Ethnic Studies? Just say NO!

There is a debate raging in Tucson, AZ between Tom Horne, the State School Superintendent, and Augustine Romero, the Senior Director of Ethnic Studies. Horne is trying to shut down the ethnic studies (also called raza studies) program in the Tucson Unified School District.

I have weighed in with the following definitions in my Devil's Dictionary, www.axiomaticeconomics.co...

Horne, Tom: “I believe people are individuals, not exemplars of racial groups… It is fundamentally wrong to divide students up according to their racial group and teach them separately.” I agree. If the $2.6M Tucson spends on raza studies were spent on honors math classes instead, there might be more of an audience for my Simplified Exposition, which has proven to be not so simple for students who have spent their lives wallowing in victimhood instead of trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in a math class. See Romero, Augustine.

Romero, Augustine: “Through the creation of this new [ethnic] identity and the development of a sense of purpose, our [raza studies] students develop a sense of hope.” Well, sorry to burst your bubble Romero, but I already have an identity (defined by the Mises Institute as “that asshole who criticized Austrian economics”), I already have a sense of purpose, promoting my book, and I already have a sense of hope. I hope that the $2.6M Tucson spends on raza studies will be spent on honors math classes instead, so there might be more of an audience for my Simplified Exposition, which has proven to be not so simple for students who have spent their lives wallowing in victimhood instead of trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in a math class. See Horne, Tom.

For reference, both men contributed to the 10 August 08 Viewpoints section of the Arizona Republic newspaper.

On 17 August 2008, Arizona Republic columnist Doug MacEachern exposed Romero's "studies" showing that raza students outperform their peers as smoke and mirrors.

"The two pages of bar charts and the brief paragraphs that accompany them (prepared, according to the [Tucson school] district, by Romero himself) simply don't provide enough information to know whether the raza-studies program 'contributed, harmed or had no effect on the achievement of students who selected to participate in it,' Greene [head of the department of education reform at the University of Arkansaw] wrote."

In support of MacEachern and Green, I have added the following definition to my Devil's Dictionary of Economics:

MacEachern, Doug: “The [Tucson, AZ] school district itself defends the program’s academic value with this statement: ‘Research regarding Raza Studies students have found they outscored their peers in reading, writing and math as measured by the state’s academic accountability exam (AIMS).’ Had the claim been true, it would have constituted a rare objective justification for the district’s ethnic studies program. But the claim of proof-positive academic improvement is not true.” See Horne, Tom.

For reference, see the article, "Smoke and mirrors obscure raza studies," in the Viewpoints section of the 17 August 2008 Arizona Republic.

Daily Paul bloggers!

Let's rally around Tom Horne! This is a local Tucson issue now, but that doesn't mean that ethnic studies won't be coming to your high school tomorrow! Write a letter to the Arizona Republic supporting Horne's efforts to rid the schools of ethnic studies.