by the WAESN Legislative Committee
Get ready for some legislative excitement as our state gears up for the upcoming session starting January 8, 2024.
ChatGPT wrote that sentence with our prompting. We’re continuing to experiment with and apply AI in our work, for example using it to rewrite difficult texts to more accessible reading levels. For now, we use it sparingly (the first sentence only and some of our blog post images), but we think AI is an important tool to safely and intentionally integrate into our lives. State legislators and committees agree. This legislative session, two companion bills were prefiled by our legislators to establish an AI Task Force in Washington State. At the December Professional Education Standards Board (PESB) meeting, AI in Teacher Preparation featured prominently as a topic in much need of research in education. Yet this short, 60 day session will mostly mean revisiting old business from last year’s longer session, so our optimism about any new legislation this session is minimal. Nevertheless, legislators have prefiled over 300 bills since December 4th when prefiling began, so we’ve been busy.
In this blog post, we will first recap our legislative efforts to bring best practices in ethnic studies to Washington State. The second section will breakdown 13 bills we are tracking this session, providing analysis and our position. Our legislative team will be meeting and communicating with state representatives throughout the session and invite you to join us in testifying at the state legislature. If you are new to policy, welcome, by reading this blog, you are taking the first step to getting involved in the upcoming legislative session. If you want to learn more after, please see the NEXT STEPS section at the end of this post.
For those of you returning, welcome back! After hearing from educators and community members, we are continuing to publish our “WAESN Legislative Tracker” for the 2024 session. Here, you can find descriptions, our analysis/positions, and information about signing up to testify this session. Please feel free to use this in your classroom or as a tool for learning more or getting involved in the state legislature.
Ethnic Studies in the Legislature: (Context)
In the 2019-20 legislative session, SB5023, the pioneering ethnic studies bill in Washington State, established the Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee (ESAC) with the mission to publish an Ethnic Studies framework. Yet, inside SB5023 was a fundamental contradiction, on the one hand, it required OSPI to periodically update the framework “to incorporate best practices in ethnic studies,” but on the other hand it also established an “expiration clause of June 2021” for ESAC. In the 2020 session, SB6066 passed, updating the RCW for ethnic studies in state law. The law extended its “encouragement” for educators in grades K-6 to teach ethnic studies. It also established the need for a list of resources for educators and extended the ESAC’s work to June 2022. Since June 2022, when ESAC published its framework and disbanded, no significant legislation on ethnic studies has passed, nor has OSPI provided any significant updates on ethnic studies. WAESN has been calling on legislators, taking meetings, writing policy briefs, and advocating for our state to invest in developing best practices in ethnic studies, as per RCW 28A.655.300. We find our state’s current actions to be in violation of this law.
Luckily, WAESN isn’t alone in calling for accountability from our legislators on ethnic studies. Throughout 2020-22, the Washington State School Board of Education (State Board) has held multiple listening sessions, published a concept paper, and has a landing page on an ethnic studies graduation requirement. Professor Jasmin Patrón-Vargas, who was commissioned to write the Ethnic studies concept paper, cites WAESN’s work and the importance of investing in professional development, teacher training and mentorship, and funding community involvement. This year, the State Board is including ethnic studies in their 2024 legislative platform. The State Board’s platform calls upon the legislature to: “Incentivize school districts to expand culturally responsive and inclusive offerings, such as ethnic studies, in which students see their own cultures reflected and learn about cultures other than their own.” For us, “Incentivization” includes investing money into teacher preparation, sustained professional development, and an ethnic studies endorsement process to ensure effective ethnic studies praxis. We stand with these community partners calling for investment in ethnic studies, and agree investment, not a mandate, is the logical next step in our legislative priorities.
This session, despite our requests to partner with legislators, there will be no investment in (or incentivization of) ethnic studies, as far as we know now. There will be, however, more symbolic gestures that embody the sort of, “Mission Accomplished,” “We did it Joe!” sort of politics we can come to expect from both the major parties. This year, that bill will call for a mandate of ethnic studies. We heard rumors about this bill this past fall, but it has yet, as of January 4th, to be prefiled. The bill, if rumors are correct, will mandate ethnic studies as a state graduation requirement. You’d think that we at WAESN would be in support of such a bill, but we also have been listening to what students and educators have been saying about the state’s “ethnic studies,” and it’s clear that a mandate in “ethnic studies” (quotations indicate the state’s version of “ethnic studies” is not, in fact, ethnic studies) now would fail to effectively be enacted.
As we’ve seen and heard from students, having “ethnic studies” courses offered is not enough. The 34-page Ethnic Studies framework is not enough. We keep hearing horror stories of “ethnic studies” being taught by teachers who are unprepared to talk about issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. With Gaza and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, the 2024 US election, and increasing global tension, there is a clear need for students to feel like their educators know how to facilitate difficult topics and issues. We need a new curriculum, new approaches to politics, history, and new opportunities for students to be active, invested members of their learning communities. But teachers are not prepared to have these conversations, and there is a lack of resources and institutions that can provide support. Mandating ethnic studies right now puts the cart before the horse, as the expression goes, and would unfortunately substantiate right-wing criticism of unprepared “ethnic studies” teachers.
We don’t care about labels; we care about impact. The impact of the legislation we pass is most felt when there is sustained investment in community processes. A framework is not instituting ethnic studies, it’s a label. We do not have a teacher preparation program or formal training that will even ensure educators are trained on this framework.
At WAESN, we are calling our legislators to instead make sustainable investments in developing the best practices in ethnic studies. This does not simply mean reinstating ESAC or calling for a mandate, but instead investing in building and retaining a workforce that is trained in ethnic studies pedagogy and curriculum. We don’t want to make more hurdles for teachers, so we are also calling for sustained funding, mentorship, and community support written into any legislation for ethnic studies. To develop ethnic studies, the state must invest in more than frameworks, but in professional development, educator training, and larger system-wide piloting of pedagogical reforms. Such investment and willingness to pilot new programs have mostly depended on individual school districts. In the case of Washington, this means further polarization of what we are teaching kids at wealthier, urban districts compared to poorer, rural districts.
Keep your eyes on our social media and legislative tracker for updates on how to get involved in this session!
We will be updating our Legislative Tracker and social media with information on how to get involved this session, including testifying (remotely or in person) this session. WAESN, as a part of this year’s Black Lives Matter at Schools Week of Action, will be hosting a Public Testimony Workshop on January 16th. This will be a virtual zoom event, RSVP here for the link. If you want to get involved, this would be a great place to start!