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Engaging in self-reflection and growth for equity

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Engaging in self-reflection and growth for equity

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With your team, move thoughtfully through each entry on this section of the LEAD Tool.

After reflection, discussion, and reaching consensus on each entry, select the button next to the practice that best represents the current state of practice in your school system or building ("where you are now").

In the box labeled "evidence," name a few items that support your reasoning for the current state of practice you selected. (You don't need to create a long list or add details.)

Lastly, add an email address where you'd like your PDF worksheet sent. The worksheet provides a paper activity that collects your responses and guides your next steps. If your current state of practice needs work, this activity will help you identify the barriers that are hindering progress. If your status quo is proficient or exemplary, this activity will help you reflect on how you arrived there and may suggest best practices from your previous experience that will help you move toward equity in other areas.

Once you have selected your current state of practice, identified evidence, and entered your email, you are ready to submit your responses.

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Engaging in self-reflection and growth for equity

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With your team, move thoughtfully through each entry on this section of the LEAD Tool. After reflection, discussion, and reaching consensus on each entry, select the button next to the practice that best represents the current state of practice in your school system or building ("where you are now").

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A Multidisciplinary Approach: Equity, Complexity & Design

Each discipline contains theory, knowledge and approaches to practice. Understanding each of these, and their interrelationships, enables leaders to frame their challenges and focus their activities.

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Leading for Equity Framework - National Equity Project

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Navigate the complex territory of equity challenges & develop the capacity to engage in purposeful leadership action with our Leading for Equity Framework.

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Skip to main content

From film kits and lesson plans to the building blocks of a customized Learning Plan-texts, student tasks and teaching strategies-our resources will help you bring relevance, rigor and social emotional learning into your classroom-all for FREE.

Not sure where to begin? Get to know our Social Justice Standards, anchor standards and age-appropriate learning outcomes divided into four domains-Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action. The Standards provide a common language and a road map for anti-bias education at every grade level.

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From film kits and lesson plans to the building blocks of a customized Learning Plan-texts, student tasks and teaching strategies-our resources will help you bring relevance, rigor and social emotional learning into your classroom-all for FREE.

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Learning for Justice: Critical Practices

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Learning for Justice: Critical Practices

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Skip to main content

Critical Practices for Anti-bias Education offers practical strategies for accomplishing academic and social-emotional goals side by side. This framework also provides valuable advice for implementing culturally responsive pedagogy and describes how teachers can bring anti-bias values to life.

The critical practices in this framework are based on the values exemplified in the Social Justice Standards.

The framework is organized into four sections: Instruction, Classroom Culture, Family and Community Engagement, and Teacher Leadership. In each section, you can explore recommended practices, find helpful explanations and learn how each practice connects to anti-bias education. Drill down further for specific strategies you can try in your own classroom.
Download Critical Practices

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Strategies for K-12 Educators Critical Practices for Anti-bias Education offers practical strategies for accomplishing academic and social-emotional goals side by side. This framework also provides valuable advice for implementing culturally responsive pedagogy and describes how teachers can bring anti-bias values to life.

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A coherent collection of resources that an educational community may use in promoting intentional equity in their communities.

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Equitable Practices in the Classroom, Part I

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Equitable Practices in the Classroom, Part I

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Equity is much more than an educational buzzword-it involves the conscious and subconscious decisions and methods that we teachers implement in the classroom every day. Equity is also closely linked to student engagement, performance, achievement, and academic expectations. Because of the serious implications of classrooms that lack culturally responsive teaching, equity has become a major focal point for professional development among educators. Equitable practices are so critical, in fact, that most districts incorporate equity standards in teachers' evaluations and professional growth systems.

With such an emphasis on equity in education, it is important that teachers know how they can foster and promote equitable practices seamlessly into their instruction and classroom procedures. Many of these strategies fall under "best practices"-strategies that most teachers utilize intuitively every day. However, there are additional efforts that can be made to ensure that equity is at the forefront of our teaching and learning.
Addressing students:
Teachers should work to welcome and address students by name at the door upon entering class. This helps to build a positive classroom climate and ensures that students know they are each cared for and welcome.

Teachers should ask about correct pronunciation and if students have a preferred nickname. Often, students are shy about correcting a teacher's pronunciation; however, it is important that teachers correctly identify and pronounce students by name to recognize their personal and cultural identities. Over time, when teachers continuously mispronounce a student's name, it sends an unintentional message that the student's name is arbitrary, difficult, or complicated. In essence, teachers may be inadvertently "othering" a student by neglecting to correct their pronunciation or drawing attention to the name's unique qualities.

