Medium Post

By Education Resource Strategies

Creating equitable outcomes for all students requires identifying and exposing existing inequities within school systems. One shining example is Columbus City Schools, which appointed Dr. Dionne Blue in 2020 as its first Chief Equity Officer to address equity and inclusion for all students, families, employees, and community.

But what does this role actually look like in practice? And how does someone become a Chief Equity Officer?

We reached out to Dr. Blue to learn more about her background, day-to-day responsibilities, and thoughts on the state of equity in education.

1. What interested you in the Chief Equity Officer role in Columbus City Schools? Why is this role important to you?

I’ve been doing Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) work in some form or fashion for almost 20 years. When a position arose in Columbus that would allow me to activate my understanding of equity and its application to systems work, I naturally jumped at the opportunity. This role is important to me because it would be the first time I’m able to really address equity in my position with a fully resourced department. In the past I have been a one-person office, without the type of support I would need to truly make transformational progress. With the commitment of the Superintendent and the School Board, I now have the bandwidth needed to impact change, particularly across a district of this size.

2. Can you describe what a typical day looks like for you?

A typical day for me has changed from week to week, and year to year, just because of the impact of the pandemic and the logistics of building my team. My hope is that beginning next year, a typical day looks more “typical.” My assumption, based on the direction of the work, is that a typical day would involve outreach to school leaders, conducting professional development for school teams or departments, networking with other Equity leaders across the state and country, and brainstorming meetings with my staff as we continue to examine processes and develop best practices for the equity work of the district. I like to be available for staff and community members who want to talk, express their concerns, or seek support, so I keep a calendar scheduling link in my email signature so that others can schedule themselves for anything from a 15 minute download to a full hour meeting. But I also have to protect windows of time on my calendar for focused work so that we can keep projects moving forward.

3. Can you tell us about a project you recently worked on that you’re really proud of?

As it happens, very recently I successfully passed our equity policy through a first reading with the school board. The policy has been in various drafts for some time, but with the input and feedback of colleagues, my team, thought partners, and stakeholders, I was able to get a finalized draft in front of the board that we could all be happy with. It sets the tone for our commitment to equitable opportunities for all, but also memorializes our approach to equity as a district, which is a focus on students, staff, and systems. With that foundational task complete, we can begin to move forward in crafting what it looks like in real time.

4. What do you think the biggest equity challenges are for school districts today?

Post-pandemic in particular, the biggest equity challenges seem to be that the depth and breadth of the needs of both students and adults in every school district across the country has grown exponentially. No longer are schools so clearly distinct in terms of need and the typical binary way that we see that need — the “haves” and the “have nots.” Right now it seems that the needs are great and diverse no matter the student demographics. This is also an interesting challenge related to equity in the sense that, once those needs expand to atypical populations, we begin to see greater support, advocacy, and resources directed at the overall population.

5. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about public education, what would it be?

That is a tricky one, because I would be inclined to make my “one thing” a paragraph-long, run-on sentence! In all seriousness, one thing that should really change about public education is the ability of politicians — who are themselves not educators — to set mandates and parameters for public education that can often end up crippling our ability to best serve our most vulnerable. My magic wand would make it so you cannot make decisions about public education unless you are in public education.

Are you a Chief Equity Officer or senior equity leader looking to tackle resource inequities in your district? Our Advancing Education Resource Equity Network (AEREN) cohort program, co-hosted with the National Equity Project, can help. The monthly cohort meetings, 1:1 executive coaching, and resource equity diagnostic are designed to help equity leaders accelerate progress on equitable resource allocation in their district. Contact ERS Partner Betty Chang to learn more.

Education Resource Strategies is a national non-profit that partners with district, school, and state leaders to transform how they use resources (people, time, and money) so that every school prepares every child for tomorrow, no matter their race or income. Learn more at www.erstrategies.org/

By Dr. Irvin Scott

In my work with system and school leaders around the country, creating more equitable experiences and outcomes for students has taken center stage — and even more so as we look to recover from the pandemic. Identifying and exposing inequities in outcomes and experiences is a first step toward taking action that leads to long term change.

