Horne Should Love Tucson’s Raza Studies

by David Safier

Tom Horne does not like TUSD’s Ethnic Studies program, and he especially hates the Mexican-American/Raza Studies part of it. But it looks like Raza has succeeded where most other school programs have failed by raising students’ AIMS scores and increasing their graduation rates.

And if there’s anything our Ed Supe loves, it’s higher AIMS scores. That’s close to the only thing Horne lives for, so he should be hanging awards on the Raza Studies classroom walls and singling out the students and teachers for praise.

(Read Rhonda Bodfield’s excellent article in The Star, TUSD’s Raza unit survives under fire, if you want to understand the entire controversy. It’s far more complex than what I’m dealing with here.)

But Horne can’t allow himself to praise Raza Studies for its successes, because, even more than Horne loves AIMS, he hates Latinos.

No, that’s not quite fair. For all I know, Horne may be as color- and ethnicity-blind as any man in Arizona. More accurately, Horne acts like he hates Latinos. If you’re a conservative politician with ambitions, you have to let your base know you’re outraged by everything Latino: illegal immigration, ELL funding and any organizations or programs where Latinos get together, look at the subtle and obvious ways they’re discriminated against and use their understanding to fight the discrimination and better themselves.

In Arizona, conservatives run on guns, God and gays, but they haven’t accomplished their mission of dividing group against group until they’ve stoked the fear and hatred of Latinos as well.

Imagine if students who were enrolled in abstinence-only classes improved their AIMS scores. What if there were a Civil War Studies program where half the students learned what it was like to be in the Confederacy and spouted racially charged slogans, and their graduation rates climbed? Horne would trumpet the success of the programs and stomp on anyone who spoke against them. “How dare you speak out against a program that helps our children achieve? Why do you hate children? What we need to do is expand the programs so more students can reach their full potentials!”

But in this case, Latino students are given a greater understanding of their heritage, and they’re empowered by the notion that others expect them to fail. They learn that the best way to get back at those who hate them is by succeeding. That’s called motivation, and motivation is 75% of education. It looks like these teachers are motivating their students to pay more attention and to work harder. There’s no better road to success than that.

Poor Tom. Here’s the kind of educational success he aches to see in charter schools and phonics programs and English Immersion, and it’s happening in Raza Studies. What’s a conservative Ed Supe to do?

(Note: Yeah, I’m sure some of the Raza teachers say things I would object to. I’m sure they get their history wrong on occasion and slant benign comments into racist taunts. I’m sure they sometimes get the history wrong, or give it a slant that promotes their ideas. I wouldn’t be surprised if some teachers take innocent statements made by authority figures and make it seem as if they have racist connotations. That’s the nature of advocacy programs. They tend to go overboard. How many fictions have been promoted in the name of abstinence and Just Say No to Drugs programs? But it sounds to me like these kids are challenged to think, and they’re motivated to learn. Like all young adults, they’ll go too far and make wild claims on occasion. Good for them! They’re fighting with words and ideas, which is the foundation of education. It looks to me like the general thrust of the program is valid, and if the stats about AIMS and graduation rates are true, they’re doing some pretty astounding stuff, and their efforts are worthy of our support and admiration.)

Second Note: A comment by Walt S made me realize I bungled a sentence in the last paragraph. I crossed it out and put in something that, I hope, says what I meant to say in the first place. My apologies.