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Precious Knowledge
reports from the frontlines of one of the most contentious battles in
public education in recent memory, the fight over Mexican American
studies programs in Arizona public schools. The film interweaves the
stories of several students enrolled in the Mexican American Studies
Program at Tucson High School with interviews with teachers, parents,
school officials, and the lawmakers who wish to outlaw the classes.
While 48 percent of Mexican American students currently drop out of
high school, Tucson High’s Mexican American Studies Program has become a
national model of educational success, with 93 percent of enrolled
students, on average, graduating from high school and 85 percent going
on to attend college.The filmmakers spent an entire year in the
classroom filming this innovative curriculum, documenting the
transformative impact on students who became engaged, informed, and
active in their communities.
As the nation turns its focus toward a wave of anti-immigration
legislation in Arizona, the issue of ethnic chauvinism becomes a
double-edged weapon in a simmering battle making front page news coast
to coast. When Arizona lawmakers pass a bill giving unilateral power to
the State Superintendent to abolish ethnic studies classes, teachers and
student leaders fight to save the program using texts, Facebook,
optimism, and a megaphone. Lawmakers and politicians respond with a
public relations campaign to discredit the students, claiming that a
textbook used in the classes, Paulo Freire’s The Pedagogy of the
Oppressed teaches victimization and sedition. Officials ask that the
classroom’s Che Guevara posters be replaced with portraits of founding
father Benjamin Franklin. Meanwhile, the students answer back by
fighting for what they believe is the future of public education for the
entire nation, especially as the Latino demographic continues to grow.