Getting into Good Trouble at School : A Guide to Building an Antiracist School System

Turn the promise of equitable education into reality.

This is your guidebook for building an antiracist school. Written by two education leaders with very different life experiences, Getting into Good Trouble At School provides the context, empowerment, and concrete actions needed to dismantle racist policies and practices that for decades have kept students of color from experiencing the same success as their white counterparts.

The journeys of Gregory Hutchings and Douglas Reed – which include systemic racism and white privilege - provide a unique model superintendents, principals, school board members and other educators can use to reimagine educational equity, actively dismantle institutional racism, and implement strategic, methodical policies that benefit the entire school community. In this book you’ll find

• A detailed case study of antiracist educational transformation
• What it really means to commit to racial equity
• Guidance for dismantling tracking and in-school segregation
• Positive, equitable alternatives to typical disciplinary practices
• Six steps to building an antiracist school system

Racism isn’t always intentional. Antiracism, on the other hand, must be. Now antiracist education leaders can put their intentions into action―and grant the promise of an equitable and culturally rich education to all students.

Gregory C. Hutchings, Jr. is a nationally recognized educational leader, antiracism activist, and adjunct professor who unapologetically advocates for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and racial equity. He has over twenty years of combined educational experience as a teacher, school principal, central office administrator, superintendent, and college professor.

Dr. Hutchings is the chief executive officer and founder of an educational consulting firm, Revolutionary Ed, LL C. His life’s work is educational service and dismantling systemic racism in schools across America. Dr. Hutchings was the 2018 recipient of the Joseph E. Hill Superintendent of the Year Award with the National Alliance of Black School Educators.

Dr. Hutchings earned his doctorate in educational policy, planning, and leadership from the College of William & Mary. He currently serves on numerous national boards and is an active member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. Dr. Hutchings is a native of Alexandria, Virginia, where he currently serves as the superintendent of Alexandria City Public Schools and resides with his wife and their two children.

Douglas S. Reed is a Professor of Government at Georgetown University, where he is the founding director of the MA Program in Educational Transformation. His research interests center on the politics of education, educational policymaking, federalism, and judicial politics. His current work focuses on legal notions of race, equality, and colorblindness and how educational policy can improve student outcomes by directly addressing the racial contexts and experiences of students.

He is the author of Building the Federal Schoolhouse: Localism and the American Education State (Oxford University Press, 2014) and On Equal Terms: The Constitutional Politics of Educational Opportunity (Princeton University Press, 2001).

He has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an Advanced Studies Fellow at Brown University, and was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation as well as a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow. He earned his PhD from Yale University.