To Lead For Equity, Learn From Teachers

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To lead for equity, learn from teachers

By Jill Harrison Berg

Categories: Collaboration, Equity, Implementation, Leadership, Learning communities, Learning designs, School leadership, Teacher leadership

Schools committed to equity are experimenting with creative and powerful ways for teachers to ensure all students receive what they need to learn in the classroom. Many of these efforts focus professional learning on strengthening the instructional core — teachers’ knowledge of and relationships with students, teachers’ deep and critical knowledge of the content, and the ways teachers make that content relevant to students. These classroom-based efforts are necessary, yet insufficient, for advancing equity. A systems approach that addresses the contextual conditions required for instructional equity is also needed. The consistency with which our schools produce inequitable results leads to one conclusion: Our schools are inequitable by design. Within these constraints, shifts in instruction can have only limited impact. Yet it isn’t always clear what

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Tools to uproot instructional inequity

Jill Harrison Berg’s book Uprooting Instructional Inequity: The Power of Inquiry-Based Professional Learning, which will be released by ASCD in early 2022, guides readers in designing or retooling plans for inquiry-based professional learning so that they effectively interrogate the roots of inequities and engage in transformative learning for educators and students.

References

Berg, J.H. (in press). Uprooting instructional inequity: The power of inquiry-based professional learning. ASCD.

Blankstein, A.M., Noguera, P., & Kelly, L. (2016). Excellence through equity: Five principles of courageous leadership to guide achievement for every student. ASCD.

Johnson, S.M., Kraft, M.A., & Papay, J.P. (2012). How context matters in high-need schools: The effects of teachers’ working conditions on their professional satisfaction and their students’ achievement. Teachers College Record, 114(10), 1-39.

Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2019). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership & Management, 40(4), 1-18.

Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. (2018). School quality measures framework. www.mciea.org/uploads/1/2/0/7/120788330/mcieasqm-framework-short-2018.pdf

Quintero, E. (2017). Teaching in context: The social side of education reform. Harvard Education Press.

University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. (n.d.). The 5Essentials framework. Uchicagoimpact.org/sites/default/files/5eframework_outreach%26marketing%20%281%29.pdf