Teachers may also unknowingly address students by name only when they have done something wrong or are being reprimanded. While unintentional, this habit creates a negative rapport among teachers and students. Instead, teachers should consciously address all students by name when recognizing them for positive behaviors as well.
Student participation:
Best practices include random calling methods to ensure that all students get the opportunity to share in whole group and small group settings. Calling sticks help teachers to truly randomize student participation. This practice fosters equity in a few different ways: it holds all students accountable for learning, and it also establishes the belief that all opinions are valid and everyone's perspectives matter. Calling sticks also encourage students to maintain focus and engagement because they never know when they will be asked to participate.

Calling sticks and other random calling methods should be used for more than just participation. Teachers can utilize calling methods to encourage students to come up to the board to lead a part of the lesson. Teachers can also use calling sticks to highlight a randomly selected student's writing, art, poem, math strategy, etc. The key is to allow all students the opportunity to speak, demonstrate learning, ask questions, and receive praise.

Participation during group work or collaborative presentations can provide teachers with another opportunity to build equity among learners. Oftentimes, group work and presentations reward the talkative leaders and participatory over-achievers. Instead of allowing groups to determine who will share out or present, randomize the speaking role. Insist that the group member with the most recent birthday, shortest hair, longest bus ride, most siblings, or most colorful clothing share out. This provides the more quiet, reserved, or reticent group members with the low-risk opportunity to share the group's work.

Proximity is another method to ensure equity when addressing students, particularly with student behavior. Teachers may subconsciously move toward students who are misbehaving or disrupting; however, it is just as important to use proximity when students are on task and exhibiting positive behavior. Physical proximity, whether addressing positive or negative behaviors, sends the same message to all students-"I see you; I recognize what you're doing." When students are "caught" doing something positive, use physical proximity to send that positive message. This subtle recognition helps to build classroom environment and an encouraging climate for students.

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Equitable Practices in the Classroom, Part I - Learning Essentials

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Equity is much more than an educational buzzword-it involves the conscious and subconscious decisions and methods that we teachers implement in the classroom every day. Equity is also closely linked to student engagement, performance, achievement, and academic expectations. Because of the serious implications of classrooms that lack culturally responsive teaching, equity has become a major focal point for professional development among educators.

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CLOSING THE GAP:CREATING EQUITYIN THE CLASSROOM

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CLOSING THE GAP:CREATING EQUITYIN THE CLASSROOM

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If structural discrimination doesn't require conscious racists or sexists, how can school leaders recognize it and work to counter it?

"These [education] institutions get so big and difuse that even if you are able to identify what is going on in your immediate environs, trying to figure out how to fix that is overwhelming," said Amanda Lewis, a sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studies equity issues. "Everyone could see a piece of the puzzle, but putting it all together was trouble."

Equity audits may be one route. In the Ferguson-Florissant, Mo. district, for example, new Superintendent Joseph Davis is examining differences in school resources, teacher placement, discipline rates, and Advanced Placement participation by race and socioeconomic level. (For more on how the district is digging into these discrepancies, check out my colleague Denisa Superville's Q&A with Davis.)

While these reports historically have come mainly in response to state or federal investigations of discrimination, the flood of education data available now can make them easier for individual school leaders to conduct. And persistent achievement and discipline gaps, even in otherwise well-performing districts, could spur more leaders and researchers to try.

Discrimination "doesn't come from people who are trying to hurt kids," said Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. "It comes from people who think this is a good way to run schools, making a decision not based on the kids in front of them."

Equity Audit Indicators

In one Education Administration Quarterly analysis, researchers led by Linda Skrla, the education leadership chair at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., identified 12 basic indicators for equity audits in three areas:

Teacher-quality equity: including teachers' years of experience, highest level of education, the number teaching outside of their certification area, and average teacher turnover.

Programmatic equity: the proportion of students disciplined or assigned to special education, gifted and talented programs, and bilingual education.

Achievement equity: Including state assessment performance, dropout rates, the proportion of students on college-preparatory tracks, and the participation and performance of students on college entrance exams such as the ACT or SAT.

A school that differs 10 to 20 percent from the district average on one of these items-or a class within a single school that differs- can point to inequities. Say, for example, a district's average teacher experience and education levels all fall within a 20 percent range for middle schools. An equity audit may uncover that schools with a majority of black and Hispanic students had 60 percent teacher turnover each year, while mostly white schools had teacher turnover of only 10 percent. Digging further, a principal might find that within one school with roughly equal numbers of black, Hispanic, and white students, 90 percent of the white students were in an "honors" track, where teachers had very little turnover, while 90 percent of black and Hispanic students at the same school were in regular classes with high teacher turnover.

