Decades of institutionalized racism and inadequate funding have left California with a racial achievement gap in its schools. All students deserve the chance to learn and succeed, but too often students of color have been failed by an education system that still bears the marks of a long history of racism and inequality.
Unfortunately, Gov. Gavin Newsom failed to explicitly allocate funding to support Assembly Bill 101 . That’s the mandate that all public high schools offer an ethnic studies course in the 2025-26 school year and require all students to complete a one-semester ethnic studies course for graduation, beginning with school year 2029-30. The lack of explicit funding has emboldened opponents of ethnic studies education in their arguments that these requirements must be delayed or withdrawn.
Opinion
But delaying or abandoning the state’s commitment to ethnic studies would not only break the promise that the governor and legislature made to California — at a time when this kind of education is more important than ever — it would also threaten efforts to close the racial achievement gap.
Although ethnic studies isn’t designed with the specific goal of reducing or closing racial achievement gaps, it has a track record of doing exactly that. Stanford researchers found that San Francisco’s ninth grade ethnic studies course improved students’ grade point average, school attendance and graduation rates…