFUSD ethnic studies courses have been widely criticized for lack of planning and accountability, inadequate balance, imposition of doctrinaire views, and not following the law.
SFUSD can establish a relevant, responsive, and responsible ethnic studies program built on the following five pillars:
California-centric: Without excluding any peoples, the classes should be focused on the California histories and present-day conditions of the four racial and ethnic groups recognized by the state as the focus of ethnic studies: African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. Students from these communities were the founders of the ethnic studies movement at San Francisco State and U.C. Berkeley in the 1960s.
Inclusive curriculum: Ethnic studies should include the whole story — discrimination and determination, obstacles, and opportunities. Presenting an honest and comprehensive approach is especially appropriate for San Francisco where, for example, William Leidesdorff, the nation’s first African American millionaire, donated land for the first public schools and served on the school board in the 1850s; where Luis Walter Alvarez, the first Hispanic American to receive the Nobel Prize in physics, attended our public schools in the 1920s; and where our schools suffered national prominence for denying Asian American students equal educational opportunity. Many people can recite the land acknowledgment of the Ramaytush Ohlone native people but have little awareness of their or their descendants’ histories.
Student-focused: Ethnic studies should help students learn about the history, struggles, and contributions of people in their own communities, as well as those of their classmates of other backgrounds. Gaining self-awareness and knowledge of others promotes mutual respect, reduces boundaries, and can prepare young people for a lifetime of civic engagement and community participation.
Legal compliance: SFUSD must ensure that it follows state law guardrails on curriculum for ethnic studies and its own governance values. To those ends, SFUSD should empanel a community advisory body representative of our city to suggest and review alignment of potential SFUSD curricular choices with state or other approved curricula. SFUSD should give full regard to any governing labor agreements that apply. Any new program should first be subject to public hearing and a vote of the Board of Education.
Maximum educational value: Getting it right will take time, thorough discussions of goals, and efforts to gauge and gain support from across San Francisco communities. As an educational matter, an ethnic studies course could be offered in 11th or 12th grade for after students have the had benefit of other foundational courses (e.g., world history, U.S. history) and course offerings (e.g., art, literature). In view of increasing state graduation requirements, the importance of electives, and the current budget situation, SFUSD could suspend half of its current one-year course requirement and offer ethnic studies as a one-semester course as the State of California envisions (but does not mandate).
June 26 marks the 80th anniversary of world leaders coming to San Francisco to create the United Nations. Today, we have the opportunity through ethnic studies and other programs in our public schools to promote a united city and prepare young people to learn from each other and about each other’s histories. And, together, to gain the math, literacy, academic, and practical skills to move all of us forward.
Promoting the understanding of the people of our communities is a core function of public education that can and should be advanced through ethnic studies. Focusing on these five principles can help San Francisco do it right.