Getting Beyond Technical Solutions to Disrupt Systemic Racial Disparities in K-12 Education Deanna Hill, West Wind Education Policy, Inc. Addressing Disproportionality:

Getting Beyond Technical Solutionsto Disrupt Systemic Racial Disparities

in K-12 Education

Deanna Hill, West Wind Education Policy, Inc.

Addressing Disproportionality:

2008 Summer Institute – Culturally Responsive Practices

August 5, 2008

With a partner, share your very first memory of race in your life.

Now, on the back of your handout, write down the percentage (0-100%) that race impacts your life today.

Let’s Talk About Race

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%

• come to deeper understandings about race in our personal and professional lives

• make visible, and actively work against, systemic racism

• exercise leadership to disrupt systemic racial disparities

Our Belief

Individually and collectively, we need to develop the skill, knowledge, and capacity to:

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• West Wind Education Policy (West Wind) and Pacific Educational Group (PEG) have been working for many years to build the capacity of education leaders.

• West Wind and PEG have joined in partnership to create consortia on racial equity in K-12 education as one way to build the skill, knowledge, and capacity of educators at all levels to exercise leadership to disrupt systemic racism.

Our Work

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• Southwest Ohio (equity leadership teams from the Ohio Department of Education, five school districts, one career-technical planning district, and two universities). We are expanding in Fall 2008.

• Wisconsin (equity leadership teams from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and eight school districts). We will begin in Fall 2008.

• Indianapolis Region (equity leadership teams to be determined). We will begin in Fall 2008.

Racial Equity Consortia

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Multiple Intersections– District University

– School Community

– Classroom State

– Student Adult

– “White” “Of Color”

– Theory Practice

Statewide/Regional Conversations (the power in numbers!)

Coaching Support

Cohort Support

Job-Alike Support

The Power of a Consortium

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Questions We Ask

• What are our roles in disrupting patterns of racial disparity in the system?

• What changes are we willing to undergo to eliminate patterns of racial disparity?

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Our Framework

• Courageous Conversations About Race

• Learning Organizations and Systems Thinking

• Anti-Racist School Leadership Development

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– We don’t share a common and compelling direction or shared sense of current reality.

– We disagree about the cause of major problems in the system.

– We lack the skills to talk about race.

– We lack the skills to analyze the presence, role, and implications of race in our systems.

Why Have a Framework?

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Courageous Conversations About Race

• Developed by PEG

• Utilizes Four Agreements, Six Conditions and the Compass in order to engage, sustain and deepen interracial dialogue about race, racial identity and systemic racism.

Our Framework, Part 1

Singleton, G.E & Linton, C. (2007). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. 10

1.Stay Engaged

2.Speak Your Truth

3.Experience Discomfort

4.Expect and Accept Non-Closure

Four Agreements

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A Courageous Conversation:

• Engages those who won’t talk

• Sustains the conversation when it gets uncomfortable or diverted

• Deepens the conversation to the point where authentic understanding and meaningful actions occur

Four Agreements

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1. Focus on the personal, local and immediate

2. Isolate race

3. Normalize social construction & multiple perspectives

4. Monitor agreements, conditions and establish parameters

5. Use a “working definition” for race

6. Examine the presence and role of “Whiteness”

Six Conditions

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Courageous Courageous ConversationsConversations

CompassCompass

Courageous Courageous ConversationsConversations

CompassCompass

BelievingBelievingBelievingBelieving ThinkingThinkingThinkingThinking

ActingActingActingActingFeelingFeelingFeelingFeeling

MMoraloral IIntellectualntellectual

Soul Head

RRelationalelationalEEmotionalmotional

HeartHands &

Feet

Source:Source:

Pacific Pacific Educational Educational GroupGroup

The Compass

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Consider the following topics: – Affirmative action– Bilingual education– Jena 6– “Indian” mascots

Initially, where do you locate yourself on the compass?

As you ponder each topic, where do you travel on the compass? Do you experience significant or minimal movement?

