Mexican American Studies Lives On

If you have seen the remarkable film Precious Knowledge, about the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program in Tucson, you’ll remember Curtis Acosta, the caring and charismatic high school language arts teacher. Despite its well-documented accomplishments and success in reaching historically marginalized students, Arizona politicians set out to destroy Tucson’s MAS program—through House Bill 2281, which singled out this program, and then through a decree from Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction, which ruled Tucson’s program out of compliance with state law.

Rethinking Schools was drawn into the controversy when Tucson Unified School District banned and confiscated our book, Rethinking Columbus, which was one of seven core texts used in the MAS program. We published several blog posts and articles (here and here) on the struggle in Tucson, including two by Curtis Acosta.

Here we publish an open letter from Acosta, announcing his departure from Tucson High Magnet School and describing his new plans to continue his career as a mentor to young people and defender of public education.

By the way, Curtis Acosta will be leading workshops at this summer’s Free Minds, Free People conference in Chicago, and will keynote the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice conference this Oct. 19 in Seattle, co-sponsored by Rethinking Schools.

  - Bill Bigelow
Curriculum Editor

Dear supporters, colleagues, and friends,

Last Thursday my career at Tucson High Magnet School came to an end. It was never supposed to be this way. I always believed that I would leave with a fully gray head of hair and thicker lens than those currently in my black frames. I imagined that there would be a legacy of former students who would take my place and would take our levels of success even further. Instead, I took down each poster and photo from my room with a deep sense of loss and the words of Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred” in my mind. It was as if I was participating in self-ethnic cleansing. (A wonderful side note to this story is that Bob Diaz, a librarian at the University of Arizona, has decided to create an archive of our classroom so that it can live on forever. Have I mentioned lately how much I love librarians?)

However, the reality is that the room and the power of the space were lost far before the pictures came off the walls. This moment was fated as soon as Tucson Unified School District eliminated our highly successful Mexican American Studies program, banning my colleagues and me from our own curriculum and pedagogy, as well as boxing up books. Yet, I would like to thank my students, compañer@s, parents, and the local and national voices that supported us through these difficult years in building up my resiliency and resolve to stand up and never to submit to acts of educational malpractice.

Thus, I am happy to inform you all that a brighter day lies ahead. Yesterday, I held a local press conference announcing that through a partnership with Prescott College, Mexican American Studies lives on through Chican@ Literature, Art & Social Studies (CLASS) where high school youth will receive free college credit. This is a class that was born from the injustices performed upon our students in Tucson and my indignation toward political opportunists using our students, literature, and history to create a wedge issue founded in hate for their own selfish means.

CLASS had a successful first year as a collection of 10 amazing youth, who sacrificed their Sunday afternoons throughout the entire year to rigorously study, analyze, and read the world together. It was a thirst of justice and knowledge that fueled them and they will soon be sharing their voice with the world at Free Minds, Free People in Chicago—a national education conference centered upon education for liberation and youth empowerment. However, our youth need financial help to attend, and although I am using the stipend from Prescott College to pay for part of the trip, it is still not enough. We would be humbled by any and all support and you can follow us now on Facebook and donate here.

Along with CLASS expanding and continuing next fall, I am happy to announce that I have founded the Acosta Latino Learning Partnership, an educational consulting firm that will continue the work that we started in Tucson throughout the nation. It is my vision to help teachers, schools, and educational organizations empower youth to find their own voice and academic identity through culturally responsive and engaging academic experiences.

I look forward to this next chapter of my career as I continue to be an advocate for public schools. After all, we know public education works. We’ve seen it be successful time and again, and as teachers we are honored to be the guides and mentors of beautiful young people who will forge a better nation and world. By following the inspirational leadership of the powerful teachers, students, and parents in Seattle and Chicago, this devious trajectory to destroy public education will end. One day soon we will stop the obsession of measuring our children and teachers with corporate driven instruments aimed at eliminating all of the creative joy from public education. And this is why our work here in Tucson must continue, we must never comply with unjust laws and policies that dehumanize and degrade our children.

Let all the reformers be warned that we are aware of why you want to discredit our profession and the heights that we reach with our students every year. We are more than a budding marketplace or real estate to redevelop, and we will not rest until our children are treated with more love and respect than the banks and corporations of this country. Trust teachers to work with their students, parents, and communities as true partners; support us with resources that our children deserve, and then watch the magic of learning take root and grow.

I want to thank you all for your support through the years and truly believe that great victories lie ahead for communities of color, our students and public schools throughout our nation.

In Lak Ech (Tú eres mi otro yo / You are my other me),

Curtis Acosta
Chican@ Literature Teacher
Tucson, AZ

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Teaching About the Wars: Interview with the Editor

Last month, just in time for the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we released a collection of our best writing about U.S military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, Teaching About the Wars, edited by Rethinking Schools managing editor Jody Sokolower.

From the introduction, “Breaking the Silence on War,” through articles on the historical roots of the current wars and on to resistance, Teaching About the Wars encourages students to question premises, read between the lines, and grasp the enormity of war. An expanded and revised version of our earlier Whose Wars? Teaching About the Iraq War and the War on Terror, the book is filled with role plays, imaginative writing exercises, and critical reading and writing activities. These tools help students probe the roots and consequences of U.S. involvement in the region and stand in stark contrast to the propagandistic cheerleading in our textbooks.

Since its release, we have received a good deal of positive feedback about the collection, including from author, journalist, and anti-war activist David Swanson. He chose to interview Jody on his Talk Nation Radio program, and we are reposting this interview here for you.  Enjoy.

Teaching About the Wars is available as a PDF e-book or in paperback. 

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Politics of Naming

Many of you are familiar with the Zinn Education Project, a collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

We’re pleased to announce that this April, Diversity Month, the Zinn Education Project has collaborated with StoryCorps to share resources on the Anglicizing of names.

