Getting Beyond Technical Solutions to Disrupt Systemic Racial Disparities in K-12 Education

1. Getting Beyond Technical Solutions to 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

2. Let’s Talk About Race • 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. % 2

3. Our Belief Individually and collectively, we need to develop the skill, knowledge, and capacity to: • 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 3

4. Our Work • 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. 4

5. Racial Equity Consortia • 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. 5

6. 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 6

7. 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? 7

8. Our Framework • Courageous Conversations About Race • Learning Organizations and Systems Thinking • Anti-Racist School Leadership Development 8

9. Why Have a Framework? • 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. 9

10. Our Framework, Part 1 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. Singleton, G.E & Linton, C. (2007). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. 10

11. Four Agreements Stay Engaged Speak Your Truth Experience Discomfort Expect and Accept Non-Closure 11

12. Four Agreements 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 12

13. Six Conditions • Focus on the personal, local and immediate • Isolate race • Normalize social construction & multiple perspectives • Monitor agreements, conditions and establish parameters • Use a “working definition” for race • Examine the presence and role of “Whiteness” 13

14. Believing Thinking Soul Head Moral Intellectual Courageous Conversations Compass Emotional Relational Hands & Feet Heart Feeling Acting The Compass Source: Pacific Educational Group 14

15. The Compass • 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? 15

16. Our Framework, Part 2 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 Senge, P.M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday. 16

17. Systems Thinking • Systems are perfectly designed to get the results they get • Systems involve structures, policies, procedures, cultures, and people; exchange information, energy, resources; and reflectandreinforce attitudes, beliefs, values, and feelings • Systems thinking examines the linkages and interactions between elements of the entire system 17

18. Systems Thinking • 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 18

19. Systems Thinking • 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 19

20. So, what do we do? • 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 20

21. The Iceberg 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. 21

22. The Iceberg As we experience the Iceberg we: React to Events Predict Patterns and Trends Design Systemic Structures Transform Mental Models 22 Senge et al. (2002). Schools That Learn

23. Our Framework, Part 3 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) Linsky, M. & Heifetz, R.A. (2002). Leadership on the line: Staying alive through the dangers of leading. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. 23 For more information about Critical Friends Groups, see http://www.nsrfharmony.org/faq.html#1.

24. Our Framework, Part 3 Anti-Racist School Leadership Development • 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 systems 24

25. Anti-Racist School Leadership • 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 25

26. 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 26

27. Adaptive Change is Uncomfortable • 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 27

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29. 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 29 29

30. 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 30

31. How the Consortium Works • 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 31

32. How the Consortium Works 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 32

33. Concluding Thoughts 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. 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

34. Concluding Thoughts Are you willing? Are you prepared? If not now… then when? The Doll Test (1947). Photo from the NY Library A Girl Like Me (2006), a short film by teen producer Kiri Davis. Online at http://www.reelworks.org/watch.php 34

35. For More Information • Circe Stumbo, President West Wind Education Policy, Inc. circe@westwinded.com • Deanna Hill, Senior Policy Analyst West Wind Education Policy, Inc. deanna@westwinded.com • Glenn Singleton, Executive Director Pacific Educational Group, Inc. glenn@pacificeducationalgroup.com 35