Episode 35: Equity and Diversity in Education

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Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with with school administrators and educators, as well as the micro discriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. If you're looking to find out more about current topics in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. On today's episode, I'll be discussing a couple of topics within the equity and diversity in education field. Equity matters in schools. It matters because it improves schools as well as assists students in achieving academic success. How a student perceives his or her school's equity can have significant impact on a variety of positive outcomes. Equity and diversity are broad topics and include a number of issues surrounding race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and religious beliefs and their impacts on schools. In today's discussion, I will specifically be focusing on issues of race, racism and ethnicity in K12 US public schools within this broad category of equity and diversity. I'll examine this issue from a multidimensional perspective, that of the student, the teacher, and the district. There's been a backlash to expanding diversity and equity efforts in schools, and it started in 2020. Since that time, it has spiraled over the course of the last two years into several initiatives that have impacted stud schooling experiences. The backlash has occurred in both the state and district levels and has been driven by primarily Republican lawmakers and right wing leaders and politicians who feel that lessons on race and racism can teach white students to, quote unquote hate themselves. If you were to look at the timeline that traces the growth in the anti CRT movement, book bans, and other movements against expanding diversity and equity. It started with former President Trump's executive order in September 2020 in which he banned certain types of diversity training for federal employees. This executive order was later revoked by President Joe Biden. The first wave of divisive concept laws was passed in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas in May of 2021. The early version of these laws banned teachers from teaching that students should feel guilty because of their race as well as banning them from teaching that anyone was inherently racist or sexist. The lawmakers went so far as to suggest that teachers who discussed racism in history or even in contemporary times were practicing critical race theory. Teachers started losing their jobs as the backlash against lessons on race and racism escalated. This led to book bans movement, which started in the Latter Half of 2021 when parents started complaining in school board meetings about books that were focused on race and racism or books with LGBTQ characters. Challenges to books, as well as the removal from library shelves, escalated rapidly through 2022. Divisive concept laws also affected two district and Oklahoma's accreditation by the State Board of Education, which downgraded the accreditation based on some professional development lessons pertaining to classroom exercises that were meant to help students understand their similarities and differences. This was the first time that a district's accreditation was impacted by an anti CRT law. Additionally, white wing groups like Moms for Liberty, which I addressed in the parental rights episode, which was episode 25, started influencing school board elections in November of 2022. Check out episode 25 for more details about that discussion. Schools in the United States have been dealing with the issue of equity for decades. They have been working toward lessening disparities among students from different races, different language backgrounds, different income levels, and different abilities for years. They have yet to make significant progress in any of these areas. Writers such as Ileana Naharo and others at Education Week examined four critical areas of equity and reported their findings as of November 28, 2022. The areas that they looked at were educational technology, school discipline rates, access to advanced coursework, and the academic progress of English language learners. Regarding educational technology, 80% of teachers and school district leaders indicated that that they incorporated the use of educational technology more in their classrooms in order to meet the needs of their students. However, greater use of technology does not necessarily equate to greater equity for all students. By the way, I'll be addressing the use of technology in classrooms the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in a future podcast episode regarding school discipline. The U.S. department of Education's Office for Civil Rights releases data about school discipline, including in school and out of school suspensions, expulsions, and corporal punishment every two years. It makes sense that the rate of suspensions declined sharply during the 2020-2021 school year in which most students attended school remotely, and since students have been physically back in school, the rate of suspension pensions have started to creep back up. Overall, though, the rates are still lower than they were in the 20192020 school year. Racial and economic inequities in discipline have continued to persist and may even have gotten worse. I addressed the issue of race of disparity in school discipline in a previous episode of my podcast. You can check out episode 15 for more of my disparity discussion on this topic. Regarding access to advanced Coursework the College Board's Advanced Placement Program is responsible for creating and governing AP courses for K12 public education in the United States. Their website claims that, quote, closing the equity gap in AP participation is essential given all students the chance to experience the benefits of challenging coursework. End quote. Unfortunately, it's difficult to determine how well the College Board, a non profit organization, is holding to that goal. That's because they have not made national demographic data on race and ethnicity of AP test takers readily available on their website, which begs one to question whether the statement was just creative marketing copy. In the meantime, some national data are available in the Class of 2021 cohort report, which was delivered to state educational officials. Some of the states, like Florida, have made the results publicly available online. According to that report, black students in the 2021 class made up only 8 point of AP test takers and only 4.6% of test takers scoring 3 or higher on the test on a 5 point scale. And for your information, a score of 3 is the minimum score which some colleges grant AP credit. Black students make up 13.9% of the class of 2021. According to their report, Latino students made up 25.7% of exam takers