Sonoma/Northern CA - History of Race, Equity and Education by Meryl-Mae Blomseth (she/her)

2023

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

In 2013, 13-year-old Andy Lopez was confronted by police while walking on the sidewalk, and ultimately shot and killed for holding what appeared to be an assault rifle. It turned out to be a toy — an Airsoft pellet gun made to look like an AK-47 assault rifle.

The killing touched off protests historic in size and fervor for Sonoma County.

2024

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

By a unanimous 5-0 vote in March, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution proposed by the Department of Health Services declaring racism to be a public health crisis.

2024

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

At West County High School in Sebastopol, students of color demand an end to racist harassment. Students formed an Antiracist Student Committee to shed light on the pervasive racism they were experiencing.

At times I don't feel safe at school,” he said.
Peña Pérez says it would help if more teachers at West County High were trained to step in and stop racist behavior. “Some of them actually contribute to this problem by being passively racist. They also don't speak up in class when they hear other students say racist stuff,” he said.

https://www.kqed.org/news/11913501/at-a-sonoma-county-high-school-students-of-color-demand-an-end-to-racist-harassment

1779

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Thomas Jefferson proposes a two-track educational system, with different tracks in his words for “the laboring and the learned.” Scholarships would allow a very few of the laboring class to advance, Jefferson says, by “raking a few geniuses from the rubbish.”

1821

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

First public high school in the U.S., Boston English, opens for white students.

*MA passes the first state law making all grades of public school open to all white pupils free of charge in 1827.

1830s

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Most southern states have laws forbidding the teaching of enslaved people to read. Even so, about 5% of enslaved African Americans became literate at great personal risk.

1852

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Two years after California became a state; the legislature passed a bill barring African American children from schools. The First State Convention of Colored Citizens of the State of California met in 1854 and in a public pronouncement chafed against this discriminatory measure.

1864

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Congress makes it illegal for Native Americans to be taught in their native languages. Native children as young as four years old are taken from their parents and sent to Bureau of Indian Affairs off-reservation boarding schools, whose goal, as one BIA official put it, is to “kill the Indian to save the man.”

1885

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Tape v. Hurley was a landmark court case in the California Supreme Court in which the Court found the exclusion of a Chinese American student from public school based on her ancestry unlawful. The case effectively ruled that minority children were entitled to attend public school in California. After the Court’s decision, San Francisco Superintendent of Schools, Andrew J. Moulder, urged the state assembly to pass new state legislation which enabled the establishment of segregated schools under the separate but equal doctrine. The establishment of the new school marked the continued segregation in the education system in California.

1908

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The Binet-Simon test (originally developed to identify children who were behind in academic performance so they could receive remedial education) is renamed the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. Part of the change is the invention of the Intelligence Quotient, designed as a way to sort people by intellect level.

Intelligence testing became a tool used by the eugenics movement. Race and ethnicity were often used to classify students who scored poorly on the tests.

By 1932, a survey of 150 school districts revealed that 75% of larger U.S. cities were using intelligence testing to place students in different academic tracks.

1921

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The California school law (Political Code 1662) was amended once again to read as follows: "The governing body of a school district shall have power to exclude children of filthy or vicious habits, or children suffering from contagious or infectious diseases, and also to establish separate schools for Indian children and for children of Chinese, Japanese, or Mongolian parentage. When such schools are established, Indian children or children of Chinese, Japanese, or Mongolian parentage must not be admitted into any other school."

1935

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The federal government’s Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) commissioned surveys of American cities that assessed mortgage risk for lenders. The surveys included “residential security” and “racial concentration” maps of all surveyed cities. Risk was tied to the presence of minorities, which made it harder to get a loan in a majority Hispanic or black area.

1940

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

During the 1940s, Orange County, CA schools used this chart to enroll students.

1942

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

This 1942 sign details the places where people of Japanese descent were allowed to live.

1946

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The 1946 ruling of Melendez v. Westminster gives Mexican students in California equal rights to education.

1948

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Educational Testing Service is formed, merging the College Entrance Examination Board, the Cooperative Test Service, the Graduate Records Office, the National Committee on Teachers Examinations and others, with huge grants from the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations. These testing services continued the work of eugenicists like Carl Brigham (originator of the SAT) who did research “proving” that immigrants were feeble-minded.

1954

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal", and therefore violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, the decision's 14 pages did not spell out any sort of method for ending racial segregation in schools, and the Court's second decision in Brown II (1955) only ordered states to desegregate "with all deliberate speed".

