{"title":"Stats, Social Justice, and the Limits of Interest Convergence: The Story of Tucson Unified’s Mexican American Studies Litigation","authors":"Nolan L. Cabrera, R. Chang","doi":"10.24974/amae.13.3.453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.13.3.453","url":null,"abstract":"In 2011, the state of Arizona banned the highly successful Tucson Unified School District Mexican American Studies program through the law ARS § 15-112. This article is a Critical Race Theory counternarrative regarding the role of statistics in the constitutional challenge to this state law. Through firsthand accounts of this process, we demonstrate how multivariate empirical analyses served as an important component for the overturning of the law ARS § 15-112 in the highest-profile Ethnic Studies legal case in the country’s history ( Arce v. Douglas , 2015). We also use this article to explore the limitations of interest convergence (Bell, 1980) using this litigation as a case study.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125219043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Celina Moreno, María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, Aurelio M. Montemayor
{"title":"A Unique Blend of Research, Policy, Practice and Engagement to Impact Public Education for All Students","authors":"Celina Moreno, María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, Aurelio M. Montemayor","doi":"10.24974/amae.13.3.452","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.13.3.452","url":null,"abstract":"The Intercultural Development Research Association, founded in 1973, is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to achieve equal educational opportunity for every child through strong public schools that prepare all students to access and succeed in college. IDRA strengthens and transforms public education along six paths: fair funding, sound educational practices, valuing students, valuing educators, valuing families and systems change. The organization has done so by uniquely crossing borders of policy, research, practice and community engagement to transform education by putting children first. The following article reviews how IDRA drives critical paths to transform education. The authors tell the story of how these paths have developed over time to push for fair funding, which was IDRA’s founding issue and continues to be a central focus; promote sound educational practices through professional and curriculum development; model valuing of students particularly as demonstrated through the IDRA Valued Youth Partnership program; support educators in excelling as asset-based teachers and catalysts for student success; and focus family engagement on leadership in education for transforming policy and practice for their neighborhood public schools. These interrelated paths are woven into IDRA’s change model: The Quality Schools Action Framework. This framework is a tool for strengthening the capacity of public schools to affect systems change to graduate and prepare all students for college.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115628664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"New Mexico’s 2019 School Finance Reforms and The Essential Building Blocks for State School Finance","authors":"David G. Hinojosa","doi":"10.24974/amae.13.3.451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.13.3.451","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the state of New Mexico’s school finance reforms during the 2019 legislative session and the relationship of those reforms to The Essential Building Blocks for State School Finance. The Essential Building Blocks is a 2018 report written by the author for the Learning Policy Institute that provides essential, research-based guidance to policymakers and advocates who write school finance laws to ensure more equitable school finance policies. The legislative reforms follow a state court victory in 2019 by plaintiff families and school districts suing the state on school finance and educational opportunity claims in Martinez v. State of New Mexico and Yazzie v. State of New Mexico. The author examines how the Legislature’s efforts measure up against the guidance articulated in The Essential Building Blocks. The author also interviews the Gallup-McKinley County Schools superintendent to assess the reforms and how they relate to realizing educational opportunity for all students as described in The Essential Building Blocks. The author concludes that while the state made some progress in its school finance reforms, the absence of a strategic, holistic plan grounded in equity will likely leave the state’s underserved children without the educational opportunities they need to succeed. If the state’s leadership can match its strong principles and goals of equity and multiculturalism with a formidable school finance system that appropriately invests in its students and educators as reflected in The Essential Building Blocks, the state will be poised to realize equity and opportunity for all students.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128388877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining College Readiness among Latinx and Native American Students: Education as a Civil Right in the case of Martínez v. State of New Mexico","authors":"Frances Contreras","doi":"10.24974/amae.13.3.454","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.13.3.454","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines college readiness indicators among Latina/o/x student and Native American students in New Mexico public schools. This analysis, used in the successful Martinez v. New Mexico (2018) case, highlights the disparate levels of access to curricular resources across 15 school districts in New Mexico. Utilizing secondary data from several sources, a story of uneven access and inequity in New Mexico’s in public schools is conveyed.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121387840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. D. Torres-Velásquez, C. Sleeter, Augustine F. Romero