Creating Policies with No 'Opt Out'

Interviews with individual teachers and staff can bring out how seemingly neutral policies turn discriminatory, found Lewis and University of Wisconsin-Madison education associate professor John Diamond, co-authors of the 2015 book Despite the Best Intentions. In a five-year study of one high school, they found that hall monitors and teachers tended to call out black students for dress code and other minor rule violations significantly more than white students, in part because they knew white students' parents were more likely to raise a fuss if their kids got in trouble, or ask that they get out of punishment because they were "good kids."

"School districts need to recognize, if it's their practices and policies leading to inequities, then they need to change those," Lewis told me. "If the policies are too punitive, they should change; people shouldn't just be able to opt out of them. If there is an important reason to say people cannot be in the hall without a pass, then that needs to be true for everybody."

For a detailed look at an audit, check out this 2014 equity report for Atlanta public schools.
Photo: Joseph Davis, left,, superintendent at the Ferguson-Florissant district in Missouri, meets with students. He is conducting an equity audit to uncover bias in school policies and practices. Sid Hastings for Education Week Related:
Want more research news? Get the latest studies and join the conversation.

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If structural discrimination doesn't require conscious racists or sexists, how can school leaders recognize it and work to counter it? "These [education] institutions get so big and difuse that even if you are able to identify what is going on in your immediate environs, trying to figure out how to fix that is overwhelming," said Amanda Lewis, a sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studies equity issues.

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Using Equity Audits to Assess and Address Opportunity Gaps Across Education

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Using Equity Audits to Assess and Address Opportunity Gaps Across Education

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* Paula N. Johnson, Ph.D. * IDRA Newsletter * April 2020 *

Education leaders today are able to compile all kinds of student achievement data. However, many do not intentionally look for signs of systemic inequity. To recognize root causes of inequities, educators and communities can use equity audits to examine their school's culture, trends, practices and policies. These audits are especially needed now as inequities are exacerbated by COVID-19 school closures. Uncovering opportunity gaps is the first step in developing a plan to address them.

This article discusses the purpose, measures and outcomes of an equity audit. It showcases examples of how the information from an audit can assist schools and districts in addressing inequity.

The Role of Accountability

The Learning Policy Institute suggests that productive accountability systems acknowledge that each level of educational leadership has various responsibilities (2016). Inputs, processes and outcomes related to student achievement vary among schools, districts, and state and federal agencies. Each entity must leverage its capacity and resources appropriately to promote equity and quality education for all students.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the nation's chief law regarding public education. It holds public schools responsible for ensuring that all students receive quality instruction that will prepare them for college and career success. The law aims to safeguard educational opportunities for students who are historically undeserved, including students of color, students in poverty, English learners and students in special education. Equity audits guide schools in conducting a critical review of their data to inform ways of addressing systemic inequities.

Prior to the ESSA, IDRA developed the Six Goals of Educational Equity (2006). The goals provide a yardstick for school leaders to measure their progress and as a "lightning rod to galvanize change" (IDRA, 2006). Below is a summary of each goal.

Goal 1: Comparably high academic achievement and other student outcomes for all groups of learners, as evidenced by disaggregated data.

Goal 2: Equitable access and inclusion that affords all learners unobstructed entrance and participation in academic and extracurricular activities.

Goal 3: Equitable treatment in a welcoming and inclusive learning environment.

Goal 4: Equitable opportunity to learn in an academic setting with high standards that offers a strong system of supports.

Goal 5: Equitable resources that include fair allocation of funding, staffing, facilities, instructional materials and equipment.

Goal 6: Accountability that assures all stakeholders hold themselves and each other responsible for the success of every student.

IDRA operates the IDRA EAC- South, which is the federally funded equity assistance center that provides technical assistance to state education agencies and school districts in 11 states in federal Region II and Washington, D.C. (covering most of the U.S. South).

The IDRA EAC- South uses the six goals as a foundation for our equity audits. We facilitate equity "walks" in districts across the southern region of the United States. Some school districts in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia now use these goals to constantly gauge their success in meeting the needs of each student.

The Purpose of an Equity Audit

The goal of an equity audit is to identify institutional practices that produce discriminatory trends in data that affect students. Schools and districts conduct audits to analyze data in three key areas: programmatic equity, teaching quality equity, and achievement equity (Skrla, McKenzie & Scheurich, 2009).

