Centering Communities of Color in Statewide School Transformation: Establishing Just Policies and Practices

This pathbreaking book presents a road map for constructing and sustaining a statewide reform for equity in today’s Pre-K–12 schools.

Centering the perspectives of historically underserved educators, students, and communities, this volume describes the systemic barriers to educational justice, along with ways to redress inequities. This examination of a statewide effort to transform schools focuses on the investments, policies, strategies, and practices needed to improve outcomes for all students, including those of Indigenous backgrounds. The fundamental premise underlying all the studies in this volume is the need to change assumptions and beliefs about education and how it is currently practiced and financed.

Chapters demonstrate the importance of providing nondominant and racially minoritized communities with authentic opportunities to describe and influence the types of investments they believe are most needed. This much-needed book shows how to craft a multifaceted and ambitious approach to educational transformation that identifies structural inequities and creates policies and practices to reverse the problems, including guidance for mapping the process and creating targets for change.

Book Features:

• Explores a collaborative effort in the state of Washington to generate innovative ways to tackle injustices in Pre-K–12 schools.
• Describes four core principles which were developed by the authors in collaboration with local communities and state-level partners.
• Shows how the authors engaged with communities of color as key partners, including students and families of color, Indigenous communities, teachers and administrators of color and their networks.
• Includes a team of researchers with expertise that spans disciplines from history, public policy, finance, sociolinguistics, special education, teacher education, educational leadership, multicultural education, and developmental psychology.

Manka M. Varghese is a professor at the University of Washington College of Education and president-elect of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. Margaret L. Plecki is emeritus professor and former director of the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy at UW. Ana M. Elfers is a research associate professor emeritus at the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy at UW. Aditi Rajendran is an assistant professor of organizational leadership, policy, and development at the University of Minnesota.