Medium Post

A Conversation on How Districts Can Create More Equitable Math Classrooms

By The BELE Network

The Student Experience Research Network (SERN) and EduColor co-sponsored an installment of Just Equation’s “Mathematics of Opportunity” series in February. Moderated by Nicole Beechum of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, the panel featured:

• Neil Lewis, Jr., Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine
• Celine Liu, San Leandro Unified School District
• Dana Miller-Cotto, University of Delaware, College of Education and Human Development

Participants asked educators to interrogate what we mean when we say a student is or is not a “math person.” The “math identity” adopted by students is formed through a variety of signals and is influenced by how valued a student feels and how much they feel they deserve. As a result, students from marginalized groups are often expected to develop math identities in spaces where they don’t feel valued. Once we recognize that those students sitting in a math classroom all come from different, larger social contexts, we can approach mathematics education in a way that elevates their experiences.

The good news is that educators don’t need to wait for policies to change. Districts can select more inclusive math textbooks that speak to a greater array of student experiences since it’s something districts have control over. More frequent inclusive math training in schools can go a long way, and math classes structured to allow for debate amongst students can provide better results overall in math.

Ultimately, educators have the power to create equitable math classrooms that give all students the chance to succeed, even if they don’t fit the mold of what a “math person” looks like.

Watch the full webinar above and learn more about the sponsors: Just Equations, Student Experience Research Network, and EduColor.

Also, connect with Nicole Beechum, Neil Lewis, Jr., Celine Liu, and Dana Miller-Cotto on Twitter.

Just Equations advances evidence-based strategies to ensure that math policies give all students the quantitative foundation they need to succeed in college and beyond.

The Student Experience Research Network (SERN) advances the research, relationships, and capacity necessary to build an education system in which every student experiences respect as a valued person and thinker.

EduColor mobilizes advocates nationwide around issues of educational equity, agency, and justice. We amplify the works and ideas of students, educators, and communities of color through supportive on- and off-line networks and professional development.

What Districts Need Now to Take Innovative Action

By The BELE Network

The Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) continued its virtual convening, Examining Education Research through the 2020 Lens, with a conversation on “Confronting New and Persistent Equity Challenges: What Districts Need Now to Take Innovative Action.” Nicole Beechum of the University of Chicago and a member of the BELE Network moderated the panel, which featured:

• Tiffany Brunson, Principal, Field-Stevenson Intermediate School and Forest Park High School
• Maurice Swinney, Chief Equity Officer, Chicago Public Schools
• Eric Moore, Senior Accountability Research Officer, Minneapolis Public Schools

Their conversation highlighted many important themes around the greater visibility of equity challenges in schools over the past year and how leaders can best respond. Read on to find key takeaways from the discussion that district leaders can take into account when combating these inequities.

Directing Our Focus

The inequities in our school systems affect everyone, but they are most easily identifiable when we focus on marginalized students. What does redirecting our focus in this way really achieve? Eric asks us to think about what the data tells us. While he was once excited about predicting educational outcomes for students, he realized that he was “just measuring how well students are acquiescing to white spaces.” Because most students solidify their sense of self and racial identity by the third grade, they may choose to disengage from inequitable classroom domains in favor of spaces where they feel honored and can succeed in.

Nicole adds that we need to use data from a humanizing perspective. When a young person says that they don’t feel respected, that is a factual piece of data. It is our responsibility to act on this data and use it to combat inequitable systems that affect all students by directing our focus where it is most needed.

Don’t Interpret. Listen.

We must realize that “doing something” is effective when we take the student seriously, rather than merely interpret what they say. Tiffany often emphasized the importance of not dismissing, interpreting, or tokenizing young voices. Systems don’t change when our interactions with young people boil down to “he’s 12, what does he know?”

She reminds us of what they do know. They know what it’s like to be 12 years old in this school, in this country. They may know what it’s like to come from homes that lack heat in the winter or WiFi during remote learning. Educators must engage with these students and ask questions to get to the heart of what they’re saying. Merely interpreting the student’s voice will only perpetuate the same inequities.

Preparing Our Teachers

Constructively listening to student voices is tough, and it is unfair to expect educators to automatically know how to do it effectively. Eric noted the importance of equity training for adults because if we expect our students to be vulnerable and express themselves emotionally, then we need to prepare our teachers and adults to receive that information.

