Education Leaders Improving Outcomes for Students of Color

In recognition of Black History month and the California Charter Schools Association’s focus on Black student opportunity and performance in our charter public schools, CCSA has joined the Diversity in Leadership Institute as a member of their Charting the Course to Equity Coalition. As a member, we are supporting the AMPLIFY summit, a 2-day virtual event that prepares, supports and sustains California’s public school leaders of color. The conference takes place this Thursday and Friday, February 25 and 26.

The summit features an interactive panel discussion with exemplary Black and Latinx K-12 school leaders; a healing/restorative circle addressing racism, bias, and micro-aggression in public education; the presentation of leading research highlighting the importance of racial diversity and student outcomes; and professional development for educators.

To talk about the summit and the issue of equity in education, CCSA’s senior communications director, Jeff Macedo, spoke with the CEO of the Diversity in Leadership Institute, Dr. Laura J. McGowan-Robinson.

CCSA: When we look at challenges to equity in education, we know there are many. How do you think school leaders should approach racial equity, diversity, and inclusion?

Dr. McGowan: It starts with self-awareness. In what ways might leaders be knowingly or unknowingly contributing to inequity? Where are we seeing inequitable outcomes in our schools? What are the root causes? Are the leaders willing to address the inequities and make the changes needed? When it comes to creating a pipeline of racially diverse educators, how are we addressing recruitment and hiring practices? Are we creating environments that are inclusive for staff of color?

CCSA released a study in 2019, Charting the Course to Equity: K-12 School Leaders of Color and Student Success, which examined how racially diverse leadership benefits not just affect students of color, but all students across the State of California. According to the study, academic achievement increased, and suspension levels decreased — particularly for African American students. There were also increases in A-G completion, providing students access to our state universities.

And we know it’s not enough just to have racial diversity. Diversity needs to be accompanied by equity, inclusion and culturally-responsive school leadership.

Are there best practices for providing high-quality education to minority and disadvantaged communities?

A best practice for providing high-quality education to any community is being responsive to its needs. Viewing communities of a particular demographic or racial group and painting it with a broad brush overlooks its depth, complexity and uniqueness. Unfortunately, this happens often in schools.

When school leaders see the community as part of the school by actively engaging the community, the levels of trust tend to increase between the students, families and the school.

So often people come into communities of color trying to “fix,” as opposed to learning about their rich history and culture and finding ways to bring that into the school community.

As a best practice, school leaders should be asking themselves, “how do we effectively bring all of this together to increase overall student outcomes, both socially and academically, for our community?”

Are there benefits of the charter public school model that allow schools to support best practices and methods that increase student outcomes like those you described?

Oh, absolutely. Charter schools have the ability to immediately address the needs of students by building partnerships and being really thoughtful about how they enter into the community space. They are able to engage the community as they construct the model, ultimately building a school with community.

This allows a charter to deliver a model school that has been designed to be responsive to the needs of the community. The charter school model allows this flexibility and adaptability.

At the same time, I will say that when it comes to developing racial diverse pipelines among leadership, both charter schools and traditional district schools have work to do. Across both district and charter schools, the numbers of black and Brown leaders serving as serving in our schools could be improved.

Both average about 20% when it comes to Black and Latinx representation school leadership. This is work that has to be done in public education as a whole, specifically, as we look at racial equity, diversity, and inclusion among school leaders.

Is there anything that charter school leaders can be doing to better increase opportunity for Black students?

According to Education Trust West, there are currently 78,000 Black students in California without Black teachers. A study from IZA Institute of Labor Economics shows that Black boys with Black teachers in 3rd through 5thgrade are less likely to drop out of school. In that same study, they found that Black students who had teachers of the same race improved test scores.

One area that charter school leaders can focus on to increase opportunity for Black students is building a Black, culturally-responsive educator pipeline in their schools.

The next step is for charter schools to ensure that once those educators come on board, they are well received and supported in their work. They are heard. They have opportunities for growth.

This opportunity for growth in the organization applies not only to classroom leaders or grade level leaders, but also offers opportunities for them to lead schools, if that is the direction that an educator wants to go.

Charter school organizations need to develop and implement policy that’s focused on racial diversity. I recognize that in our state, after Prop 16 did not pass last November, that was a huge blow to those who’s agenda is to increase educator diversity. But I think there are opportunities for innovative approaches to improve racial diversity among charter school educators.

You brought up Prop 16, which is something that CCSA supported but unfortunately did not pass. Do you see that there are actions we can be taking now outside of the proposition system to try and similarly reach those goals?

Yes, I think that individual organizations can make commitments to diversifying their educator pipeline. They can put accountability metrics in place around how they are going to diversify their pipelines over time.

There are opportunities for tuition reimbursement that organizations can offer. Or schools can look at incentivizing teachers’ aides and support staff of color who might be interested in becoming educators through alternative pathways. An increasing number of educators of color are entering the profession through non-traditional paths.

On the whole, organizations should look at their long-term goals and not just talk about racial diversity. We hear a lot about organizations talking about this work, but how are they holding themselves accountable? What are they doing beyond the conversation?

Let’s talk about the AMPLIFY summit. What is AMPLIFY’s primary focus, and what can attendees expect to learn?

The focus of the summit is building on the foundation of work from the Charting the Course for Equity Coalition. The summit amplifies the work that we’re seeing among Black and Latinx educational leaders in our schools, specifically those that are achieving strong educational and school climate outcomes for students.

There is something to be learned from these leaders, so we’re highlighting them with the hope that it will inspire others.

AMPLIFY is a summit for educators, advocates, parents to hear not only what’s working, but also to learn about some of the stumbling blocks or barriers that some of these leaders have faced on their journey.

Only 20% of public school leaders in the state of California identify as Black or Latinx, but over 60% of our students share those same racial ethnic backgrounds.

Lastly, this is also a time for restoration and healing, so we do have one particular session that is reserved for Black and Latinx leaders to sit and share with a licensed therapist to talk about some of the things that they are experiencing. We want to affirm them as leaders, lift them up and support them to stay on this journey.

COVID 19 has brought a host of challenges and loss to students, families, teachers and leaders. It exacerbated inequities that already existed and is taking a toll on our leaders and educators. The restorative circle is designed to provide a space for Black and Latinx leaders to be affirmed and supported.

Well, we sure look forward to attending and hearing from the impressive group of educators that you brought together for the summit. Thank you so much for your time and this valuable insight towards bettering the outcome for our Black students.

You’re welcome.

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Laura J. McGowan-Robinson, EdD

Dr. McGowan-Robinson is a mother, educator, school founder and advocate for racial equity. She has focused her efforts on mentoring and retaining racially diverse school leaders while serving in the role of Senior Vice President of Regional Advocacy and later as Chief Operating Officer at the California Charter Schools Association, which later spun off the Diversity in Leadership Institute into its own 501(c)(3). Before serving as the group’s COO, McGowan-Robinson founded and served as Executive Director of a middle school in South Los Angeles. A life-long educator, McGowan-Robinson began her teaching career as a Chicago Public Schools teacher before moving west and becoming a high school English teacher and literacy coach with the Los Angeles Unified School District. She currently serves as the founder and CEO of the Diversity in Leadership Institute.

Dr. McGowan-Robinson earned her Bachelor’s degree in English/Rhetoric from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Master’s Degree in Instructional Leadership in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and her doctorate in Educational Leadership for Social Justice from Loyola Marymount University.