Программа этнических исследований в школах Сан-Франциско повысила успеваемость учащихся

Can Ethnic Studies Bridge the Achievement Gap? San Francisco Program Shows Gains Jessika Harkay | July 16, 2026 Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today. San Francisco high school students, particularly those with high needs, enrolled in ethnic study courses achieved higher GPAs, stronger academic gains in math and science, and failed fewer courses, according to a new report. A new study from the universities of Pennsylvania and California analyzed a longstanding San Francisco Unified School District ethnic studies program, piloted in 2010, that has since enrolled thousands of students and become a graduation requirement in 2024. An ethnic studies course is a history class centered around the culture and experiences of diverse students, which has proven to be especially beneficial for vulnerable and high need students because of its “culturally relevant curriculum,” said Sade Bonilla, an associate professor of education policy at the University of Pennsylvania and co-author of the report. “The intention is to affirm students’ identities, … and to increase their engagement with the materials and content by giving students an opportunity to see themselves reflected in the curriculum,” Bonilla said. In San Francisco, for example, a school district made up of nearly 50,000 students with a majority identifying as Asian (35%) or Latino (33%), curriculum has included lessons about housing discrimination, schooling segregation and how Mexican-American and Chinese children were not allowed to attend particular schools in California, Bonilla said. A new standardized curriculum was approved earlier this year after complaints about the course being “activist driven,” reported KQED, a local NPR station. President Donald Trump has also made similar criticisms about diversity, equity and inclusion practices in K-12 classrooms. Using data from 10 cohorts of students from grades 6 to 12 between the 2007-08 school year to 2022-23, Bonilla and her colleagues said the study is the first to provide evidence about the academic impact of ethnic studies enrollment in a district-wide expansion. Drawing on previous research that found curricula that reflect student backgrounds not only can promote educational equity, but also improve graduation rates, college enrollment and engagement, the researchers found enrollment in ethnic studies courses can improve a student’s GPA by 0.17 points and significantly reduce course failures across a school system. The grade point boost resulted in 15% more students achieving a 3.0 GPA and becoming eligible for admission to the University of California, the report said. Researchers also found that all student groups benefited from enrollment, “with particularly strong effects for lower-performing students, male students, Black and Latinx students, and students receiving special education services.” Bonilla and her colleagues found the course is especially effective for students entering high school. Coined “9th grade shock,” the transition between eighth and ninth grade is often challenging for students as they’re exposed to a new environment and more difficult coursework, in addition to cognitive, emotional and physical changes. Students fail ninth grade more than any other grade, according to the National High School Center, and other research has found ninth graders have the lowest GPAs and most missed classes, behavior referrals and failing grades. Teenagers entering high school are often “more likely to be aware of news, events, policies. Some might experience discrimination or stereotypes for the first time, at the same time of this identity formation happening,” Bonilla said. “Ethnic studies provides them language to talk about what they might be witnessing, experiencing and noticing about how society works. … It’s not leaving students deflated that the world is unequal and unjust. It’s [instead] saying here’s some things that one can do about it, and how to participate in civic life in productive ways.” Engaging students early, around ninth grade, paid off throughout the rest of their academic careers, the report found. Ninth grade students who never took the ethnic studies class experienced a “noticeable GPA decline,” whereas the students who took the class did not. The study also reported students with the lowest eighth grade GPAs, below a 2.0, benefited from the class the most, with a 0.17 point increase as those with GPAs between a 2.0 and 3.0 saw gains of about 0.12 points. While all students saw academic improvement, gains were largest among Black and Latino students, who saw GPA increases of 0.23 and 0.25 respectively and male students, who saw a 0.19 GPA increase on average, compared to female students who improved on average by 0.15 points. English language learners and students with disabilities also saw improvements in their GPA by 0.19 and 0.17 points respectively. “Although [ethnic studies] courses centered the experiences of communities of color, students from all racial and ethnic backgrounds benefited,” the report said. “Across core subjects, [ethnic studies] enrollment increased GPA in all areas, with the largest improvements in math (0.27 points) and science (0.20 points).” The San Francisco school district has seen a steady increase in enrollment in ethnic studies classes, from 3.5% of all high school students in its pilot year to 13.4% in 2022-23, but the report stated it’s unclear whether other districts will follow, despite its benefits. California became the first state in 2021 to require ethnic studies as a graduation requirement and more than a handful of states – including Minnesota, Oregon and Connecticut – have adopted mandates such as requiring schools to offer similar coursework. The California graduation mandate has hit a roadblock with funding, which could be a challenge for widespread expansion for other states too. “Legislating a high school requirement and not providing any additional funding means that districts would need to reallocate their spending of the money that they have,” Bonilla said. “In this fiscal environment, … being able to support the implementation of any new initiative is going to be challenging.” In Jan. 2025, Trump signed an executive order calling to end “radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling,” and threatening to pull federal funding to schools if they taught “discriminatory equity ideology” or any lessons that “treat individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups.” Even before Trump’s order, states have pushed back against comparable coursework, with more than a dozen states including Arizona, which in 2010 banned Mexican American studies; Tennessee which banned teaching certain concepts around race and racism in 2021; and Florida, whose leaders successfully advocated against teachings in Advanced Placement’s African American studies in 2023. But ethnic studies courses have “not been widespread,” Bonilla said, adding that many states that have restricted these types of classes never really offered them in the first place. “By banning this type of curriculum [in states like Tennessee] … we’re not necessarily taking things away from those students because many students didn’t have access to this type of curriculum in the first place,” Bonilla said. The challenges across the country “really underscore and speak to the importance of the local role in education,” Bonilla added. Families in San Francisco had to advocate for the ethnic studies offering and other communities could follow suit. “It wasn’t something that the district decided to offer because they thought it would be good for students, but was actually from community groups and students and parents advocating to the school board,” Bonilla said. “Local districts [and] schools have a lot of power to advocate within their local school boards to make decisions about what meets the needs of [their] students.” This article was published in partnership with The 74. Sign up for The 74’s newsletter here.