Featured resources are “To Say the Name Is to Begin the Story,” a community building lesson by Rethinking Schools editor Linda Christensen on the personal and cultural significance of naming, and an animation by StoryCorps called Facundo the Great.

You can also find a list of books and resources for the classroom on the politics and practices of naming for grades K-12 at the Zinn Education Project website.

In the animation of his Storycorps interview, Ramón “Chunky” Sanchez recounts how names at his elementary school in Southern California were Anglicized. It’s a funny yet poignant resource that can be used at different grade levels. In “To Say the Name Is to Begin the Story,” Linda Christensen shares a classroom-tested teaching strategy to elicit student stories about the importance of naming.

Excerpt from “To Say the Name Is to Begin the Story”

‘To say the name is to begin the story,’ according to the Swampy Cree Indians. In my English courses we begin our ‘story’ together by saying our names—and by telling the history of how we came to have them. Because the first day of class lays a foundation for the nine months to follow, I want our year to begin with respect for the diverse cultural heritages and people represented not only at Jefferson High School, but in the world.

“We also speak—using student knowledge as well as mine—of how historically some groups of people were denied their names. Many people from Eastern Europe had their names shortened at Ellis Island because their names were too long and too difficult for officials to pronounce. When Africans were stolen from their homeland, their names and their history were stripped as well.”

Download PDF to read more.

“To Say the Name” is one of more than a dozen lessons and articles in our book, Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word.

Facundo the Great

Facundo the Great is an animation that accompanies a story told by Ramón “Chunky” Sanchez about the painful history of school authorities Anglicizing students’ names—in the process, stripping children of their family history and identity. With a humorous twist, Sanchez recounts how the administration calls an emergency meeting to discuss how to abbreviate the name of a new student, Facundo. If Ramón becomes Ray, what happens to Facundo?

Let us know if you use the animation and lesson in your classroom.

You can also listen to Stories of Teaching People’s History from the Zinn Education Project 2011 collaboration with StoryCorps’ National Teachers Initiative.

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A few resources for National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month! If you’ve been reading our work for any length of time, you know we’re big fans of poetry, both reading it and using it as a teaching tool.

Here are some of our favorite articles on using poetry in the classroom that have appeared in Rethinking Schools magazine. We hope you will find some time during your classes this month to read and write poetry with your students.

These articles are available free to all friends of Rethinking Schools:

Illustration: Roxanna Bikadoroff

Aquí y Allá/Here and There: Exploring Our Lives Through Poetry, by Elizabeth Schlessman
An elementary teacher uses the poetry of Jorge Argueta to help students express their feelings about leaving one country for another.

Talking Back to the World: Turning Poetic Lines into Visual Poetry, by Renée Watson
Student poetry about “what raised me” is woven into graphic art.

Remembering Mahmoud Darwish, by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Palestinian poet’s richly descriptive style resonated with displaced peoples everywhere

Poetry in a Time of Crisis, by Linda Christensen
In the wake of 9/11, high school educators call on the power of poetry to help students critique injustice and develop empathy.

These articles are available to subscribers. Subscribe today to gain access!

Knock Knock: Turning Pain into Power, by Linda Christensen
When poet and Obie-winning playwright Daniel Beaty speaks, people listen, learn, and are inspired

Pain and Poetry: Facing Our Fears, by Tom McKenna
Poetry becomes the vehicle for students to strengthen the classroom community, think critically about their collective experience, and push their teacher to push them.

Quaking Conversation, by Lenelle Moise/Teaching ideas by Linda Christensen
A poem about the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Raised by Women, by Linda Christensen
Building Relationships Through Poetry

Related Resources

Reading, Writing, And Rising Up and Teaching for Joy and Justice. Poetry is a central piece of Rethinking Schools editor Linda Christensen’s curriculum, and these books provide a wealth of ideas to link poetry and social justice teaching.

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Free access to Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs

With the pending decision about the Keystone XL pipeline in the news–along with the recent huge anti-pipeline demonstrations in Washington, D.C.–we are sharing articles and resources from our archives about the proposed pipeline, coal, climate change, and environmental justice with you.

And in the spirit of taking black history beyond “Black History Month,” we’re also sharing articles that celebrate the role of African Americans in our history and today. We hope you will use these articles throughout the entire year.

Enjoy these articles, freely available to all friends of Rethinking Schools. 

Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs:  A Role Play on Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline, by Abby Mac Phail

High school students learn about the conflict over the pipeline by participating in a role play.

Got Coal?  Teaching About the Most Dangerous Rock in America, by Bill Bigelow

Students play a game promoted by the coal industry-then dig beneath the surface to look at the realities of mountaintop removal mining.

‘Don’t Take Our Voices Away’–A Role Play on the Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change, by Julie Treick O’Neill and Tim Swinehart

Students learn about the impact of climate change on the world’s most vulnerable cultures and geographic areas, then share their knowledge as they discuss strategy for saving the planet.

A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son, by Dyan Watson

An African American mother and teacher educator uses examples from her own childhood to describe how she hopes her child will be treated by teachers, and what she fears.

These articles are free to read for our subscribers. Subscribe today to gain access!*

The Big One: Teaching About Climate Change, by Bill Bigelow

The environmental crisis requires a profound social and curricular rethinking.

A Pedagogy for Ecology, by Ann Pelo

Helping young children build an ecological identity and a conscious connection to place opens them to a broader bond with the earth.

“My Family’s Not from Africa–We Come from North Carolina!” Teaching Slavery in Context, by

Illustration by Robert Trujillo

Waahida Mbatha

An African American middle school teacher changes her African American students’ understanding of Africa and their own history.

Five Years After the Levees Broke: Bearing Witness Through Poetry, by Renée Watson

Students in the Bronx create startling poems after comparing the response to Hurricane Katrina with subsequent “natural disasters.”

Have you used any of these articles in your teaching?  If so, let us know about it in the comments.

