1. Identify “20 Things I Will Do”
  2. Begin Having Courageous Conversations
  3. Develop Your Capacity to Lead for Equity
  4. Build Your Community’s Problem-Solving Capacity
  5. Explore the Meaning of Equity

1. Identify “20 Things I Will Do”

EdChange is a team of passionate, experienced, established educators dedicated to equity, diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice. The EdChange staff develops resources, workshops, and projects that contribute to progressive change change in ourselves, our schools, and our society.

EdChange founder Paul Gorski’s “20 (Self) Critical Things I Will Do to Be a More Equitable Educator” offers thought-provoking challenges for every educator to commit to in the service of more equitable schools and learning opportunities.

Click here to find this piece, as well as numerous other valuable resources from EdChange.

2. Begin Having Courageous Conversations

“Most educators inherently believe that racism is morally wrong. The challenge is to advance that moral position into real, comprehensive, cognitive, and intellectual foundations of understanding that will allow us to challenge racism in our everyday personal interactions and professional practices.”

That is the charge Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton take on in Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, a book divided into three parts reflecting the three essential characteristics of anti-racist leadership: Passion, Practice, and Persistence.”

Listen to “A Framework for Conversations About Race in Schools” by Nimah Gobir on KQED here.

To order the book, click here.

3. Develop Your Capacity to Lead for Equity

The National Equity Project (NEP) conducts highly regarded professional development institutes that provide focused attention to the intellectual, strategic, and social-emotional challenges involved in making a leadership commitment to educational equity.

NEP trainings have guided hundreds of educators to examine the intellectual and social-emotional challenges of educational equity work.

To learn more about NEP Trainings, click here.

4. Build Your Community’s Problem-Solving Capacity

Bringing people together to effect change is one of the most important — and most misunderstood — elements of problem-solving in a democracy. Because change doesn’t define or ‘sell’ itself, organizing is crucial for motivating change, creating capacity to pursue it, and building constituencies that will help see it through.

There are, however, a number of myths about organizing. Some confuse it with tactics of pressure politics, or with mere program ‘outreach’ by service providers. Others think it’s only important at the ‘grassroots’ in a community and not among those parties with significant influence and/or resources.

The ‘Organizing Stakeholders’ tool was designed to debunk those myths and show how to plan or support organizing that makes a difference.

To download the Organizing Stakeholders tool and find other resources, guides, networks and training at Community Problem-Solving, click here.

5. Explore the Meaning of Equity

“What is equity? What does it mean to work for equity in schools? What does it mean to make equity central in our work as teacher-researchers?”

In the book Working Toward Equity, educators can explore these and other questions via thirteen narratives told by a broad spectrum of educators, who chronicle their work in classrooms, schools, districts, and professional development organizations.

To download the entire book, or certain sections, click here.