Equity Expansive Technical Assistance for Schools

Based on the author’s experience leading equity-focused technical assistance centers, this book details approaches to partnering with educators and other stakeholders to eliminate racial disproportionality in special education. Because of its historical and current relevance as an indicator of systemic oppression, Thorius centers disproportionality as a crucial issue to be addressed through technical assistance partnerships. For these partnerships to be successful, technical assistance providers must: (1) support partners in engaging with systemic and individual oppressions that contribute to inequities at the intersections of racism and ableism, and (2) introduce partners to resources that mediate learning about, and development of, locally relevant solutions that abolish racism and ableism in tandem. Equity Expansive Technical Assistance for Schools provides a research-based framework for conducting technical assistance, including vignettes and facilitation guides that educational leaders can use to address disproportionality in special education within their local contexts.

Book Features:

• Detailed protocols for professional dialogue toward eliminating racial disproportionality in special education.
• Expanded definitions and descriptions of disproportionality as an issue of ableism, as well as racism.
• Real-life examples of technical assistance and professional development partnership activities that improve conditions leading to, and outcomes of, disproportionality.

Kathleen A. King Thorius is an associate professor at Indiana University School of Education–IUPUI and executive director of the Great Lakes Equity Center. Her books include Sustaining Disabled Youth: Centering Disability in Asset Pedagogies and Ability, Equity, and Culture: Sustaining Inclusive Urban Education Reform.

“Who better to challenge us all to understand, examine, and act to transform a major system of oppression in our schools? Kathleen King Thorius brings years of experience and learning to this volume. As a school psychologist, a researcher, and a partner of schools, school systems, and local, state, and national governments, Professor Thorius has brought her knowledge, love, hope, and inquiry to help students, practitioners, and policymakers tackle the complex web of racism and ableism in schools. Her insight, research, and experience converge in this important book.”
—Elizabeth B. Kozleski, professor, Learning Differences Initiative, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University

“This important and powerful book does something that few books in the field of special education do—it centers racism and ableism as critical factors that must be directly named, addressed, and dismantled in technical assistance activities in order to address the decades old problem of racial disproportionality. Thorius provides a theoretically rich yet practical account for rethinking how technical assistance activities can bring us one step closer to justice and equity. Grounded in both theory and practice, this book has far and wide-ranging implications for federal policy, state and local education agencies, educational administrators, and teachers. Most importantly, it gives hope for reversing what has been a seemingly intractable feature of the education system.”
—Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, assistant professor, City University of New York, Hunter College