Below are examples of guiding questions related to each of the three areas of equity. These questions help school leaders find areas of concern that may require further investigation.
Programmatic Equity

Which population groups are underrepresented in Advanced Placement classes or honors classes?

Which groups are overrepresented or underrepresentation in special education classes?

Which groups are disciplined more often and more severely than other groups?

Teaching Quality

Are the most experienced teachers teaching the students with the greatest needs?

Are most of the new teachers teaching in the schools with the greatest needs?

Are there certain schools where there is high teacher mobility? Why?

Are teachers in the high needs areas, like special education and bilingual education, certified?

Achievement Equity

Where are the achievement and opportunity gaps among population groups based on the state assessment exam at each grade level?

Which population groups are graduating at lower rates than others?

Which students are being retained in grade?

Which students are dropping out of school?

When the IDRA EAC- South facilitates equity audits with district teams, we work together to discover the institutional changes that will ensure equitable, diverse and inclusive environments for all learners.

Data Collection and Review

An equity audit requires input from stakeholders across a school district. Schools collect data in many forms to provide them with a wide range of influences that contribute to student achievement. Data collection can come from a variety of sources, including:

Listening sessions with district leadership;

Classroom and campus observations;

Focus group interviews with teachers, students and parents;

Reviews of school discipline policies and code of conduct;

Information provided on the campus or district website;

School climate surveys;

Student graduation, attrition and retention reports; and

State report cards and assessment data.

Several student characteristics help tell the story of school data. These include race, gender and gender identity, family income, national origin, special education, and disability. Data indicators for student achievement include graduation, in-grade retention and attrition rates (for students and teachers); discipline rates; advanced placement, honors and advanced course enrollment; extracurricular participation; and family and community engagement and leadership.

The Product of an Equity Audit

Equity audits guide schools in answering several questions: What supports do students need at each intersection? How well is the district providing these supports? Which students are disengaged? Where can the district improve? An audit has the power to confirm equity concerns and bring new ones to light.

IDRA EAC- South staff review the results of each of its school's equity audit with the district team. We provide district leadership with recommendations that outline a plan for technical assistance as needed. IDRA EAC-South staff work together with district staff to draft an agreement that details intervention goals, timelines and targets.

Equitable Education Outcomes for All Students

Achieving educational equity begins by initiating some uncomfortable conversations about relevant data: the good, the bad and the ugly. "Systemic equity can only be created in an environment that embraces a set of underlying assumptions about the right of every learner to receive the best possible public education" (Scott, 2001).

Equity audits provide schools and districts with clear indicators for how well they are meeting the needs of their students and which areas need more attention.

IDRA EAC- South can be a free technical assistance resource to schools in the U.S. South. Contact the IDRA EAC- South or visit https://www.idra.org/eac-south for more information.

Resources

Darling-Hammond, L., Bae, S., Cook Harvey, C.M., Lam, L., Mercer, C. Podolsky, A., & Stosich, E.L. Pathways to New Accountability Through the Every Student Succeeds Act (Palo Alto: Learning Policy Institute, 2016).

IDRA. (2019, August 7). Equity Audits - Assessing Equity Across Education, IDRA Visiting Scholar Webinar Series. San Antonio, Texas: Intercultural Development Research Association.

IDRA. (2017). Six Goals of Educational Equity and School Reform - The Equity Ranking Scale. San Antonio, Texas: Intercultural Development Research Association.

IDRA. (2006). Six Goals of Educational Equity, webpage. San Antonio, Texas: Intercultural Development Research Association.

Scott, B. (February 29, 2008). "Six Goals of Educational Equity," IDRA Classnotes Podcast Episode 29.

Scott, B. (March 2001). "Coming of Age," IDRA Newsletter.

Scott, B. (January 1995). "The Fourth Generation of Desegregation and Civil Rights," IDRA Newsletter.

Skrla, L., McKenzie, K.B., Scheurich, J.J. (2009). Using Equity Audits to Create Equitable and Excellent Schools. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

Paula N. Johnson, Ph.D., is a IDRA senior education associate and director of the IDRA EAC-South. Comments and questions may be directed to her via email at paula.johnson@idra.org.

[©2020, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the April 2020 IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]

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Using Equity Audits to Assess and Address Opportunity Gaps Across Education - IDRA

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Paula N. Johnson, Ph.D. * IDRA Newsletter * April 2020 * Education leaders today are able to compile all kinds of student achievement data. However, many do not intentionally look for signs of systemic inequity. To recognize root causes of inequities, educators and communities can use equity audits to examine their school's culture, trends, practices and policies.

