Equity Visits: A New Approach to Supporting Equity-Focused School and District Leadership

Because equity and instruction are inextricably bound

Why are equity visits such a critical first step to increasing opportunity and access for our under-served students? Because they take instructional rounds to a new level, providing a powerful lens for investigating the intersections of equity and instruction. After