In solidarity,

Kris Collett
Rethinking Schools

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Leading Educators Support Teacher Test Boycott

In a public statement released today, more than sixty educators and researchers [UPDATE: now 130+], including some of the most well-respected figures in the field of education, pledged support for the boycott of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test initiated by the teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle, calling the action a “blow against the overuse and misuse of standardized tests.” Among the signers of the statement are former US Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, author Jonathan Kozol and professor Nancy Carlsson-Paige. While the MAP test is used exclusively for rating teachers, “the test’s developers (the Northwest Evaluation Association) have noted the inappropriateness of using tests for such evaluations” the educators wrote.

“We’ve had more than a decade of standardized testing,” Ravitch said, “and now we need to admit that it’s not helping.” She added: “By signing this statement, I hope to amplify the voices of teachers who are saying ‘enough is enough’.”

“On Martin Luther King Day, we celebrate people who are willing to take personal risks to act according to their conscience,” Lewis said. “The teachers at Garfield High School are taking a stand for all of us.”

New York City public school teacher and doctoral student Brian Jones drafted the statement last week and received help with revisions and outreach from University of Washington professor Wayne Au. “I’m overwhelmed by the response to this statement,” Jones said, “I feel like this is the beginning of a real movement to challenge high stakes standardized testing.”

“We contacted leading scholars in the field of education,” Au said, “and nearly every single one said ‘Yes, I’ll sign.’ The emerging consensus among researchers is clear: high stakes standardized tests are highly problematic, to say the least.”

“When I look at this list of names, I see the people whose work helped to make me the teacher I am today,” Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School said. “Their support really means a lot to me, and I know that many teachers at Garfield High School feel the same way.”

The Statement: 

We Support the Teachers of Garfield High School

High-Stakes Standardized Tests are Overused and Overrated

The Use of Standardized Tests is Spreading

To fulfill the requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation, schools in all 50 states administer standardized tests to students, often beginning in third grade, in reading and math. Now, in response to the demands of Race to the Top and the trend toward greater “accountability” in education, states are developing even more tests for more subjects. Standardized tests, once used primarily to assess student learning, have now become the main instrument for the high-stakes evaluation of teachers, administrators, and even entire schools and school systems.

Tests Consume a Great Deal of Time and Money

Standardized testing is consuming an-ever growing proportion of education budgets nationwide. The total price tag may be nearly two billion dollars (1). Texas alone spent, last year, $90 million (2) on standardized testing. These tests are not a one hour or one day affair, but now can swallow up whole weeks of classroom time (3). In Chicago, some students must complete 13 standardized tests each year (4).

Testing Hurts Students

In the name of “raising standards” the growth of high stakes standardized testing has effectively lowered them. As the stakes for standardized tests are raised higher and higher, administrators and teachers have been forced to spend less time on arts, sciences, social studies, and physical education, and more time on tested subjects. The pressure to prepare students for standardized exams forces teachers to narrow instruction to only that material which will be tested (5). With the fate of whole schools and school systems at stake, cheating scandals have flourished, exposing many reform “miracles” in the process (6). Worse, focusing so much energy on testing undermines the intrinsic value of teaching and learning, and makes it more difficult for teachers and students to pursue authentic teaching and learning experiences.

Research does not Support Using Tests to Evaluate Teachers

As a means of assessing student learning, standardized tests are limited. No student’s intellectual process can be reduced to a single number. As a means of assessing teachers, these results are even more problematic. Research suggests that much of the variability in standardized test results are attributable to factors OTHER than the teacher (7). So-called “value-added” models for teacher evaluation have a large margin of error, and are not reliable measures of teacher performance (8).

Educators Are Taking a Stand for Authentic Teaching and Learning

In a nearly unanimous vote, the staff at Garfield High school in Seattle decided to refuse to administer the district’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test. Research has shown that this test has no significant impact on reading scores (9). While serving other low-stakes district purposes in the Seattle Public Schools, it is only used as a high-stakes measure for teachers, even though the test’s developers (the Northwest Evaluation Association) have noted the inappropriateness of using tests for such evaluations. In taking this action, the educators at Garfield High School have struck a blow against the overuse and misuse of standardized tests, and deserve support. We, the undersigned (10), stand with these brave teachers and against the growing standardized testing industrial complex.

Signed*,

Curtis Acosta
Chican@/Latin@ Literature Teacher, Tucson

Lauren Anderson
University of Southern California

Sam Anderson
National Black Education Agenda

Taiwanna Anthony
Prairie View A&M University

Jean Anyon
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Michael W. Apple
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Fadhilika Atiba-Weza
Retired Superintendent

Wayne Au, University of Washington, Bothell
Rethinking Schools

Ann Aviles de Bradley
Northeastern Illinois University

Bill Ayers
University of Illinois, Chicago

Rick Ayers
University of San Francisco

Jeff Bale
Michigan State University

Johanna Barnhart
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Ann Berlak
San Francisco State University

Kenneth Bernstein
Maya Angelou Public Charter Middle School

Bill Bigelow
Rethinking Schools

Elizabeth Bissell
Putney Central School

Steve Brier
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Maureen T. Boler
PS17K, New York

Steve Brier
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Jacqueline Grennon Brooks
Hofstra University

Anthony Brown
University of Texas, Austin

Jim Burns
South Dakota State University

Kristen Lynn Buras
Urban South Grassroots Research Collective

Carol Burris
Keith Middle School, New Bedford

Keith Campbell
Saint Mary’s College of California

Kenneth Carano
Western Oregon University

Nancy Carlsson-Paige
Lesley University

Elizabeth Carroll
Appalachian State University

Cynthia Carvalho
Keith Middle School, New Bedford

Noam Chomsky
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Linda Christensen
Rethinking Schools

Anthony Cody
Education Week Teacher Magazine

Ross Collin
Manhattanville College

Kevin Cordeiro
Social Studies educator

Kim Cosier
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Keith Danner
University of California, Irvine

