Many school districts are creating new staff positions to provide leadership on equity issues, notes Joshua Starr. Superintendents must be careful to set those leaders up for success.
Recently, I was at a meeting of a long-standing network of superintendents and school system leaders who run diverse, midsize districts. As we went around the room introducing ourselves, I was struck by how many of the participants identified themselves as their district’s new point person for equity issues. The specific job titles varied — director of equity and diversity, chief equity officer, and so on — but it was clear that a large number of the superintendents in the network had recently created a distinct central office leadership position to focus on equity.
I think that’s a very promising trend. If districts have become willing to dedicate real dollars to these positions, then that suggests a whole new level of commitment to meeting the needs of every student. But at the same time, I find myself worrying about all the things that could go wrong. For instance, what if it’s unclear how much authority, or what range of responsibilities, the job actually entails? And what if, now that equity work has been assigned to a single individual, everybody else assumes that equity is no longer their concern? In short, if their organizational roles aren’t set up for success from the start, then these new equity leaders could easily find themselves (and the issues they care about) isolated.
A clearer view of equity
It’s important to remind ourselves why so much attention has come to focus on equity in education, and how education leaders tend to look at the issue. Since the enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2002, public schools have had to reckon with a constant outpouring of data that reveals disparities in achievement among student populations. Whatever NCLB’s flaws, and there were many, it brought these disparities into the sunlight, forcing principals and superintendents both to acknowledge them and to make concrete plans to address them. For nearly two decades, school and system leaders all over the country have had no choice but to collect student achievement data, disaggregate them, identify gaps, and try to close them. They’ve been required to look at education through an equity lens.
In many districts, this has meant pursuing a narrow set of reform strategies, including the use of teacher performance incentives, the purchase of off-the-shelf curricula and interventions, and a focus on test prep in reading and math. In others, system leaders have been more thoughtful about their options — for instance, they’ve found additional resources for students who need more support, or they’ve provided teachers and staff with professional development related to unconscious bias and institutional racism. Either way, though, NCLB’s equity lens isn’t sufficient. It directs attention to things like test scores, graduation rates, and biased curriculum, but it doesn’t provide a clear picture of the more subtle systems of oppression that exist within schools and districts.
If we’re truly committed to social justice, then we need to take a deeper look at the ways in which bias and favoritism shape the decisions that get made in places like school board meetings and district offices — decisions having to do with everything from teacher recruitment to operations, curriculum planning, and assessment. For example, one of the powerful ways to promote equity is to assign the most effective teachers to work with the most vulnerable students. Yet, local rules, traditions, politics, and especially lobbying by privileged parents make it difficult for most school and district leaders to reassign their best teachers. A social justice stance requires that they make the move, but the most powerful people around them insist that they back off.
What if it’s unclear how much authority, or what range of responsibilities, the job actually entails?
This is the world that confronts newly appointed district-level equity leaders. They need to understand the data and have the capacity to pursue effective strategies for raising graduation rates, improving test scores, educating staff, securing new resources, and so on. But they also need to take a close look at how the sausage really gets made in their school system. They need the strength to stand for social justice in the face of intense personal pressure. And to have any real chance of success, they need explicit backing from the superintendent and the school board.
Creating the right conditions
When I first became a superintendent in 2005, in a very diverse district, I didn’t support naming a sole person as the equity leader. I argued vociferously that equity is everyone’s job and that I didn’t want to create an opportunity for other leaders to avoid their responsibilities by saying, “Oh, that’s so-and-so’s job, I just do. . .” curriculum or human resources or whatever.
Eventually, I came around. My next district, a much bigger one with many more resources, had made a long-standing commitment to resourcing an equity office, and the quality of its work was obvious. Still, though, that office had little authority. It served as an excellent resource for local educators who chose voluntarily to conduct an equity audit, revise their curricula, or provide antibias training to staff, but it had no power to compel schools to take such steps.
Over time, we took some steps to strengthen that office and give it clearer lines of authority, Looking back, though, there are some things I wish I had done differently, which is why I would make three specific recommendations to any superintendent who has hired, or is considering hiring, an equity leader:
First, this should be defined as a cabinet position, reporting directly to the superintendent. Unless the equity leader has a clear and elevated status within the district hierarchy, their appointment may be seen as just a symbolic move. They need their own budget and staff, too, including people with expertise in data analysis, policy, legal issues, curriculum and instruction, and student and community engagement. A serious commitment to equity and social justice requires working across all of these areas.
Second, the equity leader’s role and scope of responsibilities must be clear. For instance, is the district most in need of an ombudsman, who will spend their time fielding complaints, reviewing data, engaging with community members, negotiating conflicts, and scrutinizing programs and practices for signs of bias? Or is the higher priority to appoint someone who will provide technical support to schools and programs, helping them increase their capacity to address equity and social justice issues? It can be very difficult, if not impossible, to play both of these roles simultaneously.
Third, the equity leader needs clear authority, backed up by the superintendent, to access records from every part of the district office, including human resources, security, facilities, transportation, finance, curriculum and instruction, and principal supervision. So, too, must they have full access to school records, including administrative decisions about services for English learners and students with disabilities, changes in staffing and scheduling patterns, and the results of surveys of teachers, staff, students, and families. The point isn’t for the equity office to interfere with or slow down any other part of the school system, but only to ensure that no credible complaints of bias have been concealed, whether they have to do with grading practices, disciplinary practices, teacher hiring, purchasing, or anything else.
- Related: Learning to lead for racial equity
- Related: The value of interracial facilitation of racial equity training
All of this seems like a lot for one person, or even a team, to do. And it is. That’s why I wouldn’t advise any equity leader to try to take on every challenge at once. It’s important to focus first on the specific priorities set by the superintendent and board, whether it’s overhauling policy, conducting an audit, or providing training. Equity leaders need to start where the system leadership is and push and pull others along. While this can provide great opportunities to make real and lasting changes in schools and district, there’s no denying that it can be an incredibly challenging job.
It can also be a lonely job. All too often, the equity leader is one of the only people (if not the only person) of color on a cabinet team. Compound this with the fear that their work may expose ugly truths about the local schools, or that it will force White administrators and staff to confront uncomfortable topics, and the job becomes that much more daunting. All the more reason for superintendents to think very carefully about how best to bring a new equity leader on board and to make it abundantly clear that the pursuit of equity and social justice will continue to be everyone’s responsibility.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joshua P. Starr
Joshua P. Starr is the managing partner at the International Center for Leadership in Education, a division of HMH, based in Boston, MA. He is the author of Equity-based Leadership: Leveraging Complexity to Transform School Systems.
