The Equity & Social Justice Education 50: Critical Questions for Improving Opportunities and Outcomes for Black Students

ASCD Bestseller! Baruti K. Kafele offers 50 timely and important questions on equity and social justice education for educators to reflect on and discuss.

How do you ensure that no student is invisible in your classroom? How do you make the distinction between equity as the vehicle versus equity as the goal for each of your students? What measures do you take to ensure that you are growing as a culturally relevant practitioner? Can your students, particularly your Black students, articulate, beyond emotional reactions, the injustices that surround them?

The foregoing are not trick questions. Rather, they are those that best-selling author Baruti K. Kafele poses and on which he suggests you deeply reflect as a teacher of Black students. The Equity & Social Justice Education 50 will help you understand the importance of having an equity mindset when teaching students generally and when teaching Black students in particular. It defines social justice education and sheds light on the issues and challenges that Black people face, as well as the successes they've achieved, providing you with a pathway to infusing social justice education into your lesson plans. And along the way, Kafele reveals personal experiences from his distant and recent pasts to highlight how important it is that your Black students see themselves in all aspects of education every day.

You, the teacher, play a critical role in your students' success. The questions that Kafele asks in this book will help enhance your own understanding of race, systemic racism, and racial justice and guide you in developing strategies and lessons that speak to Black students in ways that truly support their achievement.

Baruti K. Kafele, a highly regarded urban educator in New Jersey for more than 20 years, has distinguished himself as a master teacher and transformational school leader. As an elementary school teacher, he was named East Orange School District and Essex County Public Schools Teacher of the Year, and he was a finalist for New Jersey State Teacher of the Year. As a middle and high school principal, he led the transformation of four different New Jersey urban schools, including Newark Tech, which went from a low-performing school to national recognition. He is the author of 12 books, including ASCD book The Aspiring Principal 50 and his six ASCD best sellers: The Assistant Principal 50, Is My School a Better School Because I Lead It?, The Teacher 50, The Principal 50, Closing the Attitude Gap, and Motivating Black Males to Achieve in School and in Life. Kafele can be reached via his website at www.principalkafele.com.