Raza Studies: The Public Option for Educational Revolution

3. The Battle for Educational Sovereignty and the Right to Save the Lives of Our Children

52 Question: what would you expect a state to do with a successful academic program that has (a) inverted the achievement gap between Mexican American students and their peers (regardless of ethnicity); (b) inverted the graduation rate between Mexican American students and their Anglo peers; (c) raised the college matriculation rates for Mexican American students to a level significantly higher than the national average; and (d) virtually eliminated suspensions and expulsions of Mexican American students? Over the last eight academic years (2003–2011) the Tucson Unified School District’s (TUSD’s) Mexican American/raza studies program (MAS), the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP), and the critically compassionate intellectualism (CCI) model have created and nurtured the academic environment described above. Yet before I go into detail about the program, I return to my opening question. I believe that most rational and soundminded people would say, “Replicate that program.” However, remember I live in Arizona. Let me tell you what the state of Arizona did. On April 29, 2010, the Arizona state legislature gave House Bill 2281 final approval status, thus sending it to the governor for her signature. On May 11, 2010, Jan Brewer signed HB 2281 into law as Arizona Revised Statute (ARS) 15-112. I believe the sole intent of HB 2281 was to abolish the liberatory, counterhegemonic, and transformative structures within CCI, SJEP, and MAS. This was an attack on equity in education, and this was an attack on a model that has many of the answers needed to truly counter and remedy the historically unjust, unequal, and in many cases, the racist American educational system. chapter three The Battle for Educational Sovereignty and the Right to Save the Lives of Our Children Augustine Romero The Battle for Educational Sovereignty · 53 Although the media and even some in the legislature have deemed ARS 15-112 to be anti–ethnic studies legislation, the attacks from the racist Right and in some cases the dysconsciously racist (King 1997) Left have been waged solely on MAS, SJEP, and CCI. From its inception, MAS has been different than its three ethnic studies siblings. These departments, Native American studies, African American studies, and pan-Asian studies , have what I refer to as an “associated academic services” orientation, which involves mostly tutoring, mentoring, and student advocacy. Mexican American studies has a “direct academic service” orientation that focuses primarily on direct classroom instruction, with some attention given to teacher mentoring and continuing education. It is my belief that MAS has also been singled out for its transformative, holistic, and consciousnessraising nature. Quite truthfully, many nonprogressives have a negative view of the fact that CCI, SJEP, and MAS enrich and enlighten the American historical narrative, because this disrupts and erodes the fabric of their fictitious and self-serving narrative. For these people the truth is irrelevant; for these people the level of academic success is irrelevant; and for these people the fact that CCI, SJEP, and MAS have saved, do save, and will save the lives of many children is irrelevant. These critical factors are irrelevant because they all have the potential of disrupting the status quo within America’s historical racial and social order (Romero 2008). This chapter highlights the context in which this unethical, immoral, dishonest, and antihumanistic political battle is being waged against us in the name of patriotism, morality, and “American” values. Moreover, this chapter constitutes a counternarrative (Delgado 1989; Yosso 2006) that highlights the academic, social, and cultural transformations taking place within our students and in our communities. Overview I begin with a brief narrative of the creation of MAS and its roots within Tucson’s Mexican American community. I also discuss the numerous legislative attempts to abolish the MAS program during 2008, 2009, and 2010. The next section discusses some of the counterstrategies I have used to preserve MAS. The last section interrogates HB 2281’s implications and discusses our national outreach campaign. Tucson Unified School District is 61.6 percent Latino and 26 percent Anglo, with an enrollment of nearly 58,000. For the last eleven graduating classes within TUSD, over the four years of high school Latino enrollment 54 · Augustine Romero has declined by anywhere from 32 percent to 49 percent. This means that from the time Latinos enter TUSD as freshmen to their walk across the graduation stage as seniors, Latino enrollment has fallen by as much as 49 percent (class of 2000) to as...