Leading Your School Toward Equity: A Practical Framework for Walking the Talk

A four-step process for effective equity practices in schools, with an array of professional development activities, leadership tips, and downloadable tools.

Recent years have brought new calls to dismantle discriminatory policies and practices in U.S. schools. But adopting an equity focus doesn't guarantee the desired results. There's a risk that doing equity will be toothless—surface level and designed more to avoid tension and blame than to build a better educational system.
In Leading Your School Toward Equity, veteran educator Dwayne Chism shows district, school, and teacher leaders a four-step process for taking equity work beyond talk and into effective action. You'll learn concrete ways to

* Define and clarify equity. Guide even reluctant staff to a consensus understanding of what equity is, why it's necessary, and what it will look like.
* Create productive discomfort. Use intentional dialogue to lead staff to a place where they can talk frankly about privilege, bias, racial inequality, and how these affect students' experience of schooling.
* Build efficacy. Help staff develop higher levels of individual and shared professional efficacy—the number one factor influencing equitable educational outcomes—and create an empowered group of educational equity allies united for results.
* Normalize action. Support the day-to-day use of an equity lens, a mindset that empowers all teachers to counteract stereotypes and rectify conditions that negatively affect students of color.

To make this complicated work a little easier, Chism provides an array of assessments, coaching guides, and activities to use with staff. If you're committed to creating a true equity-driven culture, if you're ready for courageous leadership, this book is for you.

Dwayne Chism is the Dean of the School of Education at Peru State College in Peru, Nebraska. He supports equity work at the local, state, and national levels and works to support the development of current and aspiring leaders of color across the United States. Chism previously served as a principal supervisor, principal, and teacher. In 2018, he founded Shifting Perspectives, LLC, to help schools navigate diversity to create equitable conditions for learning.