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Data Equity Walks in Action - The Education Trust - West

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A Data Equity Walk is a 45-90 minute activity for any size audience - high school and college students,...

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Diversity Committee Equity Walk Protocol

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Diversity Committee Equity Walk Protocol

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Why sliders?
We believe that people fit along a spectrum of identities. For example, you might be slightly bisexual, somewhat poor, Jewish but rarely wear a yarmulke, and native born but travel frequently abroad. By having the option to be 'somewhere in the middle', this gives a more accurate assessment of your intersectionality score.

How can I improve my score?
Unfortunately, you are born with most of your intersectional factors. However, you can make some improvement to your score by getting more involved with Islam or Judaism, donate all excess wealth to charity, or explore the wild side of your sexuality. The easiest way to improve your score, however, is to champion the intersectionality of your more-marginalized friends. You may award yourself up to 5 points depending on the level of your activism.

Why include religion?
Some have commented that the religious sliders are anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, atheistophobic or possibly even Christianophobic. They are included to show that a complete intersectionality score embraces the diversity of religious thought if they are of a minority groups.

What about peanut allergies?
We know that 100s of other factors such political affiliation, height, attractiveness, weight and even peanut allergies can impact your personal intersectionality score. Hopefully, we will be able to address these factors in the future.

What's the goal here?
We hope that this calculator will help fight racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, anti-Semitism, biphobia, cissexism, classism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, ethnocentrism, xenophobia and discrimination (even prejudice) of all forms regardless of your race, country of origin, sexual orientation (e.g., bisexual, nonbinary, intersex, lesbian, queer, transgender, or asexual). We are for social justice and equity!

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Why sliders? We believe that people fit along a spectrum of identities. For example, you might be slightly bisexual, somewhat poor, Jewish but rarely wear a yarmulke, and native born but travel frequently abroad. By having the option to be 'somewhere in the middle', this gives a more accurate assessment of your intersectionality score.

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The Underrepresentation Curriculum Project – A flexible curriculum designed to help students critically examine scientific fields and take action for equity, inclusion and justice.

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What if we could equip students with the tools of science to examine science itself?

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Using Student Feedback to Improve School Culture

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Using Student Feedback to Improve School Culture

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A growing body of research has found that when schools focus on improving culture and climate they see a range of positive outcomes for both students and staff. The positive benefits of a positive school culture include higher engagement and achievement, fewer behavioral disruptions, lower teacher turnover and higher teacher satisfaction.

School culture also matters when tackling educational equity. A recent analysis published in the Review of Educational Researchwhichlooks at research on school climate, inequality and academic achievement found that a positive school climate may even help close the achievement gap. School leaders, of course, have known that the research supports this-earlier this year, when Getting Smart spoke to 20 experts who have collectively opened more than a thousand schools, the single most important factor that they identified was school culture.

But if school culture is that important, how can we monitor our progress in the area? The only way to fully know whether or not we're on track with building a positive school culture is to ask-and listen to-students. Not just the students who are on student council or in AP classes-we need to ask all students. When we ask through student surveys, it's key that they are done in a valid, reliable and comparable way. This allows for educators to best utilize the data and understand it within the school's national, state and local contexts. Understanding how student perceptions compare across schools allows for a more nuanced understanding of the data and a clearer understanding of the areas with the greatest room for growth.

Recent findings on students' perceptions of school culture from YouthTruth, the national nonprofit where I work, help provide some of that national context. Here are some of the key takeaways from the recent report:

Only 1 in 3 students rate school culture positively. As the policy landscape under ESSA shifts towards including non-academic metrics of school success, school climate-which is based heavily on school culture-has been aparticularly hot topic of conversation as a potential metric. This data shows that there's serious room for improvement.

Only 37% of students agree that students at their school treat adults with respect, and just 57% of students agree that most adults at their school treat students with respect. When it comes to being respectful, both adults and students could be doing better. While it's important that students recognize that they and their peers are lagging, it also stands out that adults, as role models, also show significant room for improvement.

Less than half of students feel that discipline at their school is fair. Discipline in schools can haveserious consequences for students-students who are suspended are less likely to graduate on time and are more likely to be suspended again, drop out, or become involved with the juvenile justice system. Discipline and fairness are key components of a healthy and trusting school culture. Creating a common understanding and application of discipline policies is vital.

