Educational equity is about more than closing gaps

If we believe that equity is about providing students and adults what they need to exceed performance targets, then tapping into how students make meaning through their cultural, racial and social filters is critical to ensuring success for all.

The racial achievement gap and pipeline to prison have placed policymakers and educational leaders in the precarious position to examine root causes to the educational outcomes of students of color and low income students. The design and implementation of educational equity has moved center stage to address the persistent gaps prevalent at all levels of our system of education. A Yale University preschool student  study from 2016 has me scratching my head over the discipline gap that exists with these children. The study reveals black preschool students make up 48 percent of all multiple suspensions, despite being just 20 percent of the population in our nation’s state preschools. Needless to say, state preschool is typically for working class families and students, despite race and ethnicity. Understanding the role of poverty The issue of poverty and the impact poor people face is real and deserves significant attention. However, the scope of this article will pay direct attention to race and pedagogy. I believe the “lump in the carpet” is race more so than poverty as my counternarrative researchers claim. I justify my position through my work within states and districts where, when asked to disaggregate their socio economic data by race, educators are startled by the revelation that poor white students score at the same level or higher than affluent black and brown students. This level of disequilibrium should prompt us to explore rather than discount the impact of race. If a district’s or school’s data does not reveal the aforementioned analysis, it may be considered an outlier. As an educator and professional developer who is committed to partnering with districts and schools in the area of educational equity for more than 15 years, I have discovered a multitude of equity initiatives to address gaps. I look to add some clarity and clear actions to initiate, sustain, and/or deepen your equity work. Using the communication framework of Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why,” will allow us to be clear on what equity is and is not.

First, I would like to provide some essential reflective questions to audit your equity journey. Following are five questions. A more complete list can be accessed at https://goo.gl/iu5QZk. What is our organization’s working definition of equity? The definition should be operationalized at three levels of the organization: district, school and classroom. The EDEquity definition is: Equity is providing additional and different resources (intellectual, human and fiscal) to ensure all students and teachers receive what is needed to exceed performance targets. Have we designed an Equity Theory of Action? “If this is to happen, then this must be in place…” Is our site leadership training driven by our Equity Theory of Action? How are we building site leadership ca-pacity with our teachers for equity? The need to be clear and have a simple but operational definition has proven to be the foundation to implementing equity.  

Communicating your ‘why’ for equity Why?

The reason for equity in schools is more than the need to close the student achievement gap. Your leadership “why” for equity, must be more than compliance actions because the Office of Civil Rights has visited your district. Your “why” must be compelling enough that your colleagues deeply understand the moral imperative and the internal fire that drives your passion.   Part of the equity journey is to push your-self to understand the root causes to why our system of schooling needs to engage equi-table practices. If we seek equity, then ineq-uities exist. As we venture into the good, bad and ugly of K-12 schooling, we cannot di-vorce ourselves from the cultural and racial leadership journey that is inevitable. 

We, as leaders of all racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, have to come to grips with the historical issues of power, privilege and placation that serve as the hidden back-drop to education. We have to realize the structure of American schools was designed to accelerate those students and families who are able to confirm and validate a middle-class and euro centric construct.The “why” for equity must have all leaders look internally to examine how we perpetu-ate the status quo. That internal reflection and possible discomfort will fuel your com-pelling “why.” Again, the moral imperative of grasping the “why” is the most important piece of the puzzle to implementing equity. The com-pelling “why” should include the first steps in implementing equity, and the “why” be-comes the internal push when the work gets hard. Believe me, educating students with holes in their learning is very difficult. I recog-nize that many teachers are given “gifts” from parents in the form of children who love learning, but may not yet have skills to demonstrate that love. School is not about blaming, it is about teaching those who don’t know yet.

The ‘how’ needs to be different

Simon Sinek also indicates the way great leaders communicate is from inside to out. The circles of communication place the “why” in the center ring, and the “how” is the next outer ring, with the “what” as the last ring of communication. The “how” is where our educators are ready or want to lis-ten. When I work with districts, the strat-egy is really what they want from me. I must confess, my response does not have as much wow factor as the “why.” I can unequivocally say that rigorous instructional planning is the key to imple-menting equity. Professional Learning Community (PLC) researchers and school improvement experts have placed a strong emphasis on analyzing and making in-formed decisions around data. I concur that data is key, but in order to have a deep level “how” to really implement equity, the data analysis should not hijack collaboration and planning. That happens in PLC meetings when the paralysis of overan-alyzing data results in less time spent on how to teach what the data is asking us to teach. EDEquity transforms PLCs by imple-menting the 20/80 rule to facilitators and instructional coaches. The rule guides the PLC facilitator to lead data analysis in 20 percent of the time allotted, with 80 percent of the time spent on how to teach what the data is revealing in student learning. There is resounding information on the impact of Culturally Conscious Teaching Principles (CCTP) being implemented to serve as a powerful “how” to support all stu-dents and accelerate the rate of learning for students of color. If we believe the premise that equity is about providing students and adults what they need to exceed performance targets, then tapping into how students make meaning through their cultural, racial and social filters becomes the gateway to accel-erating the learning for all (Vygotsky, 1978). Broadening CCTP to include experiences for students of color is a “how” that needs to be explored at all levels of the system. Just providing a book with “black or brown folks” is not CCTP. Teaching students how to un-derstand a different perspective and how the experiences of the text may or may not align to your personal experiences is one way to deepen the thought processes of students. It is noteworthy that white students need to know how the experiences of other cultures may differ from their own. This analysis of students’ cultural differences can provide a better understanding of differ-ent perspectives and will provide a catalyst for Americans to have healthy conversa-tions regarding race. If we continue to hide that there are different perspectives within America, our students will leave our school system with a misguided perspective that the “dominant culture” is the only way to access the American Dream.