and they constituted 25.8% of the class of 2021. The College Board indicated that 23.6% of Latino test takers scored 3 or higher. To give some context to these numbers, non Hispanic white students made up 49.66% of the class of 2021 in this report and 48.1% of AP test takers with 51.5% scoring 3 or higher. The College Board purports that under its equity policy, the AP program encourages schools to have a representation of the demographics of the school within the AP classes. If this principal was applied to the National Cohort Class of 2021, then one demographic, that of the black students, remains well short of that goal. And lastly, regarding academic progress of English language learners, the U.S. government Accountability Office reported that this nation's growing English learner population faced significant hurdles when schools went to virtual learning at the height of the pandemic. Those hurdles included our reliable home Internet access as well as not having enough adult support for learning at home. The lack of insufficient access to high quality academic support has been a long standing issue for the English learner population. This population comes constitutes about 10% of the US's overall public school enrollment. These students continue to fall short on scores for standardized testing. For example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP Results indicated that fourth grade English learners in public school scored an average of 216 in math when compared with an average score of 230 for students who were not in that category. In fourth grade reading English learners scored an average of 190 when compared with 222 for their non English learner peers. This is lower than what NAEP even considers proficient. A key point that I stress and will continue to stress is is that one of the hardest hitting impacts poor education has on communities is the failure of having a workforce that is well equipped and well educated. Families and communities, especially for people of color, should place a high emphasis and a higher value on the academic achievement of all students. A plethora of research has indicated a definite car correlation between children living in poverty and poor educational attainment. School reform as well as effective instructional strategies are needed in order to combat the impact of poverty on schools. A key piece for ensuring that equity is present throughout the school system is leadership that's dedicated to the success of all students. Leaders need to acquire the necessary diversity and equity skills because creating equity creates quality schools and high achieving students. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development broadens the term equity in education to include equity and quality education. The organization defines equity in education to mean personal or social circumstances such as gender, ethnic, origin of family background as not being obstacles to achieving educational fairness and that all individuals must at least have basic minimal level of skills. This definition also includes diversity and social justice in its description. There's an important distinction to be made here between equity and equality. Equality and education is achieved when students are all treated the same and have access to similar resources, whereas equity is achieved when all students receive the resources that they need so that they can graduate prepared for success after high school. Equity also includes the policies and practices that provide a deeper and more meaningful learning for students, which in turn empowers the students to learn independently throughout their lives. A truly equitable system doesn't treat all students in a standardized one size fits all way, but differentiates instruction, services and resources in order to respond effectively to students their needs and so that each student can develop to his or her full academic and societal potential having well qualified teachers in the classroom is one of the most important elements of an equitable system. These teachers also need to provide culturally responsive teaching by using familiar themes, cultural icons, celebrations, and artifacts of a student's cultural heritage. The intent with culturally responsive teaching is to increase the engagement in the motivation of students of color who have historically been unsuccessfully academically as well as socially alienated from their public schools. Culturally responsive teaching is a fundamental component of school equity and quality learning. According to A study by two Pennsylvania State University researchers published in November of 2022, more than 40% of all public school districts have had a complaint filed against them with the Department of Education for alleged civil rights violations over the past 20 years. The researchers analyzed every complaint filed with the Office of civil rights between 1999 and 2019. In large school districts where black students are disproportionately represented, there's a higher likelihood of having complaints filed not only for racial discrimination, but also for violations of civil rights statutes that protect against discrimination based on disability and sex. The Office of Civil Rights, or ocr, is a federal agency that investigates complaints that allege discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability and and age in public schools. On average, about 10 to 40% of the districts receive at least one complaint each year based on the report findings. Complaints pertaining to discrimination due to disability are the single largest category according to 20 years of data. Second to those complaints are those that were filed related to race and then sex. Most of the complaints were filed in law large districts that enrolled higher percentages of black students. These districts often face other systemic inequities such as higher race based discipline gaps, disparities in special education identification, higher grade retention, and reduced access to advanced placement and gifted and talented programs. The findings from this research report further substantiate that discrimination is systemic and institutional in nature and that systems of oppression and discrimination are interdependent. The number of complaints filed and the speed as well as the way in which they were resolved has varied over the past decade depending on who was in charge of the US Government. At that time, President Barack Obama issued guidance on racial disparities in student discipline and that ended up causing more complaints to be filed because people began to use OCR to highlight discrimination in schools under President Donald Trump's administration. In contrast, the number of complaints filed with the OCR were administratively closed. Before moving further into the process, the intent was to close the complaints as quickly as possible possible.

