The Ebonics controversy in Oakland, California, took many people by
surprise. Most had never heard of Ebonics before December 18, 1996, and
once they did, few understood what the school district meant when it
expressed its intent to use this new “language” to teach the district’s
African American children.
To understand how Oakland wound up at the eye of this storm, it is
important to recognize the current situation of African American
students in that district, and the political history of Ebonics in
California schools.
Anatomy of a Controversy
For the past fifteen years, California teachers have had the option
of participating in the Standard English Proficiency (SEP) program,
which was created to educate teachers who work with Black children
about the history of African American language. Once it orients
teachers in the historical and linguistic foundations of African
American communication, the program then provides teachers with
techniques that are said to have been proven to help children who speak
Ebonics learn to “code switch” into standard American English. Code
switching is the mental “translation” process that occurs in people who
are bilingual or bidialectical. Code switching allows a person to both
understand and convey thoughts in either language.
The SEP program emerged after decades of debate, political
struggle, and frustration over the poor academic performance of a
disproportionate number of Black children in the state. Although it is
used by school districts throughout the state, including by the Oakland
Unified School District (OUSD), it is a voluntary program. Despite the
reputed success of the SEP program, California’s African American
students continue to lag behind many of their peers in their mastery of
American English.
Black students constitute slightly more than half of the OUSD
student population, yet they represent 80 percent of all suspended
students and have the lowest grade point average (1.8) of any ethnic
group represented in the district. One in four of the district’s
students is not proficient in standard American English and 26 percent
are immigrants. Nearly three in four of the students receiving Special
Education services in the district are African American while only 37
percent of the students participating in the district’s gifted student
programs are Black.
The teaching staff of the Oakland Unified School district is 34
percent African American, 48 percent white, 10 percent Asian, 6 percent
Latino, and 1 percent Native American.
