By Laurel White
As American public schools continue to reckon with widespread racial inequities, a School of Education research project is working to offer support and build understanding of how school leaders can facilitate anti-racist policy changes.
Over the past two years, researchers from the UW–Madison School of Education and the University of Missouri have partnered with two Midwestern schools to offer a novel policy decision-making tool and reflective cycle of inquiry process focused on dismantling racially unjust policies and practices. As the process unfolds, the team also provides professional coaching on anti-racist change and continuous improvement to the school leaders, collecting data on how they engage with the process.
Anjalé Welton, the Rupple-Bascom Professor of Education and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, and Sarah Diem, professor and department chair in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri, co-lead the project.
Welton says the effort allowed the partner schools to engage in much-needed and much-appreciated self-reflection. During the process, school leaders reflected on how their espoused anti-racist values may or may not align with everyday practices and structures in their school systems.
“Our tool is a tool for reflective practice, which is critical in eliminating racial and other inequities in schools,” Welton said.
Funded by the Spencer Foundation’s Racial Equity Grant Program, the project grew out of Welton and Diem’s 2020 book, “Anti-Racist Educational Leadership and Policy: Addressing Racism in Public Education.” That award-winning book was a culmination of almost two decades Welton and Diem spent as thought partners researching issues of race, policy, and politics in school leadership. The final chapter of their book outlined the development of the anti-racist policy decision-making tool.
The six-step decision-making protocol includes assembling a change-making team, understanding the sociopolitical and racial context of the school and community, and conducting critical race policy and leadership reviews. It concludes with summarizing findings and taking action to change a school policy. In practice, the tool can be used to evaluate and alter school policies related to a wide variety of things, from disciplinary practices to access to honors-level coursework.
Deonte Iverson, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and lead data analyst on the project, and Sarah Walters, a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri and lead site coordinator, make up the rest of the research team. They say the decision-making steps are aimed at providing a practical path for educators who want to make a difference in their school environment.
“There are many times in research where protocols, tools, or interventions are created for implementation in schools and they are not the most practical for educators to engage with,” Iverson said. “Our anti-racist policy decision-making protocol was designed with practice in mind. It allows school leaders a practical tool to push against the racialized nature of educational policies and dismantle policy structures that perpetuate racial inequities in their schools.”
Welton and Iverson noted that their cross-racial research team helped similar cross-racial leadership teams at the project’s two partner schools navigate difficult conversations about racism and racist school policies.
“Our research team models what work across racial differences looks like when done well,” Welton said. “We all have discussed our experiences and know when each of us can lead and times where we may need to step back. We actively demonstrate that with trust and time, cross-racial work can occur in school spaces to do important work.”
The research team viewed the school leaders as collaborators on the project, rather than subjects.
“We are not doing research on but are collaborating with practitioners to critically examine and make decisions about policies that will have an immediate impact on their communities,” Welton said. “The researcher-practitioner collaboration central to this project helps us think more holistically and stimulate new conversations about what is needed to promote and support anti-racist school communities.”
The team’s findings about the two partner schools’ processes and outcomes have led to presentations at the 2023 American Educational Research Association annual meeting and the 2023 University Council for Educational Administration annual convention. Findings have also been accepted for publication as a chapter in an upcoming textbook to be released by Springer Publishing Company. A peer-reviewed academic journal article that foregrounds Black school leaders’ experiences with the process is also forthcoming.
Welton says she hopes to continue the project with additional school partners in the coming years.
“Our partners are doing the work. They are moving forward full steam ahead with momentum,” she said. “We would love to take the opportunities to work with additional schools or districts who want to pursue this work.”