Public and charter high school students in California will soon be required to take an ethnic studies course before graduation, a mandate that marks the end of a protracted political debate and charts a new course in the education of millions of students in one of the most diverse states in the country.
But in Sacramento, embracing the new requirement may be relatively easy: Several school districts in the area have for years been teaching ethnic studies courses, often one of the more popular classes among students and a reflection of the region’s increasingly multiracial makeup.
Under Assembly Bill 101, the requirement will apply starting with the class of 2030. Years in the making, the new state law comes as conservative uproar over “critical race theory” — a broad and complicated college-level academic framework that centers the role of race in understanding the mechanisms of American institutions, legal systems and more — has swept some parts of the country.
The state curriculum also faced years of controversy and back-and-forth public discussion. Criticism arose from an earlier draft that excluded the experiences of some minority groups such as Arab Americans, while some Jewish-American groups and lawmakers objected to the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was included and described in the curriculum. In February, the 20 original writers of the curriculum asked the state to remove their names from the draft, calling it compromised due to political and media pressure.
The state’s ethnic studies model curriculum approved this year is defined as an interdisciplinary field focused on historically marginalized groups: African American studies, Chicano/a and Latino/a studies, Native American studies, and Asian American and Pacific Islander studies. The curriculum also outlines lesson plans for general ethnic studies courses, as well as topics covering Sikh Americans, Jewish Americans, Arab Americans, and Armenian Americans.
Hundreds of high school students in Sacramento have already taken classes in ethnic studies, learning about important contributions by Native Americans, for example, and oppressive historical policies. At San Juan High School, a course on ethnic studies has been offered for more than five years. Elk Grove high schools began offering classes last year. And at Sacramento City Unified, high school students already have to take the class to graduate.
‘Affirming identity’
School district leaders say offering courses focused on ethnic studies — particularly for freshmen entering high school and wrestling with questions on identity and self-confidence — is part of providing a well-rounded education for students and equipping them with the skills to navigate an increasingly diverse society.
The courses also happen to be especially popular and well-liked among high school students, school officials said.
Bridget Martinez, who has been teaching ethnic studies at C.K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento for nearly 15 years, said she loves teaching her freshmen class how to find their voice and identity through their own family histories.
Under an ethnic studies class, the state curriculum outlines, students could study Mexican American literature, or the consequences of war on Southeast Asian refugees, or social movements in the Black community, among other topics.
“By affirming the identities and contributions of marginalized groups in our society, ethnic studies helps students see themselves and each other as part of the narrative of the United States,” reads the introduction to the state’s model curriculum.
Research has found that ethnic studies offer a myriad of benefits for students, such as helping them develop a strong sense of identity and learning about their historical and ancestral origins. Ethnic studies classes have also been shown to lead to increases in attendance, GPAs, graduation rates and the probability of enrolling in college.
“Ethnic studies was really about affirming identity, and about the history that was left out of history books,” said Susan Nakaoka, a California State University, Sacramento professor who studies critical race theory. “It impacts a student’s self-esteem and or feeling of belongingness and value in society.”
Ethnic studies courses allow students to learn about race, but also about strength and resilience and cultural traditions, said Nakaoka, who is currently a visiting professor at CSU Long Beach teaching a racial and ethnic studies course.
Not learning about Chinese miners who worked during the Gold Rush, or the Japanese, Filipino and Mexican farmers who built swaths of the state’s agricultural economy, would mean “missing all that richness, and also is an inaccurate history,” Nakaoka said.
Martinez said it’s impossible to cover every topic, but the guidelines are available to help teachers navigate a breadth of themes. In her class, students look at stereotypes, institutional racism, groups who have been targeted, and resistance to oppression.
Often, her approach is to teach content that’s relevant to students’ lives and current events, rather than just teaching units based on ethnic groups.
“It helps show how different groups have gone through similar situations,” she said. “Depending on what is happening in the country at the time, I have taught lessons on (LGBT) rights and a unit on the Middle East. I make an effort to include various groups, not just the four (core groups).”
Critical Race Theory objections
But some parents in Sacramento have taken issue with schools teaching about race and equity. While ethnic studies is popular across the state and not exclusively about critical race theory, courses discuss various cultures, diversity, equity and inclusion — topics that make some parents (especially white and conservative ones) uncomfortable.
At a contentious Nevada Joint Union High School District school board meeting on Nov. 10, Sacramento-area residents Judy Wood and Jonathan Kors advocated barring schools from discussing race during a district-approved presentation. The pair, representing a little known group called Protecting American Ideals, said that such courses would teach students that America is systemically and irredeemably racist.
In response to the presentation, parents spoke overwhelmingly in favor of critical race theory and ethnic studies. Student Trustee Anthony Pritchett called the presentation “an embarrassment.” No schools in the Nevada County district teach ethnic studies.
Earlier this year, a San Juan High School freshman student and parent complained about having to learn about Black Lives Matter during her ethnic studies class. In a statement to CBS Sacramento at the time, the district called the lesson plan “completely appropriate,” and said the Black Lives Matter movement “is a timely and important area of study.”
Martinez said that while discussions of critical race theory have grown vigorously, many history teachers have been teaching about it all along. Over the course of more than a decade of teaching the class, less than a handful of parents and students have complained, she said.
“Ethnic studies has always focused on the treatment of minorities in America,” she said. “It’s their perspective being brought into light. It gives them a voice, and that voice is critical to a system that has oppressed them. I have received a lot more compliments than I have received criticism.”
Developing new ethnic studies classes
The course offered at San Juan High School was initially offered during the 2015-16 school year, conceived of by a teacher and principal who were “hearing there was a need at their school for something like this,” said Nicole Kukral, director of professional learning and curriculum innovation at the district. Soon after, Encina High School began offering the course, and this year, Mesa Verde High School began teaching it.
While it is not a requirement for graduation, freshmen at San Juan High School are by default enrolled in the course. That’s both because of its popularity, Kukral said, and its success at “integrating freshmen into a sense of belonging and community, with the teacher focused on developing identity.”
“To engage students in a discussion about different identity groups, and broaden their perspective about the world and other people’s lived experiences,” Kukral said.
A majority of the nearly 39,000 students who attend a school at San Juan Unified, which covers Carmichael, Arden Arcade, Fair Oaks, Orangevale and Citrus Heights, are nonwhite.
The district is still in the planning stages about how to roll out the course to meet the new state requirement, Kukral said, and officials plan to collect feedback from students, teachers and other community members on what curriculum they would like to see.
That could mean offering the existing ethnic studies course across the district, or possibly creating new courses in English or history and social sciences that “teach content through an ethnic studies lens,” Kukral said.
“For example, an African American literature course is a course that we could offer that would meet the requirement,” Kukral said. “We want to make sure we’re offering courses that reflect the communities we serve and are engaging to students.”
The state’s model curriculum has, at this point, “been vetted with tens of thousands of public comments,” Kukral said. “We’re grounding our process in something we know there’s already been a significant amount of community engagement around and vetting.”
School districts will be required to start offering courses to students by the 2025-26 academic year.
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 5:00 AM.
Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
The Sacramento Bee