LGBTQ students need more support: Only 16% of students who selected "I identify in another way" when asked about their gender identity rate their school culture positively, compared to 35% of male students and 32% of female students. This number is incredibly low. A recent survey from the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, GLSEN, found thatless than a third of teachers have been trained on issues specific to LGBT students. Understanding the varied experiences of students with different gender identities can help guide resources for better supporting those students.

These are hard truths but are also a starting point for a conversation about creating a more positive learning environment. These findings should serve as a catalyst for more local conversations about how schools can be improved and students can be better supported.

So, what are some next steps?

1. Keep asking. If you're a teacher or principal, ask your students if this data resonates with their experiences. What does respect look like at your school? How do students perceive the fairness of discipline?

2. Create spaces to listen authentically. Create intentional spaces and avenues for gathering ongoing student feedback. Building a culture that empowers students to provide feedback and engage as co-creators of school culture doesn't happen overnight. But creating consistent spaces for feedback helps strengthen the role of students as partners.

3. Act on the data. Gathering feedback is great, but it's what you do with that feedback that matters most. Once you've gathered the feedback, use it to drive changes. Create a clear process for using student feedback to drive practices that promote a more positive school culture, and share that back with students.

This data is a snapshot in time. It's important to continue asking these questions of students, and utilizing their perspective to help improve schools. Especially as the Every Student Succeeds Act has opened the door for more serious weight to be given to non-academic indicators of school success, student feedback on school culture and climate can be a powerful metric. When we listen to those who the system is intended to help, we can create school cultures that foster a more positive learning environment.

Hannah Bartlebaugh is the Marketing and External Relations Coordinator at YouthTruth Student Survey. Follow YouthTruth on Twitter: @ Youth_Truth
Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update

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Using Student Feedback to Improve School Culture | Getting Smart

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A growing body of research has found that when schools focus on improving culture and climate they see a range of positive outcomes for both students and staff. The positive benefits of a positive school culture include higher engagement and achievement, fewer behavioral disruptions, lower teacher turnover and higher teacher satisfaction.

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A Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching

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A Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Engaging in self-reflection and growth for equity

This article by Walida Imarisha begins by questioning why there aren't more black people in Oregon, then explores the discomforting history of white supremacy in the state. You can also view a video presentation of this topic.

Following the Charleston church shootings in June 2015, John Metta writes in the Huffington Post about why he can no longer talk to white people about race and the state of racism in the 21st century.

This essay by jona olsson examines behaviors taken by well-intended white people and offers a tool to look at unintentional racism. The author argues that unless we can identify our racist patterns of thought and behavior, we can never interrupt them.

Constructing and enacting an equity vision

This resources from the the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change provides an analysis of social structures that support racism and outlines five steps that groups can take to promote racial equity.

This book tells the compelling story of Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS) and the district's transformation-in less than a decade-into a system committed to breaking the links between race and class and academic achievement.

Developing organizational leadership for equity

In this YouTube video, Pedro Noguera speaks on the topic of what motivational leadership looks like when it's done well with a story story of a school principal with exemplary motivational skills.

This letter by Jeff Duncan-Andrade argues that we should adopt a collective approach to notions of success and suffering. This solidarity is the essential ingredient for racial healing, an often overlooked factor for balance in our lives and for improving achievement in our schools.

This article by George Theoharis focuses on six principals who saw injustice being perpetuated for diverse students and worked to change that reality. The principals describe the strategies they used to improve their schools and advance social justice.

The California educator talks about recognizing the tenacity and will of urban youth, whom he compares to roses breaking through the concrete.

Modeling ethical and equitable behavior

This article, with examples drawn from LGBT issues, focuses on how teachers can make a difference in reducing bigotry by modeling ethical behavior and including inclusive elements in their curriculum.

This Vanderbilt University report presents a model of education leadership assessment and behaviors. The authors discuss how their focus on leadership behaviors fits within a larger context of leadership assessment, school performance, and student success.

This paper looks at the research around distributed shared leadership and management in schools and find that it is not uncommon for responsibilities to be shared among many people.

Allocating Resources

This article describes how high-performing countries and economies tend to allocate resources more equitably across socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged schools.

This resource documents successful school leadership practices that help struggling students, featuring case studies of principals who have raised academic achievement in their schools.

Based on a two-year study of how district leaders invest staffing resources to promote equity-focused improvements in student learning, this paper explores political dimensions of the policy design and implementation process.

Fostering an equitable school culture

Pedro Noguera looks at the root causes of discipline disparities and offers a set of recommendations to reduce exclusionary discipline practices.

