Network of Teacher Activist Groups

Two New Bills Introduced in AZ

tara@edliberation.org — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:47:05 +0000

The people who got the Ethnic Studies law drafted, passed, and signed in to law are emboldened…

Two new bills were drafted and have made it through one committee. One is about political speech in the classroom, and the other is about the F-word.

The second one is the result of a complaint by the founder of Citizens United. Imagine what that money will bring about in terms of what we do in the classroom. Imagine how that bill, if passed, will decimate the use of young adult literature in the classroom.

Click this link to read more: http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2012/02/sherman-alexie-on-tucson-student.html

Debbie

A Teacher Put to the Test: Curtis Acosta ’94 and Ethnic Studies in Arizona

edwin.mayorga@gmail.com — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:37:51 +0000

By Susan Domagalski Fleming ’92, The Scene Magazine, Williamette University, Winter 2012

Excerpt: “Acosta, however, sees ethnic studies as American by their nature. “Latino literature is American literature,” he says. “The story of the Chicano is the story of America.” Professor Sammy Basu, chair of Willamette’s American ethnic studies department, calls ethnic studies ‘a scholarly effort to hold America to its highest democratic idealism. It values an inclusionary understanding of the American social experiment, and it addresses discrepancies between that vision and the actual historical, economic and cultural of life in America.’”

For the complete article go to: http://www.willamette.edu/scene/editions/2012/winter/features/26/index.html

Op-Ed: TUSD board should appeal the dismantling of Mexican American Studies

tara@edliberation.org — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:32:02 +0000

“As University of Arizona faculty, professionals and alumni, we are deeply concerned about the dismantling of Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program. We argue that it is imperative that this decision be reconsidered.

The polarization that we currently see between majority and minority communities, the damage that we already see done to the TUSD MAS students, and the lack of understanding of the implications that the dismantling of MAS has on ethnic relations for Tucson is what compels us to speak out.”

Nationally Celebrated Tucson Educator Sean Arce

tara@edliberation.org — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:25:13 +0000

By Jeff Biggers

“By constantly placing himself on the front line and standing for our students and educators, who, like Mr. Arce himself, are now targets of unbridled racists attacks in our state,” said Tucson education activist Becky Harvey, whose daughter graduated from the Mexican American Studies program,”he has become an essential civil rights leader in this struggle.”

ST. PAUL NOTES | Central High School students, teachers read banned books, protesting Arizona censorship

edwin.mayorga@gmail.com — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:32:54 +0000

By Mary Turck, Twin Cities Daily Planet

February 16, 2012

St. Paul Central students and English teachers organized a day-long protest in support of free speech and in opposition to censorship on February 16. According to English teacher Daniel LaMere and student Juan Carlos Ramirez-Rojas, who heads the high school’s Hispanic Culture Club, the trigger for the protest was the recent action by Tucson schools to box up and lock up books such as The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Paulo Freire), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian (Sherman Alexie), and The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

For complete article, go to: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2329/10/22/st-paul-notes-central-high-school-students-teachers-read-banned-books-protesting-ari#.Tz5Vf5mciVQ.twitter