Equitable School Improvement

Promoting equity and improvement science have seen increased attention over the last several years as educators seek to expand the experiences, opportunities, and outcomes for marginalized students. This book shows school and district leaders how to create the conditions needed to use improvement science—with its robust collection of tools, resources, and processes—to achieve equity. Readers will find information about equity, continuous improvement, and the psychology of change that can be used to productively and respectfully engage all stakeholders. Chapters include the rationale for employing improvement science to pursue equity; advice for developing the dispositions of an equity-focused leader who thinks differently about power, possibility, and measurement; and guidance for facilitating conversations in the service of equitable improvement. Equitable School Improvement is important reading for teachers, coaches, principals, central office leaders, and any educator who wants to be part of creating a more socially just educational system for our children.

Book Features:

• Elaborates on the habits and practices that need to be developed if educators are to overcome significant barriers and talk about transformation in the service of equity.
• Focuses on the human side of change, including honoring people and their stories and dismantling power structures that interfere with change.
• Provides guidance to leaders at all levels for creating the conditions for equity-focused improvement work.
• Moves beyond deficit perspectives and outmoded tropes, such as goals have agency, teachers are resistant, and race correlates to low achievement.
• Makes the tools contained in improvement science more accessible to today’s equity leaders.

Rydell Harrison and Isobel Stevenson are program coordinators at Partners for Educational Leadership in West Hartford, CT.

“Harrison and Stevenson have written a definitive statement on the convergence of improvement work and justice work in the field of education. They outline not only what to do and how to do it but also the leadership skills and dispositions necessary to become a liberatory improver engaging in iterative justice. Anyone out there who, like me, is committed to liberation, equitable opportunities to learn, and the dismantling of systemic oppression in a systematic fashion—this is the book we’ve been waiting for.”
—Brandi Hinnant-Crawford, associate professor of educational leadership, Clemson University

“Through leadership stories, Harrison and Stevenson seamlessly blend theory and practice into a call for equitable continuous improvement that transforms the status quo that currently hinders the pursuit of strong equity in our educational system. Attending to issues of power structures, human motivation, change management, data use, and the student experience, this asset-focused book is a noteworthy text that elucidates what it means to be a liberatory improver who moves equity out of the realm of mission statements and strategic plans and into the day-to-day work of educators.”
—Erin Anderson, associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies, University of Denver

“Harrison and Stevenson draw on a considerable body of their own practical knowledge about and experience with the human dimensions of change. Unique to this book are frank discussions of what it takes to enact liberatory power sharing and empowerment for all who work and learn in schools. Equitable School Improvement couples rich discussion of the psychology of change with practical footholds for educational leaders as they confront systemic inequities not as heroic ‘equity warriors’ but as a part of a collective capable of sustained transformation.”
—David Eddy-Spicer, professor of education, School of Education and Human Development, University of Virginia

Contents

Preface  ix

Acknowledgments  xv

1.  Iterative Justice  1
Why Read This Book?  1
Mental Models and Institutional Logics  6
Improving Together  8
What Do We Mean by Equity, and Why Do We Want It?  9
Why Improvement Science and Equity Have More in Common Than You Might Think  12
Values That Run Through This Book  16

2.  Centering the Experiences of Students  18
Student Centered Versus Centering Students  21
Belonging and Identity  23
Marginalized Group Identity  26
Social Homelessness  29
Empathy and Empathy Interviews  33
Focus Groups  35
At Your Desk or in the Halls  37

3  Dispositions of the Liberatory Improver  38
Background on Dispositions  40
Dispositions in Improvement Science  42
Dispositions of Equity Leaders in Education  44
Dispositions of Liberatory Improvers  45
At Your Desk or in the Halls  51

4.  The Adjacent Possible  53
Limitations of Traditional Mental Models  55
Leveraging the Adjacent Possible  59
At Your Desk or in the Halls  66

5.  Beliefs About Change and About People  69
Attribution  71
Defensive Routines  73
Bias and Psychological Distance  75
Mindsets  77
Self-Efficacy and Stereotype Threat  80
Identity  81
Motivation  82
Goals and Accountability  83
Psychological Safety  85
At Your Desk or in the Halls  85

6.  Dismantling Traditional Power Structures  87
Traditional Power Structures  88
Rationalization of Power  91
Power and the Perception of Rightness  92
Infantilization and Blame  93
Interrogating the Status Quo  95
Renegotiating Power  96
Embracing Transformative Change  98
Time as a Tool of Power  99
Liberatory Power Sharing  100
At Your Desk or in the Halls  105

7.  Broadening Our Concept of Data  107
Data Contaminated by History  108
A Test-Based Theory of Action  109
Poor Assumptions and Unintended Consequences  112
Reconfiguring Data Teams to Make Better Use of Data and Empower Teachers  117
A Word on Equity Audits  122
At Your Desk or in the Halls  123

8.  The Absolute Necessity of Conversation  124
Why Conversations About Race Are So Difficult  125
The Privilege of Comfort  126
Conversation Skills  129
Conversation: Where the Big Ideas Come Together  136
At Your Desk or in the Halls  139

Epilogue  141

References  143

Index  151

About the Authors  159