Antonia Darder
Loyola Marymount University

Noah DeLissovoy
University of Texas, Austin

Susan DuFresne
Teacher, Washington State

Susan Huddleston Edgerton
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Jeff Edmundson
University of Oregon

Shanti Elliott
Francis Parker School, Chicago

Christopher Erickson
Great Neck South High School

Pete Farruggio
University of Texas Pan American

Joseph Featherstone
Michigan State University

Anita Fernandez
Prescott College

Donna Fielding
Plainview–Old Bethpage  John F. Kennedy High School

Michelle Fine
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

B L Buddy Fish
Jackson State University

Nancy Flanagan
Education Week Teacher Magazine

Esther Fusco
Hoftstra University

Ofelia Garcia
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Ruth Wilson Gilmore
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Alice Ginsburg
Author

Gene Glass
University of Colorado, Boulder

Noah Asher Golden
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Joanna Goode
University of Oregon

Avery F. Gordon
University of California, Santa Barbara

Julie Gorlewski
State University of New York, New Paltz

Paul Gorski
George Mason University

Tim Goulet
Pipefitters Local Union 274

Karen Gourd
University of Washington, Bothell

Judith Gouwens
Roosevelt University

Sandy Grande
Connecticut College

Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs
Seattle University

Rico Gutstein
University of Illinois, Chicago

Helen Gym
Asian American United
Rethinking Schools

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters

Zoe Hammer
Prescott College

Nicholas D. Hartlep
Illinois State University

Barbara Hawkins
Teachers College,  Columbia University

Nick Henning
California State University, Fullerton

Jane Hirschmann
Time Out From Testing

Brian R. Horn
Illinois State University

James Horn
Cambridge College

Diane Horwitz
DePaul University

Nora Hyland
Rutgers

Ed Johnson
Advocate for Quality Public Education, Atlanta

Shaun Johnson
At the Chalk Face

Brian Jones
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Denisha Jones
Howard University

Marc Kagan
New York City School

Richard Kahn
Antioch University Los Angeles

Stan Karp
Rethinking Schools

Judith S. Kaufman
Hofstra University

Kenneth Kaufman
NYC High School Teacher

Bill Kennedy
University of Chicago

Joyce E. King
Georgia State University

Jonie Kipling
Hofstra University

Sid Kivanoski
Brooklyn Technical High School

Rachel Knoll
Mother, Educator
Madison, WI

Pamela J. Konkol
Concordia University Chicago

Jodi (Sacks) Kostbar
Professional Performing Arts School

Jonathan Kozol
Author

Steven Krashen
University of Southern California

Kevin Kumashiro
University of Illinois, Chicago
National Association for Multicultural Education

Raina J. Leon
St Mary’s College of California

Zeus Leonardo
California State University, Long Beach

Karen Lewis
Chicago Teachers Union

Pauline Lipman
University of Illinois, Chicago

Barbara Madeloni
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Tim Mahoney
Millersville University

Sallie A. Marston
University of Arizona

Victoria J. Maslow
New  York City Department of Education

Kavita Kapadia Matsko
University of Chicago

Morna McDermott
United Opt Out National

Kathleen McInerney
Saint Xavier University

Elizabeth Meadows
Roosevelt University

Erica R. Meiners
Northeastern Illinois University

Deborah  Meier
Coalition of Essential Schools

Nicholas Michelli
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Gregory Michie
Chicago Public School teacher
Concordia University Chicago

Alexandra Miletta
Mercy College

Alex Molnar
University of Colorado, Boulder
National Education Policy Center

Steevenson Mondelus
HOFSTRA graduate, Social Studies

Terry Moore
Save Our Schools

Mark Naison
Fordham University

National Association for Multicultural Education

Monty Neill
FairTest

Donna Nevel
New York University

Sonia Nieto
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Pedro Noguera
New York University

Isabel Nuñez
Concordia University Chicago

Dr. Tema Okun
National L0uis University

Edward Olivos
University of Oregon

Celia Oyler
Teachers College, Columbia University

Lisa (Leigh) Patel
Boston College

Thomas Pedroni
Wayne State University

Emery Petchauer
Oakland University

Bob Peterson
Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association
Rethinking Schools

Anthony Picciano
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Bree Picower
Montclair State University

Irene Plonczak
Hofstra University

Theresa Plue
Easton Secondary School

Thomas S. Poetter
Miami University

Anthony Pravin

Courtney Prusmack
Adams 14 Schools, Denver

Therese Quinn
Teacher

Annette Quintero
United Teachers of Dade

Rachel Radina
Miami University

Jessie Ramey
University of Pittsburgh

Diane Ravitch
New York University

Kristen A. Renn
Michigan State University

Rethinking Schools

Yolette Rios
Hesperia Teachers Association
California Association of Bilingual Educators

Peggy Roberston
United Opt Out National

Georgiena C. Robinson
John F. Kennedy High School
Plainview, NY

John Rogers
University of California, Los Angeles

Jerry Rosiek
University of Oregon

Leilani Sabzalian
University of Oregon

Kenneth J. Saltman
DePaul University, Chicago

Lily Sanabria-Hernandez
Hofstra University

Karyn Sandlos
School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Mara Sapon-Shevin
Syracuse University

Karen Saunders
Spark Teacher Education Institute
Brattleboro, Vermont

Al Schademan
California State University, Chico

Eric Schmitt
Teacher, New York

Nancy Schniedewind
State University of New York, New Paltz

William Schubert
University of Illinois, Chicago

Ann Schulte
California State University, Chico

Tim Scott
Education Radio

Brad Seidman
John F. Kennedy High School
Bellmore, NY

Doug Selwyn
Plattsburgh State University

Susan Semel
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Carla Shalaby
Wellesley College

Jessica T. Shiller
Towson University

Ira Shor
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Alan Singer
Hofstra University