Maurice is clear that any tools used by educators — such as empathy interviews to encourage students to express themselves — must also create a space of vulnerability for teachers. It should be an active process where teachers ask themselves, for example, “How am I interacting with this Black student in my classroom?”

This way, Eric says that teachers can interrogate themselves in order to engage students socially and emotionally and give them the space they need to succeed. This will certainly be difficult for some educators, but creating that space of vulnerability is a fundamental step towards dismantling inequitable structures in education.

A Way of Being

The good news is that none of this occurs in a vacuum — it occurs within the framework of social-emotional learning (SEL) in schools. All participants agreed that SEL is not a program but rather a way of being. By starting from an SEL framework, Maurice says that his district was able to create programs that fed students and provided WiFi for remote learning during the pandemic because students cannot learn otherwise.

Still, we need these priorities to move faster, which includes, for example, having philanthropic organizations put money into the wellness of people. It includes having researchers document what is working so that educators don’t need to reinvent the wheel when they step into a new role.

Tiffany closed the discussion with a reminder we could all use:

“We can’t complain about the system, because we are the system. If we are to move forward, then we have to collectively commit to changing it at every level.”

The BELE Network is dedicated to reimagining our inequitable school system that has failed too many for too long, and is committed to transforming our classrooms into learning environments that nurture the intellectual, emotional and cultural growth of all students — especially students of color.

Learn more about BELE on our website, and access our resource library to make your learning environments more equitable.

Roads to Reinvention: Building Equitable Learning Environments webinar series by Transcend x AASA

By The BELE Network

In February, Transcend Education and AASA hosted an installment of their Roads to Reinvention webinar series on equitably responding, recovering, and reinventing school systems.

The webinar featured Superintendent Scott Muri from Ector County ISD (Texas), who has deep experience in launching system-wide reinvention initiatives throughout his career. Dr. Muri was also joined by a principal, teacher, and student, all involved in the reinvention work to discuss how the district uses Research and Development (R&D) cycles as a method of launching innovation.

The guests shared their experiences and stressed the importance of being iterative and responsive to changes in real time in order to adapt to the real world. The session also included a live empathy interview between a teacher and a student to demonstrate how to take a human-centered approach to understand students’ feelings and experiences.

Watch the highlight reel here, and for the full webinar, visit this link.

Transcend has an exciting schedule of upcoming webinar opportunities in 2021 that you can view here. If you aren’t a member of the no-cost Transcend Design Community, read more about it and join.

For more information, see the resources below:

• Slide presentation from Sujata Bhatt, Bryan Joffe, and Dr. Scott Muri of Ector County (TX) ISD
• The Pandemic Closed Our Doors But Opened Our Minds: Why My School District Will Not Return to ‘Normal’ by Dr. Scott Muri in EdSurge
• 4 superintendents to watch in 2021 in K-12 Dive
• Roads to Reinvention Journey Stories, including Ector County ISD
• Fundamentals of School Design by Transcend

Transcend Education’s work with school communities and the larger ecosystem is guided by five fundamental beliefs: all children have infinite potential; to realize this potential, we must reimagine “schooling” as we know it; the work is most successful when pursued through a rigorous, community-driven R&D process grounded in equity; while never easy, innovation is absolutely possible, accelerating progress requires strong local leadership, surrounded by a conducive ecosystem.

AASA is the premier association for school system leaders and serves as the national voice for public education and district leadership on Capitol Hill. Learn more.

The BELE Network is dedicated to reimagining our inequitable school system that has failed too many for too long, and is committed to transforming our classrooms into learning environments that nurture the intellectual, emotional and cultural growth of all students — especially students of color. Learn more about BELE on our website, and access our resource library to get the best and most up-to-date thinking on how to make learning environments more equitable.

How following the lead of young people can dismantle inequities in education

By The BELE Network

The Communities for Just Schools Fund (CJSF) kicked off its #ReclaimSEL webinar series on February 3, 2021 with an installment titled “The Intersections Between Social-Emotional Learning and Education Justice.” The panel, moderated by Cierra Kaler-Jones and Jaime Koppel of CJSF, featured:

• Zakiyah Ansari of the Alliance for Quality Education
• Jesse Hagopian of Rethinking Schools
• Carlos Rojas of Youth On Board
• Gisele Shorter of the Raikes Foundation & BELE Network partner

Their conversation was insightful and wide-ranging, covering a variety of topics about social-emotional learning (SEL) and how it can be applied as a tactic to achieve racial equity in education. Read on to learn more about the major themes they covered.

