Equitable School Improvement: The Critical Need for the Human Side of Change

This guide will help educators expand the experiences, opportunities, and outcomes for marginalized students.

Promoting equity and improvement science have seen increased attention over the last several years. This book shows school and district leaders how to create the conditions needed to use improvement science―with its robust collection of tools, resources, and processes―to achieve equity.

Readers will find information about equity, continuous improvement, and the psychology of change that can be used to productively and respectfully engage all stakeholders. Chapters include the rationale for employing improvement science to pursue equity; advice for developing the dispositions of an equity-focused leader who thinks differently about power, possibility, and measurement; and guidance for facilitating conversations in the service of equitable improvement.

Equitable School Improvement is important reading for teachers, coaches, principals, central office leaders, and any educator who wants to be part of creating a more socially just educational system for our children.

Book Features:

• Elaborates on the habits and practices that need to be developed if educators are to overcome significant barriers and talk about transformation in the service of equity.
• Focuses on the human side of change, including honoring people and their stories and dismantling power structures that interfere with change.
• Provides guidance to leaders at all levels for creating the conditions for equity-focused improvement work.
• Moves beyond deficit perspectives and outmoded tropes, such as goals have agency, teachers are resistant, and race correlates to low achievement.
• Makes the tools contained in improvement science more accessible to today’s equity leaders.

Rydell Harrison and Isobel Stevenson are program coordinators at Partners for Educational Leadership in West Hartford, CT.