U.S. Department of Education guidance document that draws from emerging research and best practices to describe key principles and related steps that can help guide state- and locally controlled efforts to improve school climate and school discipline.

In this book chapter, Curtis Linton describes what a culture of equity looks like in a school then offers four examples of schools that are making equity a reality.

In this Principal's Research Review article written by Education Northwest's Vicki Nishioka and Rhonda Barton, the authors survey research around discipline disparities and offer principals a set of actionable recommendations.

Collaborating with families and communities

This article presents an approach to fostering parent engagement in schools, suggesting that community-based organizations can build relational bridges between educators and parents and act as catalysts for change.

A slide deck that covers the program goals, challenges, and benefits of working to increase family and community involvement.

Influencing the sociopolitical context

This Equity and Excellence Commission report summarizes how America's K-12 education system does not distribute opportunity equitably and provides a five-part framework of tightly interrelated recommendations to guide policymaking.

This framework looks at the effects of race/ethnicity on perceptions of leadership, the effects of race/ethnicity on leadership enactments, and actors' approach to the social reality of race/ethnicity.

A book chapter by Eugene Eubanks, Ralph Parish, and Dianne Smith suggesting that if schools are to transform, they must eliminate long-term unequal social arrangements and change the current dominant discourse.

Hiring and placing personnel

The purpose of this book is to help professors train social justice leaders through adult learning strategies aimed at principals who then apply those techniques with their own faculty, staff, and parent groups.

The author examines the reasons why we need a diverse teaching force and the impact of the Teach for America program in the recruitment of minority teachers.

Supervising for improvement of equitable instruction

This resource from the Equity Alliance provides an overview of what culturally responsive teaching means and a set of strategies to help shape practice.

A Principal's Research Review article by Education Northwest's Rhonda Barton and Rob Larson, this brief suggests steps educational leaders can take to authentically and successfully confront the situations in schools that cause inequities.

A background piece, this text shows how a culture of collaboration can improve teacher practice and promote equity.

Peer Reviewed Research and Articles on the LEAD Tool

What would leadership standards look like if developed through a lens and language of equity? The authors engaged with a group of 40 researchers, practitioners, and community leaders recognized as having expertise on equity in education to address this question. Using a Delphi technique, an approach designed to elicit expert feedback and measure convergence around a question of interest, these leaders participated in three rounds of data gathering. In Rounds One and Two, the 40 participants described and then rated leadership practices they believed to be most likely to mitigate race, class, and other group-based disparities between dominant and nondominant students. In Round Three, 14 of these experts participated in focus group sessions, using the findings from the first two rounds to ultimately converge around 10 high-leverage leadership practices for equity. Findings highlight the importance of leadership centered on countering systemic and structural barriers that maintain disparities, with implications for leadership preparation, policy, and tools to support organizational leadership for equity.

Galloway, M.K., & Ishimaru, A.M. (2017). Equitable leadership on the ground: Converging on high-leverage practices. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 25(2).

The authors use a set of "leadership for equity" rubrics to examine how 114 school and district leaders rated and provided evidence of equitable or inequitable practices related to visionary leadership and instructional improvement (two core responsibilities of leadership as identified by the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium's standards). The rubrics define equitable leadership along a continuum from unsatisfactory to exemplary, with a rating of proficient requiring evidence of action and change in policies and practices designed to produce equitable outcomes. Although leaders tended to rate themselves as proficient or above on the rubrics, their ratings were more favorable than what their supporting evidence warranted. The authors use this misalignment between participants' espoused and enacted behaviors to (a) discuss the need to better define key concepts in social justice leadership theory and practice and (b) highlight how leadership development and professional growth tools can counter rather than maintain status quo leadership practice.

Galloway, M. K., Ishimaru, A., M., & Larson, R. (2015). When aspirations exceed actions: Educational leaders' descriptions of educational equity. Journal of School Leadership, 25(5), 838-875.

The widely adopted Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards are designed to guide the preparation and professional development of educational leaders. However, the standards' limited mention of race, class, ethnicity, ability, gender, sexuality, or other marginalized identities suggests that addressing persistent inequities need not be a central concern of preparation programs and leaders in pre-K-12 schools. In this article, the authors put forth a new set of standards with equity at the core. The authors discuss why equity-centered standards are needed and what implications these standards have for practice. The authors offer 10 high-leverage equitable leadership practices, identified through research and the extant literature as those most likely to mitigate disparities for students who have not been well served due to their race, class, ethnicity, home language, and/or ability. The authors also discuss how a set of equity-focused leadership standards would facilitate radical changes in leadership preparation programs, professional development, and evaluation.

