Hopelessly naive notion about Ethnic Studies alternatives

by David Safier

Mark Evans of the Tucson Citizen has his usual Monday column in the Star. Today's is about the ongoing Mexican American Studies battles. I think of Evans as a pretty hard-nosed guy, but in this column, like so many columns I read about education written by people who haven't been in the profession, Evans betrays an amazing naivete about what the real world of education is all about.

(I would link to the column, but I can't find it on the Star or the Citizen website, so unless you subscribe to the Star, you won't be able to read the whole thing.) Here is the link to Evans column, in his Caveat Lector column in the Citizen.

Evans thinks TUSD should end MAS. I disagree, but hey, that's his opinion. Though he doesn't say it outright, he also seems to think the judge's decision that MAS violates the law is important in and of itself, regardless of the fact that the law was designed for one purpose — to put MAS in violation. I disagree. I hope another judge rules the narrowly targeted law is unconstitutional. Again, though, that's Evans' opinion.

But then Evans leaves the area of opinion and becomes ridiculously simplistic. He realizes getting rid of MAS would leave a hole in the TUSD curriculum, so he comes up with a solution. TUSD should create something better. What should that "better" be? Well, it should be "effective." And it should "address the problem." How should it effectively address the problem? He doesn't say.

Here's the substance of Evans' second paragraph.

It would be wise to do away with the overall Ethnic Studies program and instead come up with some other way to effectively address the problem . . . the high dropout and failure rate of Latino, African American and Native American students.

He repeats the idea in his next-to-last paragraph.

The best for all is to lose the battle — killing MAS as it currently exists — but win the war — creating an effective program that improves Latino student performance and lowers the dropout rate.

What a wonderful idea! Let's create an effective program to improve Latino performance and lower the dropout rate! OK, problem solved. Next, let's suggest the Israelis and Palestinians sit down together, put aside their differences and come up with a solution to their problems.

Evans should do some internet searches to find effective programs which improve Latino performance and lower the dropout rate. Or he might talk with a few UA education profs and have them list all the wonderful solutions other school districts have implemented. His investigation may come up with a few programs which show promise in a few districts, but he's not going to find any magic bullets which are guaranteed to improve things. In the course of his investigations, Evans will probably find TUSD's Mexican American Studies mentioned as one of the more successful programs in the country, since it actually has data which documents higher achievement and a lower dropout rate for its students. The conclusions aren't definitive, of course, but if you want definitive conclusions, you can look at . . .

Florida. No question, Florida raised the reading scores of its Latino 4th graders. The state did it by holding the students with the lowest scores back in the third grade for an extra year. Someone wrote, that's analogous to holding back the shorter 3rd graders, then bragging that your 4th graders are taller. Oh, and by the 5th or 6th grade, the reading scores of the 3rd graders who were held back slip down to the same level they would have been if they were promoted. Florida, by the way, has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country. Even the much-touted (by the Goldwater Institute and Arizona Republicans) "Florida Education Miracle" turns out to be mainly smoke and mirrors.

If Evans is against the concept of MAS, fine. But to suggest we can do better without coming up with any reasonable alternatives is either naive or dishonest. And since Evans strikes me as an honest man, I have to conclude, when it comes to education, his hopes for an easy fix have clouded his view of reality.