Principals and assistant principals explore systematic bias and racism in schools and strategies to disrupt and dismantle the broken system.
The ESI Leadership Institute, a four-part collaborative, cohort-based series, brings together principals and assistant principals to explore systematic bias and racism in schools and what building leaders can do to disrupt and dismantle the broken system. Administrators and leaders from over 30 schools have come together to learn how to create a road map towards an equity-driven school community using data and guided by a root cause analysis process.
President Obama called education and education equality the civil rights issue of our time. More recently, NYC Schools Chancellor Fariña said, “…I strongly believe that as New York City educators and parents, we have a moral obligation to address the difficult questions about race, violence, and guns, and to engage students in the critical work of healing our country. We must not avoid these tough conversations — they are necessary if we hope to build a just society for all.” Indeed, national and local statistics confirm that the New York City school system is failing many of our children, especially young men of color, and over the past several years the work of the Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) has been deliberately focused on addressing and reversing this trend.
The anchor text used for the series is Solving Disproportionality and Achieving Equity: A Leader’s Guide to Using Data to Change Hearts and Minds by Dr. Eddie Fergus from NYU. Dr. Fergus, who facilitates the sessions, is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University. His current work is on the intersection of educational policy and outcomes, with a specific focus on black and Latino boys’ academic and social engagement outcomes, disproportionality in special education and suspensions, and school climate conditions. Previously he served as Deputy Director of the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (Metro Center) with Pedro Noguera.
Through dynamic conversation, constructive working groups, and customized data portfolios, participants learn how to craft action plans to enact and to restructure policies, procedures, and practices in their respective school communities.