1: Implementing Ethnic Studies Courses- Who Decides?

Introduction

Among the most enduring debates in the study and practice of public administration surrounds the making and implementation of public policy. In particular is the question of bureaucratic discretion: Once policy is made by elected officials, how much discretion are professional administrators afforded to implement policies according to their professional norms? This question exists in most public sector organizations, from city managers and their elected city councils, to public health administrators and their elected boards. In the following case study, this question pits education professionals, whose training, education, and experience have prepared them to implement policy and programs in public schools, against school board members, who have been democratically elected to make education policy decisions. The case asks the reader to consider how we balance this classic divide between professional public administrators—school district superintendents, principals, and teachers— and our representative democracy in which voters elect representatives at the state and local levels.

On Friday, October 8, 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 101, making California the first state in the nation to require a semester-long course in ethnic studies for high school graduation (Fensterwald 2021a). Passage of AB 101 was years in the making. The first such bill was introduced in 2016, after Governor Jerry Brown’s 2015 veto of a bill that would have created a state-level Ethnic Studies Advisory Commission to prepare a model curriculum for ethnic studies electives in grades 7-12 (Fensterwald 2021b). While many school districts, including Los Angeles Unified and Fresno Unified, were adding these courses to their curriculum, legislation at the state level continued to stall. When a bill eventually hit Gov. Newsom’s desk in 2020, he vetoed it, noting ongoing disagreements over the proposed model curriculum (Fensterwald 2020). Finally, after the curricular language and expectations were refined, Gov. Newsom signed AB 101 into law; California high schools have to offer ethnic studies courses by the 2025-26 school year, and students will have had to pass at least one semester of ethnic studies to graduate in 2030. The law’s model curriculum includes a focus on the four groups traditionally part of ethnic studies, Blacks, Latino/a/x/e, Native Americans, and Asian Americans, but encourages schools to include the histories and legacy of religious and ethnic groups in their own communities (Fensterwald 2021a). To facilitate this, the California Department of Education included lesson plans that address Californians of the Jewish and Sikh faiths, as well as Arab- and Armenian-American communities. As is often the case, passage of legislation is not the end of the story; in this case study it is just the beginning as local school districts, largely comprised of education professionals, attempt to implement a state policy that has become a politically contentious “culture war” issue at the local level.

The Structure of California’s Education System

The structure of California’s public education system is complex, including a statewide elected Superintendent of Public Instruction who serves as both the head of the California Department of Education, and the Executive Officer of the State Board of Education (SBE). Eleven other members of the SBE serve four-year terms, are appointed by the governor, and include a Board President and Vice President. Each of California’s 58 counties has a County Office of Education which provides services to the state’s 1,000 school districts. Each school district has its own charter and an elected board of trustees. The district charter details rules that include the number of school board members (five or more), and laws regarding their elections. The school board sets education policy at the district level, and hires—and can fire—a district superintendent. The superintendent is a professional education administrator typically with years of experience and specialized training in education administration. Superintendents answer directly to the school board, and their responsibilities include managing the district, and hiring school principals. Education professionals within each school include principals, vice principals, and teachers.

Important to note for this case study is that all of the elected officials in California’s public education system, including the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, are elected via nonpartisan ballot. However, while candidates do not announce their political party or run on a party platform, all are partisans, and public school elections have increasingly become politically partisan events.

Why Ethnic Studies?

The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s created an interest in educating students about the histories of those typically excluded from U.S. textbooks: Blacks, Latino/a/x/e, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. Ethnic Studies programs, the first of which began at San Francisco State University in 1969 after a five-month student strike, spread to universities across the country over the next two decades (Ehsanipour 2020; see Ethnic Studies podcast, below). Ethnic studies curriculum is multi-faceted. It is described as an interdisciplinary, comparative field that focuses on the social, cultural, political, and historical contributions of Americans from ethnic and racial minority groups that puts the history of social movements into the context of the struggles these groups have faced; the curriculum typically explores alternatives to dominant cultural and institutional values as a way to assert the right to full social, political, and economic participation for people of color (Dee & Penner 2017; Hu-DeHart 1993; Tintiangco-Cubales, Kohli, Sacramento, Henning, Agarwal-Rangnath, & Sleeter 2015).