But it’s not enough to identify the inequities; ultimately, it’s a moment for action. In other words, I’ve been learning with these leaders how to become an “equity detective”: a leader who actively looks for and takes action to address structural and systemic inequities in schools and school systems.

I hope these 10 principles inspire you. Please let us know what else you’d add and what you learn.

1. Get proximate. The best equity detectives are a part of, or deeply engaged with, the system that they’re looking at.
2. Refuse complicity. Lives are at stake. An equity detective doesn’t just seek to identify inequities — they seek to do something about what they discover.
3. Look inward. Equity detectives must be willing to acknowledge that they themselves may be unknowingly contributing to, or benefitting from, inequities.
4. Use data strategically. Equity detectives can use data to carefully evaluate inequities and communicate that to stakeholders in an objective, non-judgmental way.
5. Challenge the status quo with compassion. Equity detectives acknowledge that many systemic and structural inequities can’t be tied to personal intent, but rather are historical vestiges that have been around so long that it “just is” the way things are done. But Amanda Gorman reminded us that what “just is” is not always justice.
6. Avoid the blame game. Equity detectives look for inequities without an accusatory mode towards others. They must be prepared to listen to those who are the beneficiaries of inequities and explain why change must happen without placing blame on individuals.
7. Have conversations that lead to action. Equity detectives appreciate and value conversations about race and identity, and they also understand that these conversations must move to a level of action and practices that may be elusive.
8. Find community-driven solutions. When equity detectives take action, they don’t do it alone. The best leaders enlist those closest to the problem to help design, rapid-test, and scale solutions, all with an eye towards continuous improvement and impact.
9. Empower others in this work. A true equity detective empowers others to look for inequities, too, by trusting and supporting them.
10. Get into “good trouble.” In the words of the late Congressman John Lewis, equity detectives must gather the courage to get into good trouble if necessary. There is no more worthy cause than the pursuit of equity and justice.

Dr. Irvin Scott is a member of the Board of Directors at Education Resource Strategies and a Senior Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Scott joined the faculty of Harvard Graduate School of Education during the summer of 2016. At Harvard, Irvin’s concentration is Educational Leadership. Irvin is excited about his work teaching at HGSE in the School Leadership Program and Doctor of Education Leadership Program.

By Education Resource Strategies

We’re halfway through the ESSER timeline, which means that it’s time to get serious about resource equity. As district leaders embark upon their ESSER Halftime Reviews to figure out how to use the remaining two years of ESSER funds, it’s important to take a new look at whether the district’s resources — including ESSER funds and basic operating funds — are being allocated and used equitably. The pandemic exacerbated existing challenges with disproportionate impact on students with higher needs — and in order to ensure excellence and equity for all students in the coming years, we must rebuild with resource equity at the center of the work.

What’s “resource equity”?

Now, we get that “equity” is a challenging and confusing word these days. It’s been used in so many contexts that it’s become one of those words that means something different to everyone.

When we talk about resource equity here at ERS, we’re talking about two things: (1) creating a foundation of excellence to ensure that all students receive the right research-backed combination of resources at the right time and (2) ensuring equitable access to those resources such that the students who need more support receive it.

By doing these two things, we can create equitable student experiences which lead to equitable student outcomes.

And “resources” doesn’t just mean money. As the often-quoted saying goes, “Students aren’t taught by dollar bills.” How money is used to create student experiences that ensure high learning outcomes matters a lot, too. In partnership with the Education Trust and rooted in research, we’ve identified the 10 dimensions that have the greatest impact on student experiences and outcomes. The objective of our work is to ensure that all students have access to these dimensions — including highly effective and diverse teachers and school leaders; empowering, rigorous content; positive and inviting school climate, and more. (And “all means all,” to quote one of our inspiring partner districts, Montgomery County Public Schools.)

A moment for deep, sustainable change

This shift from talking about “equity” to “resource equity” feels important in this moment. As Dr. Irvin Scott at the Harvard Graduate School of Education points out in his piece about Being an Equity Detective, equity conversations about race and identity are an important start, but they’re not enough.