Relationships As Learning

Learning is a social and emotional process. SEL means taking new approaches not only to schooling, but to how people learn and develop. But what does this new approach look like? It looks like the blossoming of strong relationships between students, educators, communities, and philanthropists in what Jaime called “holistically safe” schools. Holistically safe schools, Gisele noted, are relationship-rich environments that see, respect, and commit to access and inclusion for all community members. They take schools from policed fortresses, as Cierra said, and turn them into places where students learn from themselves and each other.

Achieving holistically safe schools demands more than a new curriculum or checklist. The foundation of these relationships, as the panelists attested, is trust. Trust between students and educators, trust in their peers, and trust in themselves. Carlos likewise emphasized the need to listen to our young people and take their needs seriously even if it makes us uncomfortable. As Gisele said: when we take SEL and partner it with equity and community leadership, we unlock something powerful.

Seeing One Another

What can we do with these relationships? Zakiyah wants us to let young people know that we see them and recognize their hopes, fears, and needs as valid. With educators willing to hold thoughtful conversations with young people, our communities connect on a deeper level that engages vulnerabilities, needs, and fears. We create spaces rooted in love and trust that foster self-affirming young leaders.

Gisele reminds us that seeing each other includes seeing the inequitable structures around us. This is especially true as the crises of health, economy, climate, and racism intersect in unprecedented ways. Using SEL as a means towards healing offers a path forward in an education system that has failed to prioritize the leadership of young people and their communities. Young people know how to lean into vulnerability and be honest about their needs, so let’s follow their lead in addressing and dismantling inequitable structures.

Justice Through Engagement

When we see each other and see inequities around us, we realize that truly transformative change cannot be co-opted by existing systems. So what does it look like to move beyond those systems? It looks like creating a culture of care, rather than punishment, and by investing in equity, rather than police. It looks like resource equity for all students. It looks like funding child care or assistance to students from low-income backgrounds because education justice is racial justice.

Inequitable policies must be changed, but inextricable from them is the shifting of narratives that define our youth and schools. Globally, educators and philanthropists can lean into partnerships that change how we talk about young people and racial equity. Fostering the relationships that develop self-affirming young leaders cannot happen just by legislative vote. It demands our conscious engagement.

Follow the Leaders

Authentic SEL centers young leaders. When we do, it no longer makes sense to impose zero tolerance discipline in schools because it simply doesn’t work for students, Jesse said. A restorative approach forces us to look into measures to prevent further harm to all students affected by disciplinary infractions. This doesn’t mean, of course, that students should lack responsibility and accountability. It means bringing families into the conversation so they can be side by side with their young people in working through problems because the SEL approach is rooted in all of us wanting to be seen, heard, and respected.

Progress in Action

Just as young peoples’ needs have become clear during the coronavirus pandemic, so have the priorities of the education system. Zakiyah singles out New York City’s reopening, where precedence was given to reopening businesses before the wellbeing of students. The healing process for marginalized students to work through the pain of the past year just wasn’t prioritized in school districts across the nation.

Still, there’s a bright side. Many schools have attempted to use SEL to engage in thoughtful conversations with students and lean into vulnerability, in large part due to the work of advocates like Zakiyah. And while many schools are still trying to figure out how to best implement SEL, their interest represents an important step towards the implementation of authentic SEL in schools. Steps like this will pave the way for the crucial policies and narrative-shifting that truly transformative and liberating change is made of.

By Dr. Sasha Rabkin of Equal Opportunity Schools & The BELE Network

In the past few months, Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) has been recognized for its work to center racial and economic equity in education and received investments from a cross sector of philanthropy to continue their mission. EOS partners with schools and districts to operationalize their commitments to racial equity through creative, real time data analytics to ensure low-income and students of color have access to, and the opportunity to succeed. EOS has focused on serving those furthest from opportunities and has supported schools and districts to add over 50,000 low-income and students of color to advanced academic pathways.

We checked in with EOS’ Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Sasha Rabkin, to learn more about who they’re working with, how they’re using data and technology to measure results and build equitable learning environments and their hopes for education in 2021.

Over the last few months, EOS has partnered with the following organizations to improve the accessibility of advanced learning classes to students of color and low-income students.