Galloway, M. K., & Ishimaru, A. M. (2015). Radical recentering: Equity in educational leadership standards. Educational Administration Quarterly, 51(3), 372-408.

This article provides an overview of equity-centered leadership strategies. Equitable education begins with district and school leaders educating themselves about racial and cultural biases. The authors discuss the difference between equality and equity and how to use disaggregated data to support decision making.

Larson, R., & Barton, R. (2013). Lessons on leading for equity. Principal Leadership, 13, 18-24.

This paper describes one state's efforts to design and validate a professional growth and assessment tool (the Leadership for Equity Assessment) to measure leadership for equity. Merging theory with practitioner language, the tool describes equitable leadership behaviors in each of the Oregon administrative licensure standards along a continuum from unsatisfactory to exemplary. The authors developed and refined the tool through three iterative phases: 1 development and initial refinement, small-scale piloting and focus groups, and an Oregon Leadership Network Institute sorting and alignment study. Revisions after each phase resulted in an online guided self-assessment tool that represents a promising instrument for measuring and supporting the development of educational leaders' equitable practice.

Ishimaru, A., Galloway, M., Larson, R., & Carr, C. (2012, April). At the crossroads of standards and equity: Merging practice and theory to create the Leadership for Equity Assessment & Development (LEAD) Tool. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, BC.

In this study, the researchers used the Leadership for Equity & Assessment (LEAD) Tool to examine how educational leaders rate themselves on two rubrics designed to measure leadership behaviors for equity and to understand how educational leaders describe the kinds of equitable (or inequitable) practices they use in their day-to-day work. Through a survey of 114 administrators, the study found a misalignment overall between the evidence provided by educational leaders and the ratings they selected to describe their practices for equity using the LEAD tool.

Galloway, M., Ishimaru, A., Larson, R., & Carr, C. (2011, August). Got equity? Educational leaders' descriptions of enacting equitable practices. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration, Portland, OR.

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Engaging in self-reflection and growth for equity This article by Walida Imarisha begins by questioning why there aren't more black people in Oregon, then explores the discomforting history of white supremacy in the state. You can also view a video presentation of this topic.

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Support Ed - School Checklist and Goal Setting 

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Support Ed - School Checklist and Goal Setting 

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Developed its Equity Audit to offer districts, schools, and teachers a way to develop a more concrete understanding of what it means to practice equity.

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Best Practices for Implementing Equity Walks

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Best Practices for Implementing Equity Walks

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What is a Data Equity Walk?

A Data Equity Walk is a 45-90 minute activity for any size audience - high school and college students, teachers, district leaders, community members, or others - to engage with education data and discuss equity issues. Participants dive into data that shows education outcomes and exposes gaps between groups of students. The data usually show district or school performance across different measures like student achievement and school climate.

Participants explore the data individually before collectively discussing implications and identifying solutions to address disparities and improve outcomes.

Data Equity Walk participation does not require prior experience with data and is geared toward all audiences.

Create Your Own Data Equity Walk

Depending on what resources you're looking for, click on the links below to access editable planning documents as well as ideas to inspire the creation of your own Data Equity Walk. Remember, these are just optional resources to help you - there's no right or wrong way of doing this!

"I thought this was a fantastic way to get folks engaged with the data and talking together about concrete needs and potential solutions for our students to promote equity." -Southern CA participant

"I learned how to advocate for the work that needs to be done in our community." -Central CA participant

"This is a great method for allowing participants to absorb and react to equity data in an interactive way - better than a sit-down presentation." -Southern CA participant

"The Data Equity Walk ... was eye opening and elicited a thoughtful discussion about education policy, practice, and the role we can all play in improving outcomes for more students in California...it was exciting to hear passionate personal stories of what brings us all to this work despite the challenges." -Northern CA participant

"I learned where to obtain data from different sources." -Central CA participant

"It can be difficult to fully engage participants in the research process and this method was safe, inviting, and had a community-building component to it." -Southern CA participant

"It was truly inspirational to be among organizations and students interested in learning more about the educational inequity that proliferates within California schools. As a teacher, I was motivated by the interest I saw from [students] through the deep and critical conversations during the equity walk." -Northern CA participant

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Data Equity Walk Toolkit - The Education Trust - West

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What is a Data Equity Walk? A Data Equity Walk is a 45-90 minute activity for any size audience - high school and college students, teachers, district leaders, community members, or others - to engage with education data and discuss equity issues. Participants dive into data that shows education outcomes and exposes gaps between groups of students.