From the perspective of the teaching profession, bringing ethnic studies to high schools is not without challenges. This is particularly due to a lack of education and training in the field, and is compounded by a lack of teachers of color (Tagami 2023; Tintiangco-Cubales et al. 2015). Although White teachers can successfully teach ethnic studies, they are less likely to have the educational background, or the personal experiences that resonate so clearly with students of color. For those concerned about educational outcomes, it is important to note that there is ample research confirming that ethnic studies courses are important drivers of success for students of color on a number of measures including attendance, grades, standardized test scores, and graduation rates (Bonilla, Dee, & Penner 2021; Cabrera, Milem, Jaquette, & Marx 2014; Dee & Penner 2017; Sleeter 2011; Tintiangco-Cubales et al. 2015). This is particularly important as the National Center for Education Statistics finds continuing disparities between racial groups in terms of scores in reading and mathematics, absenteeism, Advanced Placement credits, and high school completion. In general, Asian/Pacific Islanders tend to fare best on these measures, followed by Whites, with Black, Latino/a/x/e, and American Indian students faring less well (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018).

Why California?

California is considered a majority-minority state, which means no single racial/ethnic group constitutes over 50% of the population. It is among the most diverse in the nation, with a population that is 39% Latino/a/x/e, 35% White, 15% Asian American/Pacific Islander, 5% Black, 4% multi-racial, and 1% Native American (Johnson, McGhee & Mejia 2023). More importantly for this case study, nearly 77% of California children, therefore the vast majority of public school students, are not White. As noted above, education research tells us that there are disparities in education outcomes between racial/ethnic groups, and that ethnic studies courses have profound, positive effects, particularly for students of color. For many educators, the benefits of ethnic studies curriculum for California students are fairly clear.

For example, in 2010, the elected members of the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to support ethnic studies in district high schools, and a committee of social studies teachers was tasked with creating its curriculum (Tintiangco-Cubales et al. 2015). The year-long 9^th grade course they created focuses “on themes of social justice, anti-racism, stereotypes, and social movements led by people of color from US history spanning the late eighteenth century until the 1970s” (Bonilla, Dee, & Penner 2021, p.2). The course has been found to be particularly beneficial for low-performing students in the district, significantly improving attendance, engagement, and graduation rates.

As the birthplace of university Ethnic Studies programs, San Francisco was a logical, and liberal-leaning community in which to pilot high school ethnic studies courses. As such, in more than a decade, the curriculum has experienced little of the political backlash that has occurred in other communities. Perhaps most notable in this regard is the 2010 experience of Arizona’s Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), when the state legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2281, essentially dismantling TUSD’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) program in district high schools. Arguing that program curriculum was too politically charged, HB 2281 forbid courses that advocated “ethnic solidarity rather than treating pupils as individuals,” promoted “resentment toward a race or class of people,” were “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group,” or promoted “the overthrow of the U.S. government” (Cabrera et al. 2014, p. 1085). Most dramatically, the debate over the MAS program lead to a 2011 TUSD Board of Education meeting at which student protestors chained themselves to school board members’ chairs (see UNIDOS, below). Although a federal court overturned HB 2281 as unconstitutional, and ethnic studies courses continue to be offered in TUSD, the lessons of the Tucson experience are important as the political rhetoric over ethnic studies heats up across the country (Stephenson 2021).

Political Battles and Education Policy

In California, several school districts in Orange County have been ground zero for these contentious battles between teachers, parents, and students who support ethnic studies curriculum, and those who fear that ethnic studies will further divide students along racial and ethnic lines. In 2021, as it became clear that Gov. Newsom would sign AB 101, ethnic studies opponents in Orange County began to mobilize. Debate about the curriculum lead to calls for recalling school board members in several districts, a Los Alamitos School Board meeting that was moved on-line at the recommendation of city police who feared violence, and at least one district voting to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” (Elattar 2021).

Many opponents of ethnic studies have argued that the curriculum is a veiled way to infuse critical race theory (CRT) into K-12 classrooms (Elattar 2022; Elatter 2023a). CRT, they argue, is racist, anti-American, and Marxist indoctrination. Education professionals say that this is a misunderstanding of CRT; in 2021 the California School Boards Association released a fact sheet[1] clarifying that CRT, taught primarily in law schools and other graduate-level courses, is a method of legal and social analysis, and is not part of California’s ethnic studies curriculum. This has not stopped opponents from arguing against ethnic studies by framing it as CRT in disguise.

Much of the consternation over ethnic studies is related to what is known as the “parental rights” movement in public education. This movement is rooted in conservative social, religious, and political concerns about the way issues such as race and sexual orientation are discussed in public schools (Walsh 2022). Fueled by school closures, mask mandates, and vaccine requirements during the Covid-19 pandemic, many parents across the country were mobilized to seek greater control over their public schools. These were often the same parents who feel that issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation are better discussed at home, and do not belong in the classroom (Replogle 2022; Walsh 2022). Thus, the parental rights movement has blossomed since 2020, with education professionals frequently caught in the middle. In the case of the pandemic, school policies were dictated by state and local public health guidelines, leaving school officials little discretion over mandates. Similarly, AB 101 is California state law, and high schools are required to offer ethnic studies courses to ensure their students earn a high school diploma.

Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District

The communities of Placentia and Yorba Linda in north Orange County share a single school district of 24,000 students (Replogle 2022). While less than one-third of Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District (PYLUSD) students are White, the controversy around ethnic studies became heated in 2022. Although the PYLUSD School Board approved a Multicultural Studies elective for its high schools in 2021 on a 3-2 vote, the same board passed a resolution against CRT by the same margin in April 2022. The board resolved that while the district “honors the experiences of all students by encouraging instruction that explores the history, philosophy, and structures that comprise the American experience,” it would “not allow the use of Critical Race Theory as a framework to guide such efforts” (Elsasser 2022, n.p.). In publishing the resolution, the PYLUSD superintendent added an open letter to district families in which he noted that CRT was not being used in the district, nor had there been plans to use it. He also noted that the school board resolution would not lead to any curricular changes, and that teachers would “continue to exercise professional judgment when deciding whether or not a particular issue is suitable for study or discussion” (Elsasser 2022, n.p.).

The anti-CRT resolution raised questions about censorship, and fears that some of the district’s Advanced Placement (AP) classes could lose their AP license, meaning the courses would not count for AP credit (Elattar 2022). This fear is not unfounded. In response to the heated political rhetoric surrounding the curriculum of many social studies courses, College Board, the organization that runs the AP program, sent a letter to AP teachers across the country in April 2022 noting that if required curriculum was censored, course AP licenses could be revoked (Najarro 2022). Further, the California State University, Fullerton College of Education announced it would pause student-teacher placements in PYLUSD beginning in spring 2023 due to concerns about the anti-CRT resolution. Student-teachers in the district worried that their teaching experience was not in compliance with state standards for curriculum related to race and cultural identities, and noted that their mentor teachers were unable to provide adequate clarity in light of the school board resolution (CSUF News 2022; see California District, below).

None of this quelled the debate, and parental rights forces in PYLUSD fielded candidates for two school board seats in a contentious November 2022 election (Replogle 2022). One long-time incumbent lost, and was replaced by a very vocal parental rights supporter, the other incumbent trustee won reelection. Among the first board actions in 2023 was passing a policy that requires a vote of the school board before the district can use a new book in classrooms; these decisions are typically made by a review committee at the school or district level (Orange County Register Editorial Board 2023). This policy resulted from concerns over classroom adoption of an autobiographical graphic novel about one woman’s experience during the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s (Elatter 2023b). While the board ultimately allowed the novel to be used, the new policy has been derided by critics as potentially making even routine decisions politically charged. The editorial board of the Orange County Register, well-known to be conservative-leaning, called the policy “creepy,” and argued that it “will dumb down students’ reading material by assuring educators propose only the least-controversial books—lest it set off controversy at a board meeting. The policy encourages ideologically driven board members to grandstand” (2023, n.p.). It seems clear that the next school board elections, in which three seats will be up for grabs, will continue to be politically heated.

Orange Unified School District

Just south of PYLUSD sits the city of Orange, whose school board has similarly been the site of debate over parental rights in public schools. The Orange Unified School District (OUSD) includes parts of Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Garden Grove, and educates 27,000 children. In January 2023 during a special, closed-session board meeting of the Orange Unified School Board (OUSB), the newly elected conservative majority voted 4-3 to fire its superintendent and put the assistant superintendent on administrative leave. At that same meeting, the majority voted to appoint an interim superintendent from outside the district, and temporarily move an existing administrator into the assistant superintendent position.

These actions, coming without notice, and while district students, teachers, and both administrators were on winter break, looked political to many people. Parents argued that the superintendent had been named Administrator of the Year by Orange County PTAs just a few months earlier, and that these board actions would cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars. Within 24 hours, hundreds had signed a petition to seek recall elections against the conservative school board majority.

The School Board president said that the board needed to act quickly to make changes desired by the new board majority which was seeking a “parent-first” district (Kopetman 2023a). He explained that the superintendent was fired to encourage reform and refocus the district on “academics and educating students. We have been focusing too much on the social politics of education” (Kopetman 2023a, n.p.). Among board concerns were how sex education, social equity, and ethnic studies were presented in district curriculum.

In addition to complaints about the political nature of firing the superintendent, a lawsuit was threatened against the OUSB for violating California’s Ralph M. Brown Act (Fensterwald 2023). The Brown Act is an open meetings law that provides transparency to actions taken by all elected bodies in the state. In addition to requiring 24-hour public notice of meetings, it disallows private negotiations among elected officials, and requires that all board actions be taken during public meetings. The four members of the OUSB majority were accused of organizing the firing and immediate hiring of an interim superintendent via email, before the January meeting. If an elected body is found to have violated the Brown Act, its actions can be nullified; in this case, the former OUSD superintendent could be reinstated.