To be blunt, there is a limit to how effective anti-bias training for teachers can be when students attending a higher-poverty school are 50 percent less likely to have access to an exemplary teacher than students attending a more affluent school. Or if, even after meeting entrance criteria, Black students are 25 percent less likely to be enrolled in advanced math courses in 8th grade than their white peers. (These are real numbers from two of the large urban school districts in which we worked.)

In order to ensure excellence for all students, it’s critical that existing equity work be paired with 1) a deeper look into resource equity and 2) changes in the underlying structures, policies, and practices hat create inequitable student experiences in nearly every district in this country.

This may feel like a herculean task right now. While districts may be awash with ESSER funding, there is a very real shortage across the field — everything from qualified teachers, licensed and certified support staff, instructional time, leadership capacity and bandwidth, and more. Some might even argue that a focus on resource equity right now is misplaced. After all, if we’re facing a system-wide shortage of teachers, shouldn’t we focus on that first before we even begin to address the equitable access issue? But to quote the great Arthur Ashe, one must “start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

Doable starting points to advance resource equity

While district leaders might not be able to address the staffing shortage for every single school and every single classroom in their district this fall, they can build the foundation for excellence starting with the students who were most disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. For example, district leaders can prioritize filling vacancies in the highest needs schools and classrooms, supporting the many novice teachers in these schools, and finding new and creative ways to ensure that students who need the most help have support from expert teachers and additional time and tutoring.

ESSER dollars can also be used to amp up recruitment efforts, provide stipends and revise teacher compensation structures to encourage teachers to work in the highest needs schools and reward expert teachers who support new teachers, teams of teachers and otherwise bring their expertise to the greatest challenges.

Taking action to mobilize resources

In partnership with Education Trust, we developed a Resource Equity toolkit for district leaders looking to mobilize resources to create equitable experiences and outcomes for students. Use these tools to start conversations, create shared understandings, and build action plans together. The work — and the positive impact — can start today.

• Read about the 10 dimensions of education resource equity that can unlock opportunities and make a difference for students’ learning experiences.
• Use our free diagnostic tools to help you assess the current state of resource equity in your district and prioritize which dimensions to tackle first.
• Check out our 10 resource equity guidebooks that dive into each dimension to help you explore the possible root causes of challenges in your district and choose promising actions based on students’ distinct needs.

Every child in every community deserves a high-quality education and a fair opportunity to succeed. And with a critical eye towards inequity and proven strategies, district leaders across the country can make powerful shifts that fundamentally change the student experience for the better and help all students achieve excellence.

Education Resource Strategies is a national non-profit that partners with district, school, and state leaders to transform how they use resources (people, time, and money) so that every school prepares every child for tomorrow, no matter their race or income. Learn more at www.erstrategies.org/

Policies that create space for schools to better support their students

By David Nitkin, Partner at Transcend

Students, teachers, and schools have faced unprecedented trauma over the last two years. But across the country, countless communities are seizing this moment to not just recover from the crisis, but also use it as an opportunity for reinventing education long after the immediate impact of COVID-19 has passed.

Policymakers, too, can use this moment as an opportunity to embrace and encourage educational reinvention. Many creative policy innovations have emerged from the response to the pandemic, including new investments, regulatory flexibilities, and partnerships. Policy innovations like these can be powerful accelerants for communities seeking to implement new designs of school. Imagine what school communities could accomplish if policymakers lean into this moment and join them in prioritizing reinvention rather than aiming for a return to the pre-pandemic status quo.

Which policies are most ripe for reinvention? The voices best positioned to answer that question are those in the school communities who experience those policies most directly. At Transcend, we’re privileged to directly support hundreds of innovative learning communities across the country in their efforts to redesign school, and are also connected to hundreds more through the Canopy project, a collaborative, field-wide effort designed to build collective knowledge about innovative schools. We recently asked these communities which policy factors were most relevant for their ability to design extraordinary and equitable learning environments for the 21st Century. These educators, representing voices from thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia, cited three policy factors as particularly crucial for their ability to plan and build new models for school:

1. Assessment and accountability systems
2. Requirements for course progression, seat time, & graduation
3. Funding

Each of these factors has been significantly affected by the pandemic, generating new policies that offer exciting possibilities for the post-COVID world. And each offers opportunities for policymakers who are ready to help lead beyond recovery and toward reinvention.

