California Public Education Research Articles

Discourses of Racist Nativism in California Public Education: English Dominance as Racist Nativist Microaggressions

This article uses a Latina/o critical theory framework (LatCrit), as a branch of critical race theory (CRT) in education, to understand how discourses of racist nativism—the institutionalized ways people perceive, understand and make sense of contemporary US immigration, that justifies native (white) dominance, and reinforces hegemonic power—emerge in California public K–12 education for Chicana students. I use data from 40 testimonio interviews with 20 undocumented and US-born Chicana students, to show how racist nativist discourses have been institutionalized in California public education by English hegemony, that maintains social, political, and economic dominance over Latina/o students and communities, regardless of actual nativity. Teacher practices of English dominance is a manifestation of this hegemony that can be articulated by the concept of racist nativist microaggression—systemic, everyday forms of racist nativism that are subtle, layered, and cumulative verbal and non-verbal assaults directed toward People of Color.

Without Quality Public Education, There Is No Future For Democracy

THE CALIFORNIA Journal of Politics & Policy Commentary Without Quality Public Education, There Is No Future for Democracy Wendy Brown University of California, Berkeley Not long ago, California public education was an inter- national beacon of excellence. Through much of the 20th century, Californians were committed to quality public elementary and secondary schools and an accessible mul- ti-tiered system of higher education—from guaranteed ac- cess to community college for every high school graduate, to great research universities and professional schools. After decades of demonstrating that this was possible —that there could be affordable mass access to high qua- lity education—California began to unravel its own ac- complishment. The 1978 passage of Prop 13 marked the www.bepress.com/cjpp Volume 2, Issue 1, 2010 beginning of this unraveling, pitching our elementary and secondary schools into the downward decline that today finds teachers facing overcrowded classrooms, insufficient books and supplies, inadequate compensation and lay-offs, and throwing a spectacularly successful higher education system into the mud. This devastation of our public education and the rest of our public sector is not the consequence of our state being poor. Certainly we have suffered from the recession, the financial meltdown, the collapse in housing wealth, unem- ployment, and the foreclosure crisis. But California still generates nearly one sixth of U.S. Gross Domestic Pro- duct, and were it a nation unto itself, our GDP would place us among the top 10 nations in the world. Wendy Brown is the Heller Professor of Political Science and co- chair of the UC Berkeley Faculty Association. She was among the more than 200 Berkeley faculty members who traveled to Sacramento on March 4 th where she gave this address on the capitol steps during the “Educate the State” rally.

The Impact of Public School Attributes on Home Sale Prices in California

The quality of public schools is often cited as an important attribute which distinguishes a community. Indeed, a recent public opinion poll conducted by the California Public Education Partnership indicates that residents rank improvements in public education higher than such high profile issues as environmental quality and crime reduction. In order to explore the role of educational quality in determining residential property values, a hedonic housing price model is used on a large sample of homes which sold within Fresno County in California over the period 1990‐1994. After controlling for a wide range of housing characteristics and neighborhood features, the findings indicate that the school district does significantly influence the real sale price. Then the relative importance of inputs into the production of educational services is investigated as compared to output measures of productivity. These findings suggest that both input and output measures are important. However, elasticity estimates of input measures tend to be higher than those of output measures, with the average class size by far the strongest influence. There is some evidence to suggest that the benefits of additional teachers likely outweigh the costs. Finally, the findings suggest that attributes of schools are more highly valued by local residents than either crime or environmental quality measures within the community.

Uniformity or Diversity? Recent Language Policy in California Public Education

Uniformity or Diversity? Recent Language Policy in California Public Education

Measuring change after a public education campaign

This article offers insight into the process of conducting pre- and postcampaign comparisons to measure the effectiveness of communications methodologies. The authors analyzed a California public education campaign called the “War on Waste” which attempted to raise already-high participation in community recycling. Notable shifts in participation failed to occur, but the authors feel their postcampaign measurements show some success in affecting behavior.