Building the Foundation for our Equity Work (Part 2)

[This post is part 2 in a 2-part series on the foundation of our equity work in Smithfield.]

The establishment of the town’s equity task force is a good step toward developing a comprehensive plan for ensuring that Smithfield is an inclusive place to live, an inclusive place to work and do business, an inclusive place to learn, and that we demonstrate a commitment to an equitable and just community.  As we begin this work with our town partners, our challenge will be to make this work productive and support real change, rather than simply engaging the already-committed members of our community. To help address that challenge, Smithfield leaders and educators have participated in professional learning, including the DMGroup Leadership Development Meeting:  Equity in Education:  Making it Core.

Our work with DMGroup began with an introductory session, where we were reminded about the issues faced by our country at this time.  These pervasive issues have not just recently surfaced, as is evidenced by the three covers of Time magazine shared during the presentation:

 

 

 

 

 

We explored these three questions:

1. Does your District have a clear definition of equity?  [Yes!  Recently, the School Committee revised their nondiscrimination policy to include a definition of equity.]
2. Does your District have an official policy on equity?  [Yes!  … the revised nondiscrimination policy]
3. How well is the overall work on equity understood by people who work in the district?  [Not well.  Recent SurveyWorks data makes this point clear.  Not only do we need to continue with our work, but we also need to communicate our progress regularly.]

We also explored data related to equity.  John Kim, DMGroup’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder, reminded us that the rate of poverty among Black and Latin populations is decreasing but still remains almost twice the rate of poverty among White communities and that White workers earn more than their Black and LatinX counterparts, regardless of education level.

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It is estimated that 2-3 trillion dollars would be added to the gross national product if we could close this achievement gap.

At the same time, our student populations in the United States have been changing dramatically.  White students made up 65% of all students in 1995, while in 2017, White students made up 48% of all students.  Moreover, 4th grade reading proficiency, a significant data point for determining future success, varies considerably between White students and students of color.  The 2019 NAEP testing showed that 45% of White students were at or above proficiency, while that figure is 23% for Latinx students and 18% for Black students.  Third graders who are below proficiency AND in poverty are 13% more likely to drop out.

Efforts to increase the numbers of non-White teachers continues to be a challenge.  Additionally, culturally responsive teaching, which is demonstrated to positively affect the outcomes for children of color, is not widespread.  Culturally responsive teaching has three tenets:  to build students’ ethnic and cultural identities, focus on academic success, and develop students’ sociopolitical consciousness. Many teachers are still not satisfied by the current content available to help be more culturally relevant to the students of today.

Emerging ideas and approaches include increased personalization and evolving the teacher’s role from one focused on content to one focused on coaching.

What was most intriguing was refocusing on potential, rather than solely on performance.  Considering that only one in seven high performers are actually high potential employees, they may be on to something.  This brings us to their last consideration – to redefine and assess performance.

There was considerable time during the meeting to meet as a district team then to meet with another district to share problems of practice.  Our problem of practice was broad:  Not all Smithfield classrooms are equitable and inclusive places to learn all the time and for all students.  This is a difficult reality to articulate out loud, though is absolutely necessary if we are to address the issues that result in inequitable outcomes and experiences.  Workshop facilitators pushed us to ask “why?” then “why?” then “why?” again.

Our team pondered several potential answers to those questions.  Underlying implicit biases may be resulting in low expectations for some students.  Not having had significant training or discussions on bias, it’s difficult to catch oneself acting upon the implicit biases one might have.  Teachers and administrators may also have a lack of knowledge about what to do to make things better for all students as there hasn’t been sufficient training in this area.  There is also a low comfort level with having difficult conversations among colleagues and with students about societal issues involving race when some have been conditioned to be race-blind.  Consequently, some don’t want to confront issues between students when these issues involve race.  We all agreed that leaders need training as well and need to model having these difficult conversations.

We summarized our future work through a theory of action:   If…we have training for our teachers and administrators…. and  If administrators model having these types of conversations…. Then.. there will be more knowledge about how to make our students’ educational experiences more equitable and to close the achievement gap…  And then… a comfort level will develop… And then…educators and administrators will be more reflective on their implicit biases and more apt to confront issues…. Which… will lead to more equitable learning environments.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of our meeting was partnering with administrators from Berkshire Hills (Western Massachusetts) where district and school leaders recently eliminated tracking in 9th grade, strengthening supportive interventions and raising expectations for all students.  We each shared our work, pushing our thinking and learning.  It’s comforting to know about the good work being done in other districts and the shared challenges to make all schools equitable and just.

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