• New Profit: The national venture philanthropy organization invested $1 million in EOS and additional strategic support to help CEO Byron V. Garrett and his team expand the organization’s impact through leadership and board development and strategic planning for growth.
• Microsoft: As a recipient of Microsoft Corp.’s Nonprofit Tech Acceleration (NTA) program for Black and African American communities, EOS will be given the resources to scale their work and increase the impact on communities they serve.
• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative: EOS was awarded a $1.5 million grant by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to launch and scale its Measures That Matter Initiative (MTMI), which will improve EOS’ Action For Equity Framework, the nonprofit’s flagship education equity program aimed at granting unidentified students access to the most academically intense high school programs.

In addition, EOS is partnering with the Kingmakers of Oakland, another member of the BELE Network, to address Black male achievement and expand impact in the Bay Area through initiatives like the Rising STEM Scholars. Currently, EOS and KOO are planning to launch an RFP for districts in the southern region focused on the development of a network of schools committed to liberatory, equitable learning environments.

EOS has also just launched their Measures that Matter Initiative. The EOS Measures that Matter Initiative will support the measurement, data analytics, and innovation needed to strengthen equitable, anti-racist learning environments. There are several areas of innovation that EOS brings to this effort, including field leading knowledge base, innovation infrastructure, implementation expertise, delivery systems, and data visualization capacity. In addition, the EOS network of 400 school partners has the potential to serve as a powerful incubation space.

As EOS thinks about post-COVID-19 in-person learning, relationships in educational environments, focus on relevant identity and meaning, emphasizing a targeted universalist approach, and ensuring every student is visible is top of mind. EOS data from student surveys during COVID-19 found that 77% of low income and students of color reported becoming “more aware of inequality” during the pandemic. With a new administration, Rabkin hopes leadership in the Department of Education will be willing to take risks, encourage innovation, and adapt to change in order to respond to the largest educational crisis in modern times.

This year, EOS has its largest portfolio of schools ever and is currently accepting applications for the 2021–2022 School and District Cohort. To learn more about EOS, visit www.eoschools.org.

Equal Opportunity Schools is a national organization serving school districts of all sizes. We are here to help better serve students of color and low-income students and improve the accessibility of advanced learning classes. We provide tools such as a gaps chart analysis, equity pathways reports, beginning and end-of-year student/administrator surveys, best practices from more than 650 schools in 210+ districts across 33 states, and support to make equity and improved access to rigorous courses a district priority.

The BELE Network is dedicated to reimagining our inequitable school system that has failed too many for too long, and is committed to transforming our classrooms into learning environments that nurture the intellectual, emotional and cultural growth of all students — especially students of color.

Learn more about BELE on our website, and access our resource library to get the best and most up-to-date thinking on how to make learning environments more equitable.

By The BELE Network

“Imagine a world where every child’s life is a succession of opportunities — opportunities where children come to know who they are and discover who they could become. Imagine learning settings of all kinds where those kinds of opportunities are not only possible, they are intentionally built and optimized, regardless of where a child lives or begins school. Imagine too that educators could identify each child’s abilities, interests, and aspirations and align them with the contexts that promote them. Finally, imagine a world that removes the constraints of racism, poverty, disparities, and injustices and provides each child with the specific relationships and supports to thrive.”

– Pamela Cantor M.D., Turnaround for Children

Turnaround for Children recently published an opinion piece from Founder and Senior Science Advisor Pamela Cantor analyzing how the Biden Administration can leverage new knowledge about healthy learning and development to create better learning environments for our students.

This piece dives into the conditions, investments, and measurements that could guide the new administration in their work while reinforcing their commitment to equity. The education system we have was never built to serve everyone, but we now have the knowledge necessary to transform our current system into one that equitably serves all students.

Read the full piece here.

Turnaround distills scientific knowledge about how children develop and learn into integrated tools, resources and strategies for educators, school and system leaders — all designed to establish the conditions and adult practices that drive learning and growth. Learn more at https://turnaroundusa.org/

The BELE Network is dedicated to reimagining our inequitable school system that has failed too many for too long, and is committed to transforming our classrooms into learning environments that nurture the intellectual, emotional and cultural growth of all students — especially students of color.

Learn more about BELE on our website, and access our resource library to get the best and most up-to-date thinking on how to make learning environments more equitable.