So Data No Longer Reinforce Racial Stereotypes

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Unpacking the Difficulty of Reframing Racial
Achievement Gaps
So Data No Longer Reinforce Racial
Stereotypes National Conference on Student
Assessment Los Angeles, CA June 23, 2009
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Who We Are

• Kee Edwards, Principal, Rosa Parks Elementary,
  Middletown, OH
• Deanna Hill, Senior Policy Analyst, West Wind
  Education Policy, Inc.
• Circe Stumbo, President, West Wind Education
  Policy, Inc.

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West Wind Education Policy Inc.

• Help state and district leaders imagine and enact
  a system of education that overcomes historic
  inequities and engages all students in learning

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Rosa Parks Elementary, Middletown City Schools,
OH

• School district
• 6,000 students
• 75 White, 17 Black 3 Hispanic 4.2
  Multiracial .5 Pacific Islander
• Rosa Parks Elementary School
• 450 students
• 35 White, 65 Black

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What We Hope To Do Today

• Describe 5 problems we have with the phrase
  closing achievement gaps, including the ways it
  reinforces negative stereotypes and focuses us
  too narrowly on a problem
• Encourage all of us to think about how our work
  contributes to these problems
• Think together about what to do

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Lets Talk

• What is your earliest memory of race?
• What is your most recent experience with race?

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Warm-Up Discussion
Pair-Share and Report-Out Why do we
disaggregate student achievement data by race?
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Why Disaggregate? Middletown City Schools

• Middletown City Schools Initial Strategy
• Helped us to identify gaps among our subgroups
• Allowed us to focus our efforts
• When attached to accountability, brought some
  people to the table

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Why Disaggregate?A National Perspective

• An equity-focused standards-based reform
  strategy
• Exposed that many schools are NOT providing
  students of color with opportunities to learn.
• Identified schools serving students of color very
  welland broadcasted that information

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Why Disaggregate?A National Perspective
The Education Trust is a major advocate for
disaggregated data and equity. The Council of
Chief State School Officers also has been an
advocate.
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Some Schools Have Closed the Gap
Elmont Memorial, Higher -age of Students Meeting
Graduation Requirements than the State, Class of
2004, Regents English
Source New York State School Report Card,
compiled by The Education Trust
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How we typically approach the data, Middletown

• When we pull our staff together to look at the
  data
• we pull together teachers
• we immediately go to conversations about the
  students home life, their parents expectations,
  their levels of poverty, etc.

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Lets Talk
What does the term racial achievement gap mean?
What do we mean when we say there is an
achievement gap by race? What words do we use
when we talk about racial achievement gaps?
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Whats Wrong With This Picture?

1. The way we use data reinforces existing beliefs
   about the intellectual inferiority of children
   and communities of color.

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Making Meaning

• When a school is described as 90 black and
  Latino, what mental images would many people have
  of that school?

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Making Meaning

• So, what is it about disaggregating data that
  challenges peoples beliefs about the innate
  ability of kids of color?

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Myths of Superiority, Meritocracy, Neutrality
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Whats Wrong With This Picture?

• When we talk about solving racial achievement
  gaps in reading or mathematics,
• how often do we talk about race,
• instead of talking only about
  reading/mathematics?

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Whats Wrong With This Picture?

• When we talk about solving racial achievement
  gaps in reading or mathematics,
• how often do we talk about race,
• instead of talking about remediation?

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Limited Solution Set

• If the problem is underachieving students, the
  solution is
• to fix the kids (i.e., remediation)
• Supplemental Educational Services
• Double-dosing
• Reading First

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Limited Solution Set

• If the problem is underachieving students, the
  solution is
• to fix the parents (i.e., parent involvement)

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Whats Wrong With This Picture?
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Whats Wrong With This Picture?

• Not only does it reinforce the notion that
  students of color are intellectually inferior to
  white students

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Whats Wrong With This Picture?

1. this picture does not tell a story that
   instills passion, moral outrage, or commitment to
   overcoming racial disparities
2. and, because we focus on achievement, we
   ignore some of the most devastating experiences
   students have in school

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What if we sought these kinds of data?
A Girl Like Me
Film clip shown with permission from Reel Works
Teen Filmmaking. To purchase film, visit
ReelWorks.org.
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Discussion

• What does the video A Girl Like Me say to you?
  
• Reflecting on the video, what does the current
  conversation about racial achievement gaps
  leave out?

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What if this were how we defined the
achievement gap?

• Black male student On the first day in class, I
  showed up a little late to this AP Chemistry
  class. The teacher said, You must be in the
  wrong class, this is AP Chemistry. I said, No,
  I am in the right class, and showed her my
  schedule. She looked at it, and said, this must
  be wrong, you cannot be in here. She didnt even
  know me, but she assumed that I didnt belong in
  her class. She called down to the office, and
  took about fifteen minutes calling down to the
  placement center, talking to counselors and
  everything, and when it was all over, I was in
  the right class. Im saying, if I was Asian would
  she have gone through all of that?
• as told by Howard, 2008, n.p.

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Discussion

• How does an experience like this demonstrate to
  the students in that class that the
  teacher/school holds high standards for all
  children?
• What does an experience like that do to a
  students readiness to learn?
• How is it a systems problem?

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Discussion

• Does our current conversation about achievement
  gaps capture these educational realities?
• Does the achievement gap discourse disrupt these
  patterns and dominant mental models?
• We suggest that it does not

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Lets Reflect and Talk

• Do you buy the ideaor are you at least willing
  to rent the idea for a little whilethat the way
  we talk about the racial achievement gap
  re-inscribes negative stereotypes and focuses the
  system too narrowly?
• What are you struggling with?