1957

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled at the formerly all-white Little Rock Central High School in 1957. President Eisenhower sent federal troops to safely help the students enter the building, when the Arkansas governor blocked their entry.

1964

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed public, intentional discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin in government agencies and facilities, public accommodations, education, and employment; established a federal enforcement structure and empowered victims of discrimination to sue and the government to withhold federal funds from violators.

1965

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) into law. It establishes high standards and accountability, provides fair and equal opportunities to receive an education, and provides funds for professional development, instructional materials, and the promotion of parental involvement. The sections of the act include:

Title I – Financial Assistance To Local Educational Agencies For The Education Of Children Of Low-Income Families
Title II – School Library Resources, Textbooks, and other Instructional Materials
Title III – Supplementary Educational Centers and Services
Title IV – Educational Research And Training
Title V – Grants To Strengthen State Departments Of Education
Title VI – General Provisions

1968

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

In 1968 Congress passes the Bilingual Education Act, providing the first funding to encourage schools to incorporate native-language education into their curriculum.

1971

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Supreme Court rules unanimously that busing of students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation.

1972

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Congress adopted the Indian Education Act of 1972. The Act is based on the following premises:
1) American Indians have unique academic needs, especially with respect to language preservation; 2) a continuum of services, pre-school through post-secondary education, is imperative; 3) the trust relationship between the federal
government and Indian people must be reinforced across governmental agencies; and 4) every Indian student, regardless of federal recognition status, deserves equal access to federal funding aimed at educational improvement.

1974

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The Equal Educational Opportunities Act is passed. The act guaranteed education free of bias and discrimination, or unequal treatment, for all people. The EEOA is one of a set of federal laws that works to prohibit discrimination in schools. Specifically, EEOA bans discrimination based on race, nationality, color, or sex against faculty, staff, and students. It requires schools to take action to overcome barriers which prevent equal protection. The legislation has been particularly important in protecting the rights of students with limited English proficiency.

1974

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

In 1974, Milliken v. Bradley clarified the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation, confirming that segregation was allowed if it was not considered an explicit policy of each school district. The Court held that the school systems were not responsible for desegregation across district lines unless it could be shown that they had each deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation.

1974

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Lau v. Nichols was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously decided that the lack of supplemental language instruction in public school for students with limited English proficiency violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The court held that since non-English speakers were denied a meaningful education, the disparate impact caused by the school policy violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the school district was demanded to provide students with "appropriate relief".

1975

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law that makes available a free appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children.The IDEA governs how states and public agencies provide early intervention, special education, and related services to more than 6.5 million eligible infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities.Infants and toddlers, birth through age 2, with disabilities and their families receive early intervention services under IDEA Part C. Children and youth ages 3 through 21 receive special education and related services under IDEA Part B.

1978

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted in 1978 because of the disproportionately high rate of forced removal of Native American children from their traditional homes and essentially from Native American cultures as a whole.

It also gave Native American parents the legal right to deny their children’s placement in off-reservation schools and boarding schools.

1978

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Proposition 13 passes, leading to disinvestment in public education that moves California from #1 in per pupil spending to #47 in 2018.

https://edsource.org/2022/californias-prop-13s-unjust-legacy-detailed-in-critical-study/674412#:~:text=referencing%20several%20studies.-,Prop.,with%20a%20low%20tax%20base

1982

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

In June 1982, the Supreme Court issued Plyler v. Doe, a landmark decision holding that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education on account of their immigration status. By a 5-4 vote, the Court found that any resources which might be saved from excluding undocumented children from public schools were far outweighed by the harms imposed on society at large from denying them an education.

1984

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

A Nation at Risk is published. President Ronald Reagan developed an education reform program because of the report targeting schools that were deemed failing. The term "at-risk" was then expanded to refer to "failing" students themselves.

1990s

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

During this decade many districts won release from court ordered desegregation plans.

A report by the Harvard Civil Rights Project said that while schools in the South still have more integration of African-Americans and whites than before the desegregation movement, they lost ground in the 1990s.

The report also highlights that segregation of Latinos from non-Hispanic whites in schools is even greater than it is for African-Americans.

1994

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Proposition 187 passes in California, making it illegal for children of undocumented immigrants to attend public school. In 1997, Proposition 187 is overturned in California. Federal courts find Proposition 187 to be unconstitutional.

1995

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Gloria Ladson Billings introduces the theory of "culturally relevant pedagogy". It rests on 3 criteria or propositions: a) students must experience academic success; b) students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; and c) students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order.