Elizabeth A. Skinner
Illinois State University

Timothy D. Slekar
Penn State University, Altoona

Christine Sleeter
California State University, Monterey Bay

Ceresta Smith
United Teachers of Dade Phoenix Rising MORE Caucus

Jody Sokolower
Rethinking Schools

Jim Sommerville
Cudahy Middle School

The Southeast Massachusetts & Rhode Island Coalition to Save Our Schools

Mariana Souto-Manning
Teachers College, Columbia University

Joi Spencer
University of San Diego

Joel Spring
Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Sandra L. Stacki
Hofstra University

Lester Stasey
Alvarez High School, Providence

David W. Stinson
Georgia State University

David Stovall
University of Illinois, Chicago

Simeon Stumme
Concordia University Chicago

Katy Swalwell
George Mason University

Cathryn Teasley
Universidade da Coruña

Melissa Bollow Tempel
Milwaukee Public Schools
Rethinking Schools

Chris Thinnes
Curtis School, Los Angeles

Paul Thomas
Furman University

Maris Thompson
California State University, Chico

Carol L. Tieso
College of William and Mary

Joe Tonan
Claremont Faculty Association

Victoria F. Trinder
University of Illinois, Chicago

Eve Tuck
State University of New York, New Paltz

Jesse Turner
Children Are More Than Test Scores

Wayne Urban
University of Alabama

Angela Valenzuela
University of Texas, Austin

Bob Valiant
Dump Duncan

Jane Van Galen
University of Washington, Bothell

Manka Varghese
University of Washington

Michael Vavrus
The Evergreen State College

Sofia Villenas
Cornell University

Shirin Vossoughi
Stanford University School of Education

Federico R. Waitoller
University of Illinois at Chicago

John Walcott
Calvin College

Stephanie Walters
Rethinking Schools

William Watkins
University of Illinois, Chicago

Kathleen Weiler
Tufts University

Lois Weiner
New Jersey City University

Matthew Weinstein
Teacher Educator
Tacoma, WA

Kevin Welner
University of Colorado, Boulder
National Education Policy Center

Angela Wheat
Freeport High School

Barbara Winslow
Brooklyn College

Kathy Xiong
Milwaukee Public Schools
Rethinking Schools

Diana Zavala
Change the Stakes

Yong Zhao
Author and Scholar

Al Zucker
New Day Academy, Bronx

NOTES

1. Chingos, M. M. (2012). Strength in Numbers: State Spending on K-12 Assessment Systems. Brookings Institution.
2. Cargile, E. (May 3, 2012). “Tests’ price tag $90 million this year”. Kxan Investigates, Kxan.com (NBC).
3. Dawer, D. (December 29, 2012) “Standardized Testing is Completely Out of Control”. PolicyMic.com.
4. Vevea, B. (November 26, 2012) “More standardized tests, more Chicago parents looking for ways out”. WBEZ.org.
5. Au, W. (2007). High-stakes testing and curricular control: A qualitative metasynthesis. Educational Researcher, 36(5), 258-267.
6. Pell, M.B. (September 30, 2012). “More cheating scandals inevitable, as states can’t ensure test integrity”. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
7. Baker, E. L., Barton, P. E., Darling-Hammond, L., Haertel, E., Ladd, H. F., Linn, R. L., … & Shepard, L. A. (2010). Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. See also: DiCarlo, M. (July 14, 2010). “Teachers Matter, But So Do Words”. Shanker Blog, The Voice of the Albert Shanker Institute.
8. Schafer, W. D., Lissitz, R. W., Zhu, X., Zhang, Y., Hou, X., & Li, Y. Evaluating Teachers and Schools Using Student Growth Models. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 17(17), 2.
9. Cordray, D., Pion, G., Brandt, C., Molefe, A., & Toby, M. (2012). The Impact of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Program on Student Reading Achievement. Final Report. NCEE 2013-4000. National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.
10. All signatures represent individual opinions, not institutional endorsements, unless specified. To add your signature to this statement, send an email with your name and affiliation(s) to: GHSstatement@gmail.com.

*  The last update was Jan. 23, 2013, 5:32 p.m. CST.

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Rethinkin’ Lincoln

If you’re thinking about going to see the movie “Lincoln” over the holiday break, first read the latest “If We Knew Our History” column by Rethinking Schools curriculum editor Bill Bigelow.

The ongoing “If We Knew Our History” columns at the Zinn Education Project show why it is so important for teachers to “teach outside the textbook”–to bring a people’s history to our students. The Zinn Education Project is a collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

Rethinkin’ Lincoln on the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation

by Bill Bigelow

Here’s a history quiz to use with people you run into today: Ask them who ended slavery.

I taught high school U.S. history for almost 30 years, and as we began our study, students knew the obvious answer: Abraham Lincoln. But by the time our study ended, several weeks later, their “Who ended slavery?” essays were more diverse, more complex—and more accurate. In coming months and years, teachers’ jobs will be made harder by Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, in which Daniel Day-Lewis gives a brilliant performance as, well, Lincoln-the-abolitionist. The only problem is that Lincoln was not an abolitionist.

Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner chose to concentrate on the final months ofLincoln’s life, when, as the film shows in compelling fashion, the president went all-out to pass the 13th Amendment, forever ending U.S. slavery. Missing from this portrait is the early Lincoln—the Lincoln that did everything possible to preserve slavery.