The Compass

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Learning Organizations and Systems Thinking

• Based on Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline framework (augmented by Critical Race Theory and our experiences)

• Attention to collective learning, mental models, and systems thinking

Our Framework, Part 2

Senge, P.M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday. 16

• Systems are perfectly designed to get the results they get

• Systems involve structures, policies, procedures, cultures, and people; exchange information, energy, resources; and reflect and reinforce attitudes, beliefs, values, and feelings

• Systems thinking examines the linkages and interactions between elements of the entire system

Systems Thinking

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• This is not only a problem of individuals; it is a problem of the system

• The system is structured by its histories, stories, norms, and understandings

Systems Thinking

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• Formal structures within systems can change; often, however, if informal structures do not also change, results remain constant

• One of the biggest problems is that changing formal structures can make people believe the system has changed—and render invisible the informal structures that remain

Systems Thinking

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Use the lens of race to look anew at the system

Use tools like the iceberg to discover the mental models underlying certain attitudes and behaviors

So, what do we do?

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Senge, P., Cambron-McCabe, Lucas, T., Smith, B., Dutton, J., & Kleiner, A. (2000). Schools that learn: A Fifth Discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education. New York: Doubleday/ Currency.

The Iceberg

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Senge et al. (2002). Schools That Learn

As we experience the Iceberg we:

React to Events

Predict Patterns and Trends

Design Systemic Structures

Transform Mental Models

The Iceberg

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Anti-Racist School Leadership Development

• Based on theories of Adaptive Leadership™ and the Annenberg Institute’s Critical Friends Groups (augmented by Critical Race Theory and our experiences)

Our Framework,Part 3

Linsky, M. & Heifetz, R.A. (2002). Leadership on the line: Staying alive through the dangers of leading. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

For more information about Critical Friends Groups, see http://www.nsrfharmony.org/faq.html#1.

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Anti-Racist School Leadership Development

Our Framework,Part 3

• Not the same as Non-Racist

• Involves intentional actions strategically intended to reveal the forces within systems that have created racial disparities in education; to disrupt those systems; and to create new and better systems24

• Leadership is an activity, not a person or a trait

• Leadership and authority are not the same (and authority can be both a resource and a constraint on leadership)

• Leadership is about disrupting the system that produces what we don’t want to get

Anti-Racist School Leadership

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Technical Problem or Adaptive Challenge?

Technical problems can be solved in agreed upon ways with current know how

Adaptive challenges require stakeholders to change their values, beliefs, and behaviors

A common leadership mistake is to treat adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems

It challenges values, beliefs, and behaviors

It requires loss, uncertainty, and sometimes disloyalty to one’s people and culture

Some discomfort is necessary, but too much can be immobilizing

Adaptive Change is Uncomfortable

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What is your role in disrupting patterns of racial disparity in your schools?

What changes are you willing to undergo in order to improve student experiences?

What role will your leadership play in bringing about racial equity in your district?

Anti-Racist School Leadership

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How These Frames Work Together

• It’s not all about theory (though it is grounded in theory) or just about talk (though we get started by talking)

• Now that we are combining Courageous Conversation with the exercise of Anti-racist School Leadership, we are beginning to close the “knowing and doing gap”

—Steve Price, Superintendent, Middletown City Schools

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Participating districts, universities, and the state department convene an Equity Leadership Team of 10-12 members

Each Team will also identify (with PEG and West Wind) 1-2 Local Apprentice Coaches

Equity Leadership Teams engage in an intense year of professional development and strategic planning

How the ConsortiumWorks

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Throughout the year, PEG and West Wind provide:

– Program Customization (Research)

– Leadership Institute

– Equity Leadership Team Development Workshops

– Intersession Coaching

– Training of Local Equity Leadership Coaches

– Evaluation

How the ConsortiumWorks

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The knowledge and skills to educate all children already exist. Because we have lived in a historically oppressive society, educational issues tend to be framed as technical issues, which denies their political origin and meaning…. There are no pedagogical barriers to teaching and learning when willing people are prepared and made available to children.

Asa Hilliard, 1995.

Concluding Thoughts

Hilliard, A. (1995). Do we have the will to educate all children? In The maroon within us: Selected essays on African American community socialization. Baltimore, MD: Black Classics Press. 33

Concluding Thoughts

Are you willing?

Are you prepared?

If not now… then when?

A Girl Like Me (2006), a short film by teen producer Kiri Davis. Online at http://www.reelworks.org/watch.php

The Doll Test (1947). Photo from the NY Library

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• Circe Stumbo, PresidentWest Wind Education Policy, Inc.

[email protected]

• Deanna Hill, Senior Policy AnalystWest Wind Education Policy, Inc.

[email protected]

• Glenn Singleton, Executive DirectorPacific Educational Group, Inc.

[email protected]

For More Information

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