The ‘what’ should address the entire system

Last but not least, there is the “what,” which refers to the results of equity. The ef-fective implementation of equity will trans-form the adults in the system. Educators continue to believe increasing test scores is the only desirable educational outcome of equity. I encourage you to engage a differ-ent perspective. The desired “what” of equity is developing a system that is more reflec-tive and takes immediate action of the situ-ational and institutional barriers within the system that greatly impact the adults’/educa-tors’ ability to reach and teach all students.   The system will be impacted at three lev-els: district, site and classroom. The system approach to educational equity will include implementing accountability structures to push the top and accelerate the bottom of the different student groups. We must take clearer steps to articulate that equity is not just about black and brown students. It’s about all students. The district will have a governing board that clearly understands advocating for si-lent and silenced voices may provoke privi-leged parents. We have resounding evidence that when certain middle class parents en-gage the system at the board level, they can move the system. As Alfie Kohn indicates in his article “Only for My Kids,” privileged parents be-lieve in transformation for “others” but not for their kids. The equity leaders in the sys-tem must be ready to demonstrate and op-erationalize their definition of courage. This “what” of advocating against privilege is the hidden inequity of our system. As a courageous equity leader, I share with my clients that if it is predictable, then it is preventable. An equity-driven district predicts the good, the bad and the ugly and plans accordingly.

Boots on the ground

The site level is where we have boots on the ground. School site leadership is the make or break of implementing equity. An interesting revelation is emerging from school principals that requires imme-diate attention. School instructional leader-ship must clearly distinguish between two key elements of instruction. When princi-pals say, “Good teaching will improve out-comes for all students,” my response to prin-cipals and instructional coaches is, “Good and great teaching are third cousins; not brother and sister.”  There are stark differences between the good and great. Effective differentiated in-struction, with students being the producers of knowledge rather than the consumers of knowledge, is moving toward great teaching. Good teaching for all is an equal strategy, and differentiated teaching is an equity strategy. Our site principals must cultivate a school culture where the adults are comfortable being uncomfortable. In order to deeply ex-perience the impact of equity, leaders must begin cultivating a learning environment where racially disaggregated student data is a norm of the school culture, and teach-ers use the data to have healthy instructional conversations to increase the learning of the top and bottom student groups. We can no longer think that the absence of racial, lin-guistic and socio economic data will some-how close the racial achievement gap. Equity-driven site leaders have an insa-tiable appetite for coaching up mediocre in-struction. In implementing equity, the leader works toward being a masterful instructional leader. If we are committed to effectively implementing equity, the site leader needs to know the elements of an effective lesson. Effective leaders know what good and great tastes like. More importantly, they know how to coach up to achieve greatness. It’s all about mindset.

The third level of implementing is in the classroom. This is where the rubber meets the road. As stated earlier, Culturally Con-scious Teaching Practices is an approach to engage eager learners. Classroom equity is 75 percent mindset and 25 percent strategies. The teachers’ ex-pectations are critical to implementing eq-uity. Teachers must understand that what they believe influences their actions with students. The work of Carol Dweck involves mov-ing the conversations and actions of teach-ing adults and students to transform their thinking from a “fixed mindset to a growth mindset.” For students of color, teachers must understand that the “stereotype threat” is real. Teachers with an equity mindset un-derstand that race, culture and language are always to be considered as positive instruc-tional attributes when designing lessons. Equity driven classes don’t wait for stu-dents to experience destructive struggles, but instead, they anticipate the struggle and plan effectively to minimize that for the students. The masterful teacher also knows cognitive struggle is how learning is achieved. Teachers are overtly conscious of the fact that students need “peacock moments” to stay engaged in the lesson. More impor-tantly, when students are validated and af-firmed for their efforts, they become more rigorously engaged in the learning process. I ask educators to stay the course in im-plementing equity. If we seek to close the achievement gap, we must be willing to stay the course and implement equitable poli-cies, practices and pedagogies that are so compelling, “you had me at hello!”

Resources

Dweck, C.S. (2006). “Mindset: The new psychology of success.” New York: Random House.

Gilliam, W.S., et al (2016). “Do Early Educators’ Implicit Biases Regarding Sex and Race Relate to Behavior Expectations and Recommendations of Preschool Ex-pulsions and Suspensions?” Yale University Child Study Center. Accessible at https://goo.gl/xLr0Ba.

Javius, E. and Tomlinson, C. (2012). “Teach Up for Excellence.” Educational Leadership, 69, 28 33.

Kohn, A. (1998). “Only for My Kids. How Privileged Parents Undermine School Reform.” Phi Delta Kappan: www.al-fiekohn.org/article/kid.

Sinek, S. (2009). “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.” New York, New York. Pen-guin Group.

Steele, C.M. (1997). “A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape the intellectual identities and performance of women and African Americans.” American Psycholo-gist, 52, 613 629.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). “Mind in soci-ety: The development of higher psychologi-cal processes.” Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

 

Edwin Lou Javius is CEO/president of EDEquity, an executive principal coach, equity team facilitator and reflective question coaching expert. Follow him on Twitter @edequity.