Today’s Common Core State Standards propose that teachers concentrate on the compact and stirring Gettysburg Address, also featured in Lincoln. But my students and I begin with Lincoln’s first words as president, his first inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1861. In this speech, not quoted in a single commercial textbook I’ve ever seen, Lincoln promised slaveowners that they could keep their slaves forever. He said that “ample evidence” existed in all his published speeches that he had no intention of ending slavery, and quoted himself to that effect: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” And, in less explicit, but no less clear language, Lincoln promised to “cheerfully,” as he put it, enforce the Fugitive Slave Act in protection of the nation’s “property, peace, and security.” Finally, in a gesture rich with irony, Lincoln said that he would not oppose the constitutional amendment that had recently passed Congress, “to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service.” Had it gone into effect, this slavery-forever amendment would have been the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

According to historian Eric Foner in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on Lincoln and slavery, The Fiery Trial, Lincoln:

• sent that pro-slavery 13th Amendment to the states for ratification;
• agreed to admit New Mexico to the Union as a slave state;
• continued with schemes to deport — “colonize” in the jargon of the day — African Americans, proposing they be sent to Guatemala, Chiriqui (Colombia), and Haiti;
• and in just the first three months after the Civil War began, returned more escaped slaves to their supposed owners than had been returned in the entire presidency of his immediate predecessor, James Buchanan.

As the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, commented in late 1861, Abraham Lincoln “has evidently not a drop of anti-slavery blood in his veins.”

Lincoln may be remembered today as “the Great Emancipator,” but Lincoln was no abolitionist. His aim throughout his presidency was to keep the Union together, a task fraught with contradictions, as large swaths of the country embraced both the Union and slavery–for example, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky. As Lincoln himself said famously in August 1862, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.”

Lincoln’s stance on slavery as the war progressed was based on military rather than moral considerations.

And that’s the necessary context for students to approach the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect 150 years ago, on January 1, 1863. Interestingly, despite the fact that the proclamation is mentioned in virtually every textbook, it is never printed in its entirety. Perhaps that’s because despite its lofty-sounding title, this is no stirring document of liberty and equality; in fact, it does not even criticize slavery. “Emancipation” is presented purely as a measure of military necessity. Lincoln offered freedom to enslaved people in those areas only “in rebellion against the United States.” It reads like a document written by a lawyer — one who happened to be a Commander in Chief — not an abolitionist. It even goes county by county listing areas where slavery would remain in force, “precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.” According to Eric Foner, the proclamation left more than 20 percent of enslaved people still in slavery — 800,000 out of 3.9 million.

No doubt, the Emancipation Proclamation was a huge deal, and it was cheered by abolitionists and even those who remained enslaved. As the great African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass pointed out, Lincoln’s proclamation united “the cause of the slaves and the cause of the country.” Those opposed to slavery were determined to use the Emancipation Proclamation as an instrument to end slavery everywhere and forever — regardless of Lincoln’s more limited intent. Freedom would be won, not given.

With rare exceptions — like the American Social History Project’s fine Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution – middle and high school textbooks fail to credit the real anti-slavery heroes in this story: the enslaved themselves, along with their black and white abolitionist allies. While early in the conflict Lincoln was offering verbal cake and ice cream to slaveowners, the enslaved were doing everything they could to turn a war for national unity into a war to end slavery, impressing Union generals with their courage, skill, and knowledge — ultimately forcing Lincoln to reverse his early policy of returning those fleeing slavery and, in time, leading the president to embrace their entry into the war as soldiers. The actions of the formerly enslaved even turned some white Union soldiers into abolitionists.

This resistance to slavery, along with its effects on Union soldiers, is captured in this 1862 testimony from General Daniel E. Sickles, quoted in Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution:

The most valuable and reliable information of the enemy’s movements in our vicinity that we have been able to get derived from Negroes who came into our lines…

They will submit to any privation, perform any duty, incur any danger. I know an instance in which four of them recently carried a boat from the Rappanhannock River [in Virginia], passing through the enemy’s pickets successfully, to the Potomac and crossed over to my camp and reported themselves there. They gave us information of the enemy’s force which was communicated to headquarters; a service upon which it would be difficult to fix a price. These services rendered by these men are known to the soldiers, and contribute, I presume, largely to the sympathy they feel for them …

There was one case in the 5th regiment where a man named Cox claimed some slaves. He was very badly treated by the soldiers. He came there with an order from the division headquarters for two or three slaves. He pointed out who they were and undertook to take them away; but the soldiers pounced upon him and beat him severely. … He went away without his slaves.

Who we “credit” for the end of slavery in the United States has important contemporary implications. As Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, points out in the film Monumental Myths, if it appears that Abraham Lincoln gave blacks their freedom, then “you create an environment where people begin to think, ‘Well,

African Americans have always had things handed to them.’ It gets carried into the notions of welfare and the like” –African Americans as receivers of gifts from generous white people.

Beginning with the notion that “Columbus discovered America,” this top-down, Great Man approach has long characterizedhistory instruction in our country. Things happen — good or bad — because those in power make them happen. What this misses is, through our compliance or resistance, the actions of ordinary people. And when it comes to momentous social changes, like the abolition of slavery, one will always find social movements and the oppressed themselves at the center. As historian Howard Zinn said about the end of slavery: “Blacks won their freedom because for 30 years before the Civil War, they participated in a great movement of resistance.”

So when I ask my students to write an essay on “Who (or what) ended slavery?” I get lots of different answers. But none of them credits a single individual. And all of them include evidence of how, in myriad ways, the people themselves make history.

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The Struggle for Mexican American Studies Continues

Many of you are familiar with the work of Tucson teacher Curtis Acosta. Acosta is the warm and eloquent—and photogenic!—language arts teacher featured in the film, Precious Knowledge, about Tucson’s now-outlawed Mexican American Studies program. The program is still suppressed, but the work goes on, as Acosta describes in this letter, recently posted to the Education for Liberation email list. Rethinking Schools continues to support this fine program and we urge you to show your solidarity in whatever way you can.

And, speaking of which, if you live near Seattle or plan to attend the upcoming National Council for the Social Studies conference, please join us for the presentation of our Zinn Education Project’s Myles Horton Award for Teaching a People’s History to Sean Arce, a key architect of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program. Arce will be speaking and showing Precious Knowledge. Details here. 