Survey Results: Most Important Policies for Innovation

Assessment and Accountability Systems

Nearly two-thirds of the communities we spoke to cited testing and accountability systems as barriers to their ability to innovate. According to one principal, “Accountability systems hold back people’s willingness to try new things or unlearn aspects they have used in the past.” Another shared, “We’ve… seen regulations/accountability get tighter in the past decade which has decreased flexibility… this has led to some loss in creative programming decisions.” One assistant superintendent summed up much of what we heard when they told us, “If we continue an overreliance on biased assessments that do not measure deep learning, we will continue down this path to limited change in America.”

Perhaps one reason assessment and accountability systems were cited so frequently is that there are multiple ways they impact communities’ ability to innovate. Because they only assess reading, writing, and math, today’s state tests disincentivize communities from focusing on a more holistic curriculum. Their singular focus on grade-level content makes it harder for schools to customize instruction for students who need to learn above or below-grade level material. And most principals can describe in excruciating detail the overwhelming array of logistical tasks that testing imposes every spring — from creating new schedules to attending mandatory security trainings to building exacting materials management plans — all at the expense of time that could be focused on designing extraordinary and equitable learning experiences for young people.

State testing and accountability were massively disrupted by COVID. Nearly all end-of-year testing was canceled for the 2019–20 school year, and for 2020–21, the federal government provided significant latitude on when and how tests could be administered. This came on top of many promising innovations that were already happening across states, many of which leveraged the US Department of Education’s Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) or Competitive State Assessment Grant competition. Policymakers now have an opportunity to lean into this moment of reinvention.

Because annual testing is mandated by federal law, any significant innovation would require waivers from the Department of Education. If the federal government chose to embrace an innovation agenda, there are several approaches they could take rethinking federal testing requirements. One approach would allow states to reduce the overall amount of testing, such as by permitting states to move from annual tests to testing in alternating years. Using administrative data from Missouri from the pre-pandemic years of 2016 to 2019, a team of researchers found that district and school growth estimates based on a single-year gap convey similar information to growth estimates based on data with no gap year. In other words, moving to alternate-year testing would have little or no negative impact on our ability to learn from state test data, but would dramatically reduce the administrative burden on schools. An alternate approach would be to transition to a sampling approach like the one used by NAEP, which would similarly allow for meaningful inferences about system-wide learning while reducing much of the testing burden experienced by students and teachers.

Federal policymakers could also consider offering states flexibility around the designs of the tests themselves. Under current federal policy tests are required to evaluate every student against grade-level standards, providing a powerful disincentive against customizing content for students who need to focus on above- or below-grade level material. Instead, federal policymakers could allow states to adopt adaptive assessments that incorporate standards from multiple grade levels to better measure growth during the year.

Some have argued that the policymakers should abandon mandatory testing entirely. But given the history of dramatic and destabilizing pendulum swings in education policy, it would be wiser to explore common-sense flexibilities that reduce barriers for community-level innovators without completely sacrificing the value that standardized tests provide for system-level learning and uncovering inequities. These waivers would also give states and local communities the “breathing room” to research and develop new generations of assessments that measure the broader range of outcomes and experiences that are most essential for the 21st Century, including problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and agency, and which might eventually come to replace today’s tests entirely.

Course progression, seat-time, and graduation requirements

Course progression, seat-time, and graduation requirements were a second policy factor cited by innovative schools as crucial for reinvention. These industrial-era holdovers often dictate that all students must learn the same things, in the same place, at the same time, and pass a uniform assessment to demonstrate mastery. Not surprisingly, these inflexible systems are a significant barrier for communities seeking to create more personalized and customized student experiences. For example, the leader of Nashville Big Picture High School, a school in Tennessee, shared that “Our design [focuses] on personalization and student interests through internships and project based learning. With navigating school schedule, seat time, state standards, and testing requirements, we are often limited on doing our best work for students and families. Our hope is that policies can be revised to allow schools/districts more freedom to tailor our school’s structure to meet the students’ individualized needs.” A leader from Taos Academy Charter School in New Mexico shared the same concerns, stating “State policy on seat time and other [desired] flexibilities are in the way of providing personalized learning.”

