Applied critical race theory: educational leadership actions for student equity

ABSTRACT

Critical race theory (CRT) in education has been used to expose and analyze racism in K-12 schooling and higher education. However, the theory has been underutilized as an inventory lens applied to school leadership practice. Our paper takes on this inquiry by highlighting the work done by an administrative leadership team at a majority racially diverse middle school in the Mountain western region of the U.S. Through an examination of the practice of racism as whiteness as property through teacher expectations, classroom instruction and teacher-student and parent interactions and by implementing changes in areas of student discipline, and color-blind teacher perceptions, the leadership team developed racial equity pathways which served as an important implementation of CRT leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical race theory
• educational leadership
• school change

Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge and thank Daniel Solorzano (UCLA) and Janelle Scott (UC-Berkeley) for providing space and support for these presentations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. At the end of the first year of the transformation, the district directors made a determination that the current principal may not be the right person to lead the transformation. The principal was moved to an elementary where this principal’s strengths could be better served. The next principal had been at the school three years prior as an intern assistant principal. This principal was very adept at bringing people to consensus and was a strong social justice leader. This change also made way for the turn-around designation of the school in the second year of the change process.

2. African American designation included students that were of recent African refugee status.

3. In the final year of this analysis, the teachers saw in their own individual data, that students qualifying for special needs services and ELLs were not progressing at the same rate as the rest of the school population. The teachers and school leadership team together set school wide goals for the next year to attend to these two groups more strategically.

4. The parent dialogues are an ongoing part of the systems and structures of the school, and have continued to be a part of the way the SJLs engage the community and support teachers, students, and families.

5. Examples of the guiding questions for the parent dialogues are: Identify common values that you share with others in your community. /Discuss how collaboration and relationships can be improved in your community. / Understand what diversity means to your community (or why diversity is valued?)/Discuss how to create greater opportunity and inclusiveness for everyone in your community. /Discuss what ‘home’ means to you & why you and others have made this community home.