Following the release of the video of George Floyd’s killing, there was a brief moment when the world seemingly paused to grieve what felt like the death of compassion. Before our eyes a human life had slipped away in real time. Visions of visibility, acceptance, justice, and inclusion haunted the streets among millions of protesters, a vision of change teased our imaginations and appeared within our grasp. Sadly, it was not to be.
Those apparitions faded into a fog of taunts, screams, and denunciations. That hopeful vision was far too short-lived—stolen once again by the grinches of equity. While we were fixated on hope, they swooped into our schools and robbed us of academic terminology that helps people understand how racism works in society. They commandeered school board meetings with accusations of imaginary curricula. They demanded the termination of school professionals who supported fair and equitable practices in schools. These enemies of equity denied the presence of structural racism while kneeling on the necks of those who sought to expose it.
A Disturbing—And Predictable—Cycle
This was nearly as disturbing to watch as the deaths that preceded these attacks. It was also predictable and consistent with history. Many scholars (Alexander, 2010; Anderson, 2016; Blackmon, 2009) have identified historical patterns in which significant strides toward racial justice have been followed by policy and legislative backlashes that seek to uphold systems of white supremacy. Whether it was George Wallace blocking the doors to an auditorium of the University of Alabama to maintain segregation or angry mobs threatening 6-year-old Ruby Bridges as she walked into school, real gains for racial justice and equitable schooling have been met with irrationality, hostility, and economic, psychological, or physical violence.
There have always been opponents of dismantling white supremacy. And there have always been those who refuse to submit to them. It might be tempting to reason that time is all that is needed to assuage the conflict—that given enough time, silence, and patience, things will settle down and the work can move forward unopposed. But students don’t have that time. Students continue to go to schools every day enduring the microaggressions that result when the realities of systemic racism are unexamined. Our children are worth the battles and our future is worth the fight. Your voice, your talent, your position and title, your connections, and your passion are needed on the frontlines dismantling inequitable practices and policies within schools.
Five Recommendations for Equity Work in this Climate
I offer school leaders five recommendations, drawn from research and my experiences working with schools, for strategically managing change to bring about equitable outcomes, given the current climate.
1. Thoughtfully frame the message. Choose your words wisely. Whatever aspect of equity work you’re engaged in or planning to do, consider at the outset how you will discuss it with each of your stakeholders. Get in front of this message rather than chasing behind it after John Q. Public has shaped it for you. Frame the language of your work to address two potential parental concerns: “How will this work benefit my child?” and “Why is this important now?”
To be clear, nothing in equity work is harmful to children. The intentions of those who do it are rooted in moral purpose and ethical practice. But for some of your constituents, that won’t be immediately evident. Sociopolitical forces are at work contorting the equity work being done in schools and vilifying the people doing it for political reasons that have nothing to do with student well-being. Narratives have been crafted to stoke fear and skepticism. Ideologies are being suggested that cast equity work within a framework of scarcity, meaning gains for children of color and losses for white children. As with so many negative assertions about schools, nothing could be further from the truth. But leaders need to allay those fears at the outset by discussing in concrete terms how the strategies or actions taken will benefit all learners.
Additionally, discuss your goals as they relate to moral purpose. People are drawn to work that is meaningful and has a purpose greater than themselves. Strategize the best words to convey clearly what you are doing, how it aligns with a greater moral purpose, and how it benefits all learners. Then, stick with the script. This is no time to mumble, hedge, or speculate on the reasons for the actions you’re taking. Harvard professor John Kotter (1996) suggests that successful leaders of change inspire others by communicating a compelling vision of a better future for their constituents. So make your case, present relevant data that shows why problems tied to equity need to be addressed now, and provide a timeline for when you will communicate progress on the work.
Your voice, your talent, your position and title, your connections, and your passion are needed on the frontlines dismantling inequitable practices and policies within schools.
2. Assess the current reality and practices in your school or district in terms of equity. Such an assessment will help you identify patterns that may be perpetuating inequitable outcomes. These patterns may be buried in the assumptions, beliefs, practices, and policies of schools or districts (Skrla, McKenzie, & Scheurich, 2009). Call it whatever you choose—equity audit, program review, DEI assessment; how you frame the assessment isn’t as important as the information you gain from conducting it. Mine the data on disciplinary outcomes. Dig into achievement data from formative and summative assessments and see how children are faring based on racial subgroups or identities. Peruse through climate and culture surveys. Talk to administrators, teachers, students, and parents about their experiences in schools and classrooms. What do you hear? What patterns surface?
After completing an audit, you should have a clear picture of your school’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of achieving equitable outcomes for students in all subgroups. What you learn might surprise you. But it is better to be surprised at the beginning of this work than in the middle. One school district I am aware of had a bitter awakening. They conducted a survey to determine the school community’s attitude and readiness for doing equity work. They learned that the most hostile opposition to equity work lay not with community members, but in the ranks of the senior administrative team. This was difficult to hear, but it was best confronted at the outset—and the discovery was crucial in helping them plan the best path forward toward unlearning destructive patterns, beliefs, and assumptions.