Once again, the pandemic offers examples of policy innovations that emerged from the crisis and that visionary policymakers can now affirm and expand to enable more equitable and extraordinary learning models to flourish. For example, local policymakers in Oakland, California empowered Oakland Reach with the flexibilities they needed to offer personalized education through a family-led pandemic learning hub. Edgecombe County Public Schools in North Carolina also launched decentralized learning hubs in response to the pandemic, and saw such positive reactions from families and students that they are now exploring permanent transitions to hybrid models. However, models like these require policy flexibility so that students can earn credit when they learn not only in brick and mortar school buildings, but also in family-driven pods, out-of-school tutoring, and paid work or internships.

Policymakers should create space for these innovations by reforming seat-time and graduation requirements so that students can earn credit — and schools can receive funding — for a diverse array of meaningful activities, not just time spent physically in school buildings. Some states are already moving in this direction. For example, Oregon Administrative Code 581–022–1131 allows a school district or charter school to grant credit if a student demonstrates mastery through “out-of-school” work, presenting a portfolio of finished products, or passing a relevant exam. How many transformative new learning models could policymakers uplift by making such policies more widespread?

Funding for Innovation

The third policy factor that innovative communities highlighted as especially relevant for their ability to redesign schools was adequate funding to support the research, development, and implementation of new models. For example, the leader of Evergreen Elementary Charter School in North Carolina wrote that “We can and will do our innovative work within a variety of parameters (i.e., those marked less important) but public schools must receive adequate funding to support innovative work that often involves increased staff capacity.” Many innovators also bemoaned the need to devote precious time to fundraising, such as the leader of EPiC Elementary in Missouri, who told us “Funding is an issue for innovation. We are consistently writing grants to get the things that we need in our innovative site…. we spend a lot of time trying to find funding.”

That said, it isn’t simply a matter of more money. Since the start of the pandemic, Congress has authorized nearly $200 billion in new relief money for K-12 education. This funding has been vital for communities as they respond to and recover from the pandemic, but even with this critical investment, educators are still overworked, undersupported, and increasingly overwhelmed by a job that is fundamentally unsustainable in its current form. Sending more investments to schools without reinventing schools’ outdated, hundred-year old design is like using a hand bucket to bail out a sinking ship — a valiant effort that doesn’t fix the underlying problem.

State policymakers should take advantage of their new influx of federal funding to offer innovation grants — some of which would go directly to schools — to develop new approaches or adapt existing ones. Investments in R&D could take many forms, including funding for school-based reinvention teams, creating system-level innovation funds that enable schools to access and adapt innovative models, or documenting and sharing the most promising new practices through networked innovation communities. These types of investments would help policymakers avoid the “fiscal cliff” that would come from using a one-time infusion of cash to invest in traditional inputs grounded in a pre-pandemic vision for school. It would also be in keeping with the desires of parents: a recent survey of families found that 64% of parents think that “schools should be focused on rethinking how we educate students, coming up with new ways to teach children moving forward as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.”

From Recovery to Reinvention

Educators across the country are working hard to move their communities from response, to recovery, to reinvention. Policymakers can’t afford to do any less. If they seize this moment as an opportunity for redesign, policymakers will do more than support and accelerate the pioneering efforts of innovative local communities — they’ll also send a powerful message that young people’s educational experiences will emerge from the pandemic more equitable and extraordinary than ever before.

Transcend is a national nonprofit that supports school communities to create and spread extraordinary, equitable learning environments. The organization was founded on a belief that we must reimagine schooling, using a community-driven approach, so all children can realize their infinite potential. Transcend pursues its mission by partnering directly with schools on design journeys while also sharing powerful models, tools and insights across the sector. To date, Transcend has worked directly with hundreds of schools and leaders in over 30 states, and has influenced thousands more. Ultimately, Transcend strives to fuel significant leaps in education so all young people can thrive in and transform the world. Learn more at www.transcendeducation.org .