- Bill Bigelow

Dear Compañer@s and Supporters,

It’s been a while since I last wrote about the situation in Tucson. However, there are a few links that I felt I should share with those interested in our continued lucha to reinstate Mexican American Studies in Tucson. First and foremost, I would like you all to know that I am still teaching my Chican@ Literature classes at a youth center on Sundays. I have a great group of youth that have joined me. The classes are free and it has been healing to have the freedom to engage in critical dialogue about literature without the threat of demonization hanging over our heads. However, we are only a handful in our Sunday class,  and those good feelings are not balanced by the injustice of thousands of students who are not able to take our courses in their regular public school experience. It is shameful, but we are dogged in our determination to see MAS back in TUSD.

The following link is to an essay that I wrote for renowned author, and personal hero of mine, Ana Castillo. It is a part of her amazing online magazine La Tolteca. I decided it was important to explain in more detail how I used The Tempest in my Chican@/Latin@ Literature classes. If that interests you, please take a look.

How I used The Tempest in my Chican@/Latin@ Literature classes.

Here is a documentary that was filmed about how our classes have been dismantled and the fall out. It’s another unique perspective that may serve as good discussion and dialogue for you and your students.

I hope that we can count on more support for my colleagues Sean Arce and José Gonzalez as they continue to defend themselves against a frivolous lawsuit.

Support the Raza Defense Fund

Since our classes were eliminated there have been many different rumors and such about the future of MAS and the Tucson Unified School District, so I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by award winning writer, Jeff Biggers of the Huffington Post. It was a great way to actually address what the future may bring for us with a  federal desegregation order and plan to be revealed on Friday.

We have two new members of the school board as of last night, and the feeling in town is one of optimism. However, the administration is very much the same and our curriculum and books are still banned. I’m not sure what type of future there will be for my colleagues and myself, but we will keep fighting for restitution of our program. I hope this interview answers any questions you may be having, but if not, feel free to reach out and contact me or my colleagues for further details.

Will Tucson School Board Reinstate or Replace Mexican American Studies? Interview with Curtis Acosta.

We hope you are all doing well all over the country toward liberating and inspiring our youth to not only dream, but to have the will to act!

In Lak Ech,

Curtis Acosta

Tucson, AZ

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Resources for American Indian Month

Over the years, Debbie Reese’s work has been an important resource for educators. Her website, American Indians in Children’s Literature, is an authoritative source of analysis, and was one of the country’s “go to” sites when early this year Tucson suppressed the Mexican American Studies program and banned books like Rethinking Columbus.

Reese has been kind enough to allow us to reprint her articles in our publications—see, for example, “Fiction Posing as Truth,” in Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 2; and “Teaching Young Children About Native Americans,” in the curriculum material that accompanies the DVD, Unlearning Indian Stereotypes.

In Reese’s essay and resource listing below, she addresses librarians: “Too many people think that American Indians died off, due to warfare and disease. When the emphasis in library displays is American Indians of the past, you inadvertently contribute to that idea.” This is worth remembering for all educators, at all times—but especially now as we enter the “official” Native American Month. Debbie Reese is tribally enrolled at Nambe Pueblo in northern New Mexico.

by Debbie Reese

November is the month that the President of the United States designates as Native American Month. Below are suggestions on how you might get your library ready for parents, teachers and students who come into your library looking for materials on American Indians.

In this post, you’ll find links to ALA’s READ posters that feature Sherman Alexie, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. You’ll also find links to the Indigenous Languages Development Institute, where you can buy a wall clock with numerals in a Native language, and READ posters in Indigenous languages, available from the Tulsa American Indian Resources Center:

Creating a Library Atmosphere that Welcomes American Indians

In these posts, you’ll find recommended books about American Indians, by age group:

Top Board Books for the Youngest Readers

Top Ten Books for Elementary School

Top Ten Books for Middle School

Top Ten Books for High School

If you want some guidance on how to help students do research on American Indians, using encyclopedias and websites, see:

Resources for Projects on American Indians

If you’re looking for books and materials about boarding schools for American Indians, here’s some:

Boarding Schools for American Indians

If you want guidelines on how to evaluate the content of a Native site, here’s an excellent page about that:

Guidelines for Evaluating American Indian Web Sites

And, if you want to develop your understandings of the ways that American Indians are not “multicultural” or “people of color”, see:

We Are Not “People of Color.”

If you’re looking for a Question/Answer book about American Indians, this one by the National Museum of the American Indian is outstanding:

Do All Indians Live In Tipis?

Did you know that “papoose” is not the American Indian word for baby?

Papoose?

Did you order Louise Erdrich’s newest book in the Birchbark House series? If not, do it today! Chickadee is terrific!

Louise Erdrich’s Chickadee

I’ll close with this:

Too many people think that American Indians died off, due to warfare and disease. When the emphasis in library displays is American Indians of the past, you inadvertently contribute to that idea. Librarians are a powerful group of people. You can help Americans be less-ignorant about American Indians.

Research studies show that American Indian students drop out at exceedingly high rates. Scholars attribute this, in part, to their experience with curricular materials in school. Materials set in the past, materials that stereotype American Indians, and materials that are factually incorrect or highly biased against American Indians, cause Native students to disengage from school. Libraries can interrupt that disengagement, or, they can contribute to it…

As human beings, we love to see reflections of ourselves and our hometowns. They can a source of pride or a boost to the self-esteem. But—that is only true if they are accurate. Native people want that, too, but American society has a long way to go to get there.

Libraries can get us there, but we’ll need your help year-round, not just in November. I hope the resources I share in this email will be ones that you spread out, all year long. If you’ve got questions, let me know.

Thanks,

Debbie Reese, PhD

Tribally enrolled: Nambe Pueblo

Email: dreese.nambe at gmail dot com

Related Resources

	“Why the Best Kids’ Books Are Written in Blood,” by Sherman Alexie. Rethinking Schools  magazine, Volume 26, Number 1, Fall 2011.
	Unlearning Indian Stereotypes. Narrated by Native American children, this DVD teaches about racial stereotypes and provides an introduction to Native American history through the eyes of children. Useful for elementary through adult education.
	Rethinking Columbus. More than 80 essays, poems, interviews, historical vignettes, and lesson plans reevaluate the myth of Columbus and issues of indigenous rights.

