District survey finds students value ethnic studies but see less rigor; trustees ask for follow-up

A Hanover Research survey presented to the Mountain View-Los Altos board on May 19 found students generally reported positive experiences in both freshman English and the district's new ethnic studies course, but the survey also showed students rated English as more rigorous.

Tara from the district's research contractor summarized the findings: students reported strong gains in understanding other cultures and identities in ethnic studies (77% of ethnic-studies respondents said they learned about others' cultures and identities), and many students said the course presented multiple perspectives. At the same time, the survey found fewer students said ethnic studies was "appropriately challenging" (about 45%) compared with English (about 67%), and fewer students rated ethnic studies as similar in workload or reading/writing demands to other courses.

The district asked Hanover to survey ninth- and tenth-graders about their course experiences; staff noted the ninth-grade cohort included many students who had taken the new ethnic-studies curriculum as freshmen while tenth-graders had different comparative experiences. Hanover recommended the district (1) explore ways to increase academic rigor in ethnic studies and align learning objectives with measurable skills, (2) intentionally foster community-building practices the course already promotes, and (3) continue to monitor and follow up with interviews or additional data to understand "why" students answered as they did.

Trustees and the public responded in the meeting. Trustee Katherine said the findings support keeping ethnic studies as a requirement while the district studies improvements: "Keep requiring it," she said, adding the board should follow Hanover's recommendations to assess and improve rigor. Several public commenters also spoke in favor of ethnic studies as a graduation requirement and described real-world benefits: a parent who worked at the World Bank said HGAP and ethnic-studies-style curriculum bring global perspectives students otherwise might not see.

Board members asked staff to return with options for follow-up research and instructional adjustments; no immediate policy change was put to a vote. Hanover noted a majority of students who had taken ethnic studies preferred it to remain a semester course (64% in the survey), a finding trustees said they want to explore further with teachers before making changes to course length or graduation requirements.