3. Involve all stakeholders in a transparent process. Taking a collaborative approach to collecting, analyzing, and reporting data will diminish pushback and center voices that have been historically marginalized (Villavicencio, Conlin, & Pagan, 2022). The Metropolitan School District in Lawrence Township, Indiana, thoughtfully designed such a process to communicate with stakeholders after completing an equity audit. They held a series of evening meetings in which all community and school members were invited to review the findings, provide input, make recommendations, and help craft an equity plan for the district. Hundreds of stakeholders gathered at each meeting to enjoy dinner, connect with community members, and collaborate alongside school and board leaders. School leaders facilitated small-group discussions while capturing the key ideas. Troy Knoderer, Chief Education Officer for the district, noted that “Our community-driven approach to tackling the challenge of achieving equitable student outcomes resulted in a transparent action plan that reflects the will of our entire community. All voices were heard, especially when the discussion was uncomfortable, and incorporated into the final plan.”
4. Systematically re-envision the roles of school stakeholders. Creating more equitable outcomes isn’t the responsibility of one or even a few. It’s a community endeavor in which every member of the school community can understand their role. Anyone who works in schools or in support of children influences the outcomes children experience; they are therefore responsible, in part, for how they contribute to or detract from equitable outcomes. Every job description—from the bus driver to the cafeteria worker to the superintendent—should include the responsibility to support equitable outcomes for every child. Every interview might require applicants to speak about how their personal values or beliefs align with those of the school or district in regard to educational equity. Every evaluation can include accountability for supporting equity goals.
Likewise, everyone employed by the school or district is a deputized ambassador who can represent and communicate the valuable work being conducted in schools. Staff members, especially classified staff, are critical resources who are often underutilized in the school improvement process. Their voices can reach places where school leaders seldom go and interact with stakeholders who leaders have never met, They may regularly interact with the stakeholders at the laundromat, local library, community gym, or local dance studio. Mobilize them in support of equity work. They can help neutralize potential hostilities before you are aware that potential exists.
The necessity of clear, consistent, and transparent communication cannot be overstated.
Everyone who works for the school or district should be able to respond to three fundamental questions without hesitation: 1) What are equitable student outcomes? 2) Why are they important? and 3) What are we doing to become better at achieving them? Actually, every medium of communication to stakeholders should speak to these items frequently. When conducting equity work, there is no such thing as too much communication on these three questions, but there are potentially major problems with too little.
5. Consistently build common background knowledge, common vocabulary, and cultural competency. Staff must understand the reasons for reimagining policies and practices and the rationale for the strategies being undertaken. People fear what they do not understand, so reduce fears by actively addressing concerns and explaining the “why.” Carve out time to build cultural competency with all staff and do so in a variety of ways. Villavicencio and colleagues (2022) suggest that developing racial consciousness requires “repeated exposure in different modalities to truly change perceptions and beliefs.”(Villavicencio, Klevan, Conlin, & Hill, 2022) Embed discussions on equity into conversations about improving student outcomes. Discussions on educational equity can happen anytime during school life—in grade-level team meetings, content-area meetings, special education meetings, meetings about parent involvement, etc.—because the work of equitable student outcomes is integral to education. Being an equitable educator should be the norm, not the exception.
Ensure that communication with both certificated and classified staff is consistent and clear. Open school meetings to any classified staff who choose to attend them. Provide school updates to all district personnel, sharing relevant data, so they are equally aware of school equity goals and, most important, how those goals are furthering positive outcomes for all students. Remind people often that equitable educational outcomes are a work in progress.
The necessity of clear, consistent, and transparent communication cannot be overstated. Without adequate background knowledge, understanding of terms, or critical consciousness, staff can get sucked into misinformation about equity that is inaccurate or incomplete. Equip them to understand and discuss the benefits of equity work in schools and to represent that work to others with authenticity and confidence. Most will be pleased to know you trust them to do so.
Finally—Know the Local Power Dynamics
These recommendations are a starting place for designing your approach to furthering equity in your school, despite the potential for conflict. Filter all recommendations, however, through the context in which you are operating. You need to have a thorough understanding of the power relationships within your school, district, or community—the sociopolitical climate and who historically has wielded power—because resistance can potentially come from any constituent or group. Power, as an essential element of racism, has often served to maintain the status quo and disrupt change efforts. Its influence cannot be ignored.
There are no neutral parties in the movement for educational equity. You are either working to dismantle practices that perpetuate inequity, or you are upholding them through inaction. In this current climate, in which hostility, socially accepted incivility, and litigious threats are hurled like food in a cafeteria fight, we may lack the political capital to stop the attacks being waged over our heads. But we need not allow children to take the hits. We can use our positions, our privilege, and our voices to examine and eliminate any school practices that reproduce inequity for children.
Equity work may be challenging and at times exhausting. But when we execute it with strategic, transparent, systematic, and persistent approaches, we can make progress. Your students deserve nothing less--and their futures require that we give it our all.
