Abstract
The administration at Florin High School has found that the five-year average percentage of seniors who successfully completed the California academic competency courses known as A-G and thus qualified to apply to the University of California and/or California State University systems is only 42.9%. To mitigate the problem of our low A-G completion rate, I propose designing and implementing an anti-racist writing center on our high school campus. The problem of our low A-G completion rate is complex with many causes. Some are historical and systemic while others are local. Historical and systemic discriminatory policies and practices that have affected our families include unemployment, housing discrimination, our government’s immigration policies which have resulted in the deportation of some of our students’ family members. At the local level, we encounter problems related to educating students in poverty such as homelessness, transiency, and the egregious “back to the basics" pedagogy. However, more salient factors include teachers’ grading policies and practices as well as the impact of white linguistic hegemony. The antiracist writing center will directly address the latter by working with teachers and students to interrogate their linguistic prejudices which can alienate non-standard English speakers in academic spaces, making students feel like something is wrong with them as language is emblematic of identity.