Adding fuel for parents already angry with the school board, one of the first actions of the interim superintendent of Orange Unified was to shut down the school district’s digital library app after two parents complained about the LGBTQ-friendly content of two books in the library’s collection (Sforza 2023). Although the digital library was only suspended for a week, parent outrage grew as students lost access to library materials, some of them in the middle of finishing assignments (Elattar 2023). A district librarian argued that the lack of access is particularly hard on economically disadvantaged students for whom the digital holdings are a way to level educational resource gaps. A week after reinstating the digital library, and after five weeks on the job, the interim superintendent announced that he would be leaving the district (Schallhorn and Kopetman 2023). Four months after firing its superintendent, the Orange Unified School Board halted a search for a permanent replacement, noting that the Brown Act lawsuit, and parent efforts to recall several board trustees made it difficult to attract suitable candidates for the job (Kopetman 2023b). Finally, after eight months, a permanent superintendent was hired, however, that did not stop the recall efforts against two trustees. In March 2024, after successfully helping to pass a ban on Gay Pride flags in the district, and a requirement that schools notify parents if a student asks to be addressed by a name or gender pronoun not assigned to them at birth, two of the self-described "parental rights" advocates were successfully recalled by school district voters (Replogle 2024). 

Conclusion

While it is widely recognized that it is impossible to fully separate politics from public policy, it is also generally accepted that most implementation decisions should be as free from partisan politics as possible, and that policy experts should be granted a level of discretion over their work (Overeem 2005; Rosenbloom 2008). However, the reality of implementing public policy is often not so simple. Education professionals are typically granted discretion over many decisions in public schools: they choose textbooks, software technology, maps and globes, reference materials and library books, and design curriculum based on their subject-matter expertise. In the case of AB 101, the state legislature and governor created an Ethnic Studies requirement for high school students, and teaching professionals designed a model curriculum for use in the state’s schools. However, schools do not have to use the model curriculum, and were encouraged to add materials to meet the needs of their own diverse religious and ethnic communities. As in creation of the state’s model curriculum, many expected that district teachers would drive curricular decisions in their local schools. In both PYLUSD and OUSD, however, long-time school board members were ousted in 2022 in favor of candidates who campaigned on platforms of parental rights over professional expertise.

On the issue of ethnic studies, this leaves education professionals, including district superintendents, principals, and teachers, in a quandary. AB 101 is state law; schools are required to offer ethnic studies classes beginning in the 2025-26 school year, and students will not be eligible for high school graduation without having at least a semester of ethnic studies by May 2030. While most California school districts are preparing teachers and curriculum to meet the legal requirements, others have elected school boards whose intention is to fight against implementation of AB 101, perhaps even get the state legislature to overturn the ethnic studies requirement entirely (Rossman-Benjamin 2023). It will be interesting to watch how education professionals address their legal (and some would argue ethical) obligations to provide meaningful ethnic studies curriculum to California’s diverse student population, while navigating the contested political waters of their elected school boards.

Questions to Consider

The study of public administration has long elevated the status of the professional as a way to provide efficient and effective public service. In the case of education, teachers are trained and educated to teach specialized subject matter, and even specific populations of students (elementary, high school, special needs, etc…). How do the values of professional public service interact with the values of democratically elected policymakers in public education?

Critics of the parental rights movement note that school policies have long allowed parents the right to seek alternate assignments or books if parents find them inappropriate for their children. Are these policies enough, or does technology like digital libraries make this an outdated way to provide parental control over access to school resources?

In our federal system, it is not uncommon to see a higher level of government pass legislation and then give lower levels of government discretion over specific policy decisions. We see this in AB 101, in which elected officials at the state level left some policy decisions to locally elected school boards. Using this case study as the example, how would you describe the pros and cons of this aspect of federalism?

In what ways does this case study affect your views on the value of ethnic studies curriculum in California schools; i.e., are you more or less in favor, and why? In what ways does it affect your views on parental rights in public schools; i.e., are you more or less in favor, and why?

Podcasts & Videos

Ethnic Studies: Born in the Bay Area from History's Biggest Student Strike (July 30, 2020) Asal Ehsanipour, KQED (21 minute listen)

UNIDOS takes over Tucson Unified School District School Board (April 26, 2011) Three Sonorans News (14 minute video)

California district loses half of its student teachers after banning critical race theory (November 4, 2022) Erin Burnett, CNN (4 minute video)

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NOTE

[1] California School Boards Association (2021) Critical Race Theory FAQs https://www.csba.org/-/media/CSBA/Files/GovernanceResources/EducationalEquity/CriticalRaceTheory_FAQ_7-1-2021.ashx?la=en&rev=43cc698d0964446e889fd1a45ff136a9