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Change Our Focus

• What about our own practices reinforce deficit
  thinking related to students of color?
• How can we talk
• more about race and
• about more than just achievement?

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Questions From the Field

• How can we get to the point where we focus on our
  responsibilities as a system?
• When do we investigate what the data DOESNT tell
  us?

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Lets Reflect and Talk

• What might each of us do differently?

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Possible Solutions

• Augment the Data? Collect more information than
  just performance on standardized exams
• School climate surveys
• Ethnographic research (student experiences,
  teacher beliefs, forces at play)
• Etc.

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Possible Solutions

• Report the Data Differently?

How often is a 90-90-90 schools data shown
ALONGSIDE the states data?
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Possible Solution

• Ask different questions of the data?
• Ask specifically what the data reveals about the
  system
• Look for outliers and seek out their stories
• Examine intersections between race and poverty

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Ohios Gaps
Source Ohio Department of Education
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Possible Solutions

• Broaden the frame?
• Talk about what the data cannot tell us
• Ask questions of the system
• Complicate the data and our interpretations of it
  (what matters passing? what is normed etc.)

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Normalizing Whiteness
Source Indiana Annual State Report Card, 2003,
Indiana Department of Education
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Possible Solutions

• More holistically capture the student experience?
• Talk to our children
• Look at micro-aggressions
• Examine their experiences and our mental models

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Possible Solutions

• Support conversations about race?
• Study race
• Support professional development
• Facilitate conversations
• Find counterstories

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Possible Solutions

• Augment the data?
• Report the data differently?
• Ask different questions?
• Broaden the frame?
• Examine the student experience?
• Support conversations about race?
• Your ideas?

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Closing Thought

• We encourage everyone to eliminate the term
  achievement gap from our equity work, research,
  and activism.
• At least replace with racial disparities
• Please help us to think about what better we can
  do!

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Contact Info
Deanna Hill, Senior Policy Analyst
deanna_at_westwinded.com Circe Stumbo,
President circe_at_westwinded.com West Wind
Education Policy Inc. 1700 S. First Ave, Suite
17 Iowa City, IA 52240 877-354-9378 (toll
free) www.westwinded.com
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Contact Info
Kee Edwards, Principal kedwards_at_middletowncitysch
ools.com Rosa Parks Elementary School 1210 S.
Verity Parkway Middletown, OH 45044
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• EXTRA SLIDES

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Why Havent Things Changed?

• We know this is possible, but we also know that
  states struggle
• Conversations about race are difficult
• We hold back from asking tough questions
• Can we really know what we need to know through
  data?

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The Iceberg
Peter Senge, et al, The Fifth Discipline
Fieldbook Project, Schools That Learn
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Transformational Change

• Peter Senge
• http//www.solonline.org/

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The Significance of Problem Definition

• The way we talk about a problem does several
  things
• It locates the source of the problem, which
  defines the solutions we consider
• It conveys messages to others about what is
  happening
• While sometimes it debunks beliefs, most often it
  reinforces them

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Limited Solution Set

• If the problem is underachieving students, the
  solution is
• to fix the kids (i.e., remediation)
• Supplemental Educational Services
• Double-dosing
• Reading First
• or to fix the parents (i.e., parent
  involvement)

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Defining the Problem Defines the Solution Set

• This focus on underachieving students and
  remediation allows us to focus on fixing the
  kids and not fixing the system.
• This allows us to shift the burden/blame onto
  students, their parents, and their communities
• And reinforces deficit thinking about students of
  color and their families

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Re-Framing, Take 1

• Alternatively, if the problem is underserved
  students, the solutions are different
• Target resources Per pupil expenditures,
  equitable distribution of highly qualified
  teachers
• Better instruction Formative assessment,
  differentiated instruction, research-based
  practice

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Re-Framing

• The problem is that we still arent looking
  critically at race
• We can have excellent teachers and schools that
  still exhibit racial insensitivity that harms
  children

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Re-Framing

• The problem is that we still arent looking
  critically at race
• Our hyper-attention to test score data narrows
  our focus
• We ignore aspects of teacher practice that harm
  children of color.
• We narrow our focus to think only about teachers

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Re-Framing, Take 2

• If the problem is systemic racial oppression, the
  solution is courageous conversations about race
  and systemic equity leadership
• You cannot address racial disparities without
  dealing with race
• Its not (just) about mathematics and reading
  its about race

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Lets Reflect and Talk

• What about disproportionality in special
  education assignments?
• and disproportionality in discipline?
• What negative stereotypes does our current work
  reinforce?
• How can we alter that tendency?

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West WindsSystemic Equity Leadership

• Our approach builds on
• Critical Race Theory (Ladson-Billings Tate)
• Learning organizations (Senge)
• Systems thinking (Wheatly)
• Adaptive leadership (Heifetz)
• Direct Action Organizing (Midwest Academy)
• Our professional wisdom and lived experience

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Questions We Ask

• What is the impact of holding negative
  stereotypes that children of color are dangerous
  and intellectually inferior on children in
  school?
• on teachers beliefs?
• on administrators decisions?
• If children of color are inferior and dangerous,
  how should we treat them in schools?

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Discussion

• What is your role in helping us to understand and
  navigate the realities of race in education?
• in changing the policy conversation?

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Lets Reflect and Talk

• What can data tell us?
• What can it not tell us?