1996

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

California passes Proposition 209, which outlaws affirmative action in public employment, public contracting and public education. Other states put forth their own initiatives with conversations about similar legislation on a federal level to follow.

1998

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Proposition 227 was a California ballot proposition passed on the June 2, 1998, ballot. Proposition 227 was repealed by Proposition 58 on November 8, 2016.

According to Ballotpedia, "Proposition 227 changed the way that "Limited English Proficient" (LEP) students are taught in California. Specifically, it required California public schools to teach LEP students in special classes that are taught nearly all in English, making it illegal for teachers to speak Spanish. This provision had the effect of eliminating "bilingual" classes in most cases.

2000

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Since 2000, 71 predominately white communities have attempted to secede from their school districts. Of these, 47 communities have been successful at splitting from their districts.

States such as Alabama make it easy for a town to create its own district.

2001

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

This five-year research study (1996-2001) focused on English language learners (ELLs/LEPs) long-term academic achievement in Grades K-12. This study includes qualitative and quantitative research findings from five urban and rural research sites in the northeast, northwest, south-central, and southeast U.S. It was designed to answer urgent policy questions of interest to the federal and state governments of the United States, since this demographic group is projected to be 40 percent of the school-age population by the 2030s and most U.S. schools are currently under-educating this student group. Overall, this research provides whole school district views of policy decision-making that is data-driven regarding designing, implementing, evaluating, and reforming the education of Language Minority students.

2002

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

President Bush signs the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, requiring states to track progress of subgroups, including minorities and special education students.

2009

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The state-led effort to develop the Common Core State Standards was launched in 2009 by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states

2015

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed by President Barack Obama on December 10, 2015. This bipartisan measure reauthorizes the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the nation’s national education law and longstanding commitment to equal opportunity for all students. The new law builds on key areas of progress in recent years, made possible by the efforts of educators, communities, parents, and students across the country.
STATE LEADERS HAVE TO FOLLOW CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS:
- Report results for more student subgroups
- Continue to have 95 percent state test participation
- Identify the lowest-performing schools, approve locally developed improvement plans, and monitor the schools’ progress
- Report data on the distribution of effective teachers
- Consult a prescribed list of stakeholders when developing the state’s plans.
- Makes funds more flexible (e.g., Title II and Title IV transferable)

2015-16

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Based on civil rights data released by the U.S. Department of Education, ProPublica's Miseducation website is an interactive database that examine racial disparities in educational opportunities and school discipline. https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation/

2017

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

Georgetown University releases a study, "Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood." This groundbreaking study provides — for the first time — data showing that adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers, especially in the age range of 5-14. This perception may contribute to more punitive exercise of discretion by those in positions of authority, greater use of force, proven disproportionate school discipline and suspensions, and harsher penalties.

2020

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a pandemic and President Donald Trump declares it a national emergency. As countries around the world order businesses to shut down and people to stay at home, schools plunge into remote learning. The pandemic itself--and the shift to remote learning--shine a light on the educational inequities that affect black and brown children.

A report published by the Society for Research on Child Development states: "Black Americans are contracting and dying from COVID-19 at rates that far exceed other racial and ethnic groups. Through inequitable policies and practices, Black Americans are forced into conditions that elevate their risk for COVID-19, and consequently, place Black children at the epicenter of loss in multiple domains of life."

2021

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

California became the first state to require all students to complete a semester-long course in ethnic studies to earn a high school diploma.

The mandate will take effect starting with the graduating class of 2029-30, although high schools must start to offer courses starting in the 2025-26 school year. Hundreds of high schools already have such courses, and the California Board of Education released model curriculum for schools to use.

https://www.kqed.org/news/11830384/how-the-longest-student-strike-in-u-s-history-created-ethnic-studies

2021

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

After a year of remote and hybrid learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, school systems are designing plans for reopening. https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-continues-aggressive-plan-safely-reopen-schools

Also, some thoughts on COVID's impact on California: https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/04/pandemic-california-school-students-suffer/

2022

mblomseth1 — 2024-12-13 21:35:16 UTC

"Critical Race Theory" becomes a much-debated topic for school districts across the country as state legislatures introduce bills that attempt to regulate how teachers can discuss racism, sexism, history, and issues of systemic inequality in the classroom.

According to Education Week, since January 2021, 35 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism. Fourteen states have imposed these bans and restrictions either through legislation or other avenues.