Implications & Recommendations
The implications for practice derived from this body of work are present in all of the equity-based frameworks presented at the 2021 CDE Equity Convening; they have been paired with recommendations and implementation tools for Colorado schools and educators. Recommendations and tools are intended to be used by a diversity of stakeholders including teachers, administrators, BoD members, and authorizers.
Implication 1: Shared Understanding, Beliefs, and Values
All frameworks presented at the convening compel group values and beliefs, particularly concerning race and culture. The acknowledgment of a problem and its impact, and the agreement to solve it are the foundation for each framework. Schools must build what Brene Brown calls a “Safety Container '' around their efforts that hold community members tethered to clearly understood values and commitments that drive the work and keep the community and its members safe. Without this foundation, the outcomes of equity work can range from ineffective to harmful.
Recommendations
Co-create a list of agreements and norms that articulate the staff’s shared understanding of the equity work they are engaging in together; this list should define the problem and the organization’s commitments to solving the problem.
Explicitly build teacher capacity in understanding the challenges and barriers Black, Indigenous, LatinX, Asian, and Middle Eastern students and families experience.
Build liberatory thinking in educators, transforming their assumptions and beliefs about the capacity of themselves, students, and families. This includes understanding where they currently fall on the cultural responsiveness continuum and where they want to land. Use tools that operationalize “liberatory thinking.” It should be clear what biases, misconceptions, or ineffective practices the system is liberating itself from. Furthermore, schools are encouraged to use these tools for self-reflection and talent development.
Use protocols when facilitating conversations about race and racial equity to assure that the discourse itself is equitable.
Implication 2: Deep Family and Community Engagement
Parents and community members should play the role of co-creator in districts and schools; this includes all levels within and around the organization. Providing all parents explicit and relevant opportunities to engage, offer feedback, make decisions, lead, and govern is the Northstar of equity frameworks. The aim is to share power with students, families, and communities. This can also be extended to community-based authorizing practices. Additionally, the community must be reflected in the staff, operations, culture, and programming of the school. The cultural components of the school and the community mirror each other rather than oppose each other.
Recommendations
Use culturally and linguistically responsive methods of collecting data and feedback from parents, students, and the community; use these methods (multilingual surveys, focus groups, and 1:1 phone calls) as an opportunity to listen deeply to the community. Use this data to set universal goals and design responsive practices.
Co-create school systems and policies with the community, and be intentional about equitable representation in parent and community task forces and design teams. Articulate and train educators on successful inclusive partnerships.
Use families and community members to review curriculum and school culture systems for relevancy through a rigorous monitoring and feedback cycle.
Place high priority on recruiting and retaining Black, Indigenous, LatinX, Asian, and Middle Eastern leaders and teachers.
Directly center families and communities in school design and authorizing processes.
Partner with community organizations dedicated to racial equity and family advocacy; they have the potential to guide the organization through culturally relevant communication strategies, outreach, professional development, etc.
Implication 3: Focus on Culture and Identity
It is through identifying with one’s ethnic and cultural group that students build confidence and a strong sense of self-efficacy. The vehicle to getting there is an inclusive program that harnesses belonging through its staffing, curriculum, and cultural routines and rituals. It entails focusing on the perspective from which history, science, literature, and other content is taught; it implies a more systemic approach than the inclusion of a unit on a particular culture or heritage in a traditional humanities textbook or a celebration during an assigned history month. The goal of creating a confident identity at school requires a sustaining and positive reflection of one’s self.
Recommendations
Adopt and/or create clear criteria for cultural sustaining practice in the teaching and learning cycle; use this criterion in creating and reviewing curriculum, teacher evaluation systems, and school culture models.
Use a specific protocol for applying culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy to build a positive student identity alongside content knowledge and skills. Protocols provide educators with a step-by-step process for revising the existing standards-based curriculum for cultural pluralism and equality.
Center curriculum and instruction on what Black, Indigenous, LatinX, Asian, and Middle Eastern Students can relate to and feel positive about identifying with. This includes using an ample amount of literature, scholarship, science, and philosophy of diverse peoples across all content areas.
Incorporate neuroscience in your equity framework as Hammad (2018) does in her Ready for Rigor framework. Apply the interconnections of intellective capacity and culture to the classroom and organizational culture through intentionally attending to these skills: self and social awareness, learning partnerships, and information processing.
Implication 4: Remove Challenges and Barriers through Transforming Systems
Inequitable racial outcomes are not the result of deficiencies within students, families, or communities but the result of mental models, systems, and practices that are implicitly and/or explicitly biased and discriminatory. Districts, schools, and other systems are compelled to audit their programs for inequitable practices and engage with the community to revise and replace programming. This takes a systematic and holistic approach.
Recommendations
Take a step by step approach to identifying and responding to the challenges and barriers faced by students furthest away from the district or school’s universal goals.
Directly resource organizational goals and priorities aligned to equity; engage a diversity of stakeholders in the budgeting cycle and use financial policies to hold the organization accountable.
Conduct an equity audit of fair policies and systems to revise and replace them if corrective action is needed.
