Objectives

1. To become acquainted with the history of Mexican American segregation and desegregation in U.S. public schools.

2. Become familiar with The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and it’s implications

3. Understand what is meant by ‘subtractive schooling’

4. Become familiar with issues regarding: school access, quality of education, curricular policies, & patterns of school performance for Mexican American students in the southwest

From the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo toFrom the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to Hopwood: Hopwood: The Educational Plight and Struggle of Mexican The Educational Plight and Struggle of Mexican Americans in the SouthwestAmericans in the Southwest

• Abstract (roughly pages 1-2)• Expansion of Mexican American Public Education, 1890-

1930

• School Access• Quality of Education • Curricular Policies • Pattern of School Performance

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought an end to the Mexican American War (1846-1848) and led to the annexation, by conquest, of over 525,000 square miles of territory by the United States (including present-day Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah).

The authors contend that, following this treaty, Mexican American students faced the exclusion and removal of the Mexican-origin community and its cultural heritage from the schools; the formation of the template (segregated, inferior schooling) for Mexican American education; the quest for educational equality; the continuing academic gap between Mexican American and Anglo or White students; and the impact of nativism on educational opportunity

Discussion Questions: •How do schools shape issues of nationhood and citizenship?

•To what extent does public education unify the United States?

•How do you see public schools as the battleground for issues related to racial, ethnic, religious, and gender differences?

School AccessSchool Access

• Increased enrollment due to a mixture of contrary forces such as the increasing availability of school facilities; the passage of child labor and school attendance laws; immigration; urbanization and concentration in rural pockets; and greater economic stability and increased economic exploitation

• Nonetheless: Three major groups of Mexican American students were denied full access to public education during the first half of the twentieth century: agricultural migrants, secondary school-age students, and postsecondary school-age students.

Quality of EducationQuality of Education

• Mexican American children received an inferior quality education, as evidenced by segregated facilities and administrative mistreatment, among others

• State officials played an important role in the expansion of educational segregation by sanctioning its presence and by allocating state funds for the maintenance of these locally segregated schools

• Separate schools were unequal in many respects to those provided for Anglo children.

To what extent do you see schools responsible for, or involved in Americanization or assimilation?

How has school shaped and defined the lives of the American public? To what extent does public education promote individual growth among students versus exert social control? To what extent is Americanization or cultural diversity the purpose for education?

Discussion Questions:

Curricular Policies Curricular Policies • Mexican American children were provided an academically imbalanced

and culturally subtractive curriculum.

• The curriculum for Mexican American school children in the early decades of the twentieth century emphasized socialization and non-academic concerns at the expense of academics.

• The "3Cs," common cultural norms, civics instruction, and command of the English tongue (Carter & Segura, 1979).

• At the secondary level, the emphasis was shifted to vocational and general education.

• English-only laws were challenged in the courts during the mid-1920s by a variety of religious, racial, and minority groups. These challenges eventually led to the repeal of proscriptive laws by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1920s

Pattern of School PerformancePattern of School Performance

• Patterns of poor school performance was reflected through low test scores, high withdrawal rates from school, and low median number of school years completed.

• Although performance improved over the decades, the gap between Anglo and Mexican American students did not change significantly over time

• Although data on secondary and post-secondary enrollment is lacking, existing sources refute the myth of unprecedented poor achievement and suggest exceptions to the patterns of school performance in the Mexican-origin community

Questions & Objectives

1. To become acquainted with the history of Mexican American segregation and desegregation in U.S. public schools.

2. Become familiar with The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and it’s implications

3. Understand what is meant by ‘subtractive schooling’

4. Become familiar with issues regarding: school access, quality of education, curricular policies, & patterns of school performance for Mexican American students in the southwest