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It’s Columbus Day…Time to Break the Silence

by Bill Bigelow

This past January, almost exactly 20 years after its publication, Tucson schools banned the book I co-edited with Bob Peterson, Rethinking Columbus. It was one of a number of books adopted by Tucson’s celebrated Mexican American Studies program—a program long targeted by conservative Arizona politicians.

TOP: Some of the books removed from classrooms. BOTTOM: The film “Precious Knowledge” captures the impact and effectiveness of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson.

The school district sought to crush the Mexican American Studies program; our book itself was not the target, it just got caught in the crushing. Nonetheless, Tucson’s—and Arizona’s—attack on Mexican American Studies and Rethinking Columbus shares a common root: the attempt to silence stories that unsettle today’s unequal power arrangements.

For years, I opened my 11th grade U.S. history classes by asking students, “What’s the name of that guy they say discovered America?” A few students might object to the word “discover,” but they all knew the fellow I was talking about. “Christopher Columbus!” several called out in unison.

“Right. So who did he find when he came here?” I asked. Usually, a few students would say “Indians,” but I asked them to be specific: “Which nationality? What are their names?”

Silence.

In more than 30 years of teaching U.S. history and guest teaching in others’ classes, I’ve never had a single student say “Taínos.” So I ask them to think about that fact. “How do we explain that? We all know the name of the man who came here from Europe, but none of us knows the name of the people who were here first—and there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of them. Why haven’t you heard of them?”

This ignorance is an artifact of historical silencing—rendering invisible the lives and stories of entire peoples. It’s what educators began addressing in earnest 20 years ago, during plans for the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, which at the time the Chicago Tribune boasted would be “the most stupendous international celebration in the history of notable celebrations.” Native American and social justice activists, along with educators of conscience, pledged to interrupt the festivities.

In an interview with Barbara Miner, included in Rethinking Columbus, Suzan Shown Harjo of the Morning Star Institute, who is Creek and Cheyenne, said: “As Native American peoples in this red quarter of Mother Earth, we have no reason to celebrate an invasion that caused the demise of so many of our people, and is still causing destruction today.” After all, Columbus did not merely “discover,” he took over. He kidnapped Taínos, enslaved them—”Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold,” Columbus wrote—and “punished” them by ordering that their hands be cut off or that they be chased down by vicious attack dogs, if they failed to deliver the quota of gold that Columbus demanded. One eyewitness accompanying Columbus wrote that it “did them great damage, for a dog is the equal of 10 men against the Indians.”

Corporate textbooks and children’s biographies of Columbus included none of this and were filled with misinformation and distortion. But the deeper problem was the subtext of the Columbus story: It’s OK for big nations to bully small nations, for white people to dominate people of color, to celebrate the colonialists with no attention paid to the perspectives of the colonized, to view history solely from the standpoint of the “winners.”

Rethinking Columbus was never just about Columbus. It was part of a broader movement to surface other stories that have been silenced or distorted in the mainstream curriculum: grassroots activism against slavery and racism, struggles of workers against owners, peace movements, the long road toward women’s liberation—everything that Howard Zinn dubbed “a people’s history of the United States.”

Which brings us back to Tucson: One of the most silent of the silenced stories in the curriculum is the history of Mexican Americans. Despite the fact that the U.S. war against Mexico led to Mexico “ceding”—at bayonet point—about half its country to the United States, this momentous event merits almost no mention in our textbooks. At best, it is taught merely as prologue to the Civil War.

Mexican Americans were central to building this country, but you wouldn’t know it from our textbooks. They worked in the Arizona copper mines, albeit in an apartheid system where they were paid a “Mexican wage.” In the 1880s, the majority of workers building the Texas and Mexican Railroad were Mexicans, and by 1900, the Southern Pacific Railroad had 4,500 Mexican workers in California alone.

They worked the railroad, and they worked for their rights. In 1903, Mexican and Japanese farmworkers united in Oxnard, California, to form the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association. As Ronald Takaki notes in A Different Mirror, “For the first time in the history of California, two minority groups, feeling a solidarity based on class, had come together to form a union.” They struck for higher pay, writing in a statement that “if the machines stop, the wealth of the valley stops, and likewise if the laborers are not given a decent wage, they too, must stop work and the whole people of this country suffer with them.”

Nowhere was this rich history of exploitation and resistance being explored with more nuance, rigor, and sensitivity than in Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program. Like Rethinking Columbus, Mexican American Studies teachers aimed to break the classroom silence about things that matter—about oppression and race and class and solidarity and organizing for a better world. Watch Precious Knowledge, the excellent film that offers an intimate look at this program—and chronicles the fearful, even ludicrous, attacks against it—and you’ll get a sense of the enormous impact this “rethinking” curriculum had on students’ lives.

This coming Monday, October 8th is the day set aside as Columbus Day. Let’s commit ourselves to use this—and every so-called Columbus Day—to tell a fuller story of what Columbus’s voyage meant for the world, and especially for the lives of the people who’d been living here for generations. And let’s push beyond “Columbus” to nurture a “people’s history” curriculum—searching out those stories that help explain how this has become such a profoundly unequal world, but also how people have constantly sought greater justice. This is the work on which educators, parents, and students need to collaborate.

***

If you care about nurturing a people’s history and ending Arizona’s ban on ethnic studies, click here to find out how you can take action.

This column was first published at GOOD.

Related Resources

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years. Teaching Guide. Edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. 2003. 192 pages. Readings and lessons for pre-K to 12 about the impact and legacy of the arrival of Columbus in the Americas.

The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration.Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow. 2006. 160 pages. Lessons for teaching about the history of US-Mexico relations and current border and immigration issues.

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