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So here's how this applies to K12 education. In one specific example, did you know that young children think and talk about race? By the time children enter kindergarten, they're already aware of and talking about race. Research has shown that young children notice race, try to make sense of it, and talk about it. Some studies indicate that babies use race to categorize faces before their first birthday. Further, preschool aged children have already learned and internalized racial stereotypes. Studies have found that three year olds in the United States associate black faces with negative traits. Young children can also experience racism, which can affect their physical and mental health. Many teachers feel conflicted and even avoid discussing issues of race in their classrooms. A recent Ed Week Research center poll consisting of roughly a thousand educators in September and October of 2022 found that 56% of teachers said that they hadn't discussed any potentially controversial topics with their students that year, including topics such as politics, slavery, gender, religion, ethnicity and race, sexual orientation, the Holocaust, and sexual education. Roughly 21% of the teachers said that they didn't think that their students were old enough to talk about any of those topics. Educators can help students navigate the topic of race by giving children space to talk and reflect across the curriculum and throughout the school year, not just during Black History Month. Worth noting and based on one researcher's findings, kindergartners and first graders were especially interested in histories and stories about how race and racism affected children. The researcher noted that in one classroom observation, she watched kids toss aside a book about Martin Luther King, Jr. In favor of books about Ruby Bridges. Time and time again, the context of how race and racism is presented to children is important. Now let's move from the student level to the district level. Many school districts across the United States continue to wrestle with systemic educational inequities that are reinforced through anti blackness, white supremacy and racist practices. These inequities and practices keep high quality educational opportunities beyond the reach of many black, Latino, indigenous, immigrant, and many other ethnically and linguistically diverse students that make up the population in the United States. School districts are now hiring equity directors as an attempt to confront persistent educational inequities. These equity directors go by various names, including directors of diversity and chief equity officers. The position is typically filled by experienced teachers or administrators who have a clear vision of what educational equity looks like in school settings. These individuals usually hold at least a master's degree, and many are pursuing or already have a doctoral degree in education or a closely related field. Some of the responsibilities for persons in this role include reducing discipline disparities promoting and implementing curriculum reform so that Black, Latino, Asian, and Native students are represented in the curriculum and find the curriculum relevant for them increase racial representation in Advanced Placement courses and engage disaffected families and community stakeholders. Equity directors have existed in higher education settings for many years, but this is a new role for K12 schools, and the complex and difficult work is relatively uncharted. There are, however, four general areas of responsibility equity seating, which is about writing policies and creating equity documents equity collaboration with other district employees as well as parents, teachers, and principals equity management and compliance or governance and equity development and innovation, which involves program creation and professional learning opportunities. This role is typically filled by people of color and women more often than men. Here are some action steps that you can take According to research conducted by Haidt in 2018, there are 29 factors that he labels as characteristics of good schools, many of which are equity based and provide quality education for children as well well as school improvement. I note about 10 of those factors that you might want to consider in determining whether your child attends a good school. 1. A good school produces students that not only read and write, but choose to 2. A good school has diverse and compelling measures of success, measures that families and communities understand and value. 3. A good school knows it can't do it all, so it seeks to do what's necessary exceptionally well. 4. A good school speaks the language of its students. 5. A good school teaches thought, not content. 6. A good school produces students that can empathize, critique, protect, love, inspire, make design, restore, and understand almost anything and then do so as a matter of habit. 7. A good school changes students. Students change great schools. 8. A good school values its teachers and administrators and parents as agents of student success. 9. A good school makes certain that every single student and his or her family feels welcome and understood on equal terms and 10 a good school will help students see themselves in terms of their historical framing, familial legacy, social context, and global connectivity. Using a self created report card, you can evaluate the performance of your child's school based on the 10 factors that I just described. After scoring your child's school, would you consider his or her school a good school? School and now here are this episode's takeaways. There's been a backlash of expanding diversity and equity efforts in school and it started pretty much around 2020. Since that time, it has spiraled over the course of the last two years into several initiatives that have impacted students schooling experiences. Equal treatment, appreciation of one's own cultural and the cultures of others, equitable resources and shared values that accept the presence of diverse racial, cultural, economic and social groups are important when considering equity in schools. Equity includes a process where the principles of fairness is practiced. Thus, the intersectionality with social justice equity in education impacts schools and communities because both of these affect the way society evolves. A truly equitable system doesn't treat all students in a standardized one size fits all way, but differentiates instruction, services and resources in order to respond effectively to students diverse needs so that each student can develop to his or her full academic and societal potential. Having well qualified teachers in the classroom is one of the most important elements of an equitable system. If schools are the representation of the demographics of a society, then equity and diversity and education are critical important academically, socially and culturally. Equity matters in schools. It matters because it improves schools as well as assists students in achieving academic success. Although the seminal decision behind the Supreme Court's decision In the Brown vs Board of Education case was that all children should have access to educational attainment through public schooling, this country is still embarrassingly behind in achieving the goal for all students to be academically successful in K 12 public schools. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please subscribe to my podcast or whatever service you're listening to this. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a writing, a review or a comment and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. I'd really appreciate it if you would recommend my podcast to a friend directly on Twitter and to mention my show in your tweet. Additionally, connect with me on Instagram and Facebook with the handle kimjfields. Thanks for listening. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. By the way, if you have a burning question about a particular issue going on in your child's schooling experience or a specific topic that you'd like me to explore and discuss, shoot me a quick email@kimiberationthrougheducation.com to let let me know what your question is. Anyone whose question is selected to be discussed on one podcast episode will receive a $25Amazon gift card. Be sure to stay tuned on the next episode of my podcast. I'll be reviewing another book from the Band Book List, the title of which is called Heavy. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day. Love my show. Consider being a regular subscriber. You can subscribe for as little as $3 per month. Just go to HTTPs://forward/tinyurl forward/podcast support. There's no contractual obligation. You can cancel at any time. 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