{"title":"Martínez v. State of New Mexico and Multicultural Education: Divide and Conquer? We Don’t Think So!","authors":"E. D. Torres-Velásquez, C. Sleeter, Augustine F. Romero","doi":"10.24974/amae.13.3.457","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.13.3.457","url":null,"abstract":"Martinez v. State of New Mexico (2014) is a school finance and equity lawsuit built on the promises of the state constitution. The plaintiffs are 51 parents and their children across seven regions of the state (Torres-Velasquez, 2017). In its decision ( Martinez , 2018), the Court determined that the state’s public education system was unconstitutional for not providing a sufficient education to the state’s “at-risk” students: students from economically disadvantaged homes, Native American students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. The Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on all 174 Martinez allegations and determined that legislators would create remedies and locate funding. From the earliest draft, the Martinez complaint maintained that the state was not following New Mexico’s Bilingual Multicultural Education Act (1973), Indian Education Act (2006) or Hispanic Education Act (2010). The plaintiffs wanted full implementation of these laws. A legislator asked, “If you had to pick one, bilingual education or multicultural education, which would you say is most important?” Both are central to student well-being and success. In order to address the question of priority—both being central to student success—we highlight core components of multicultural education for PreK-12 public education. We tie policy and practice recommendations back to the trial and to the Court decision and we suggest that a multicultural education curriculum is an integral part of a promising education for New Mexico’s students.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130531716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
V. Nunez, Esmeralda Lopez, Mariana Sarmiento Hernández, A. Smedley
{"title":"La Lucha Sigue: Making the Case for Institutional Support of Undocumented and DACAmented Students in Higher Education","authors":"V. Nunez, Esmeralda Lopez, Mariana Sarmiento Hernández, A. Smedley","doi":"10.24974/amae.13.1.445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.13.1.445","url":null,"abstract":"This project used a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach to explore the experiences of undocumented and DACAmented college students in Southern Nevada. CBPR is a collaborative approach to research that involves members of the community being studied to be a part of the entire research process and builds on the strengths of the community. Relying heavily on the knowledge and voices of our community partners, the UndocuNetwork, we conducted interviews with undocumented and DACAmented student activists about their experiences in higher education. We discuss the findings from in-depth interviews with twelve undocumented and DACAmented student activists who are leading the movement at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to make higher education more accessible and supportive of undocumented and DACAmented students. The questions were written broadly to foster discussion on three main topics: institutional activism, access and barriers to student resources, and campus climate. Participants shared a sense of responsibility to engage in institutional change work, and embraced their agency and exhibited resiliency for navigating higher education through their peer support network. We argue that undocumented and DACAmented students in the UndocuNetwork fill a gap within the institution in sharing resources and helping each other navigate higher education.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114358449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Snapshot of the Latinx Teaching Experience in the New Latino Diaspora","authors":"Jesús A. Tirado","doi":"10.24974/AMAE.13.1.439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/AMAE.13.1.439","url":null,"abstract":"As the nation’s classrooms (and the nation itself) undergo a demographic change, we have to wonder what will happen to the teaching profession and attitudes as minority teachers start to fill the ranks of this profession. This paper seeks to contribute to this work with the interviews of four Latinx teachers who are working in the New Latino Diaspora. These teachers come from a variety of fields, math, English and social studies and work in different places. Their words and ideas help us understand the ideas and practices that they implement and how they will change the classroom. Exploring these changes provides one way that we can understand what minority teachers bring to the classroom and how they can help their students learn and grow.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125043933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Later-Generation Mexican-American Undergraduate Stages of Passage and the Development of a Transformational Impetus","authors":"Elvira J. Abrica","doi":"10.24974/AMAE.13.1.437","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/AMAE.13.1.437","url":null,"abstract":"Race and immigrant generation are among the most important factors that shape educational opportunities and outcomes in U.S. society. While sociological researchers point to downward mobility after the second generation among Mexican-Americans, there is limited empirical attention to the role that generational status may play in shaping post-secondary educational experiences and outcomes. Drawing on the under-utilized Undergraduate States of Passage Model advanced by Yosso (2006), this study qualitatively examines the experiences of later-generation Mexican-American students. Findings indicate that later-generation Mexican-American college students experienced unique challenges to building counter spaces with other Latinos on campus. Yet, participants consistently described a desire to transform, which I call a “transformational impetus.” Implications for post-secondary persistence among Mexican-American collegians are discussed, as are implications for advancing racial justice for the Latina/o/x population more broadly.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123756101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Critical Latinx Indigeneities and Education","authors":"Amae Journal Amae Journal","doi":"10.24974/AMAE.13.2.436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/AMAE.13.2.436","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"423 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133489151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Zapotec Identity as a Matter of Schooling","authors":"Rafael Vásquez","doi":"10.24974/AMAE.13.2.429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24974/AMAE.13.2.429","url":null,"abstract":"Little research has been dedicated to Indigenous Mexican students’ education and their sociocultural adaptation to U.S. schools, which includes their ethnic identity as significant to their schooling experiences. This study examines Zapotec-origin youth, original to the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, and how their Indigenous identity can positively impact their education. Often, educators have limited knowledge about Mexico’s ethnoracial groups, presume that their Mexican students share indistinguishable characteristics, and are unaware that Indigenous students are ever-present in their classrooms. Through in-depth interviews, this study reveals how Zapotec high school students assert their Indigenous identity as a basis for developing viable approaches for their overall educational success.","PeriodicalId":414867,"journal":{"name":"Association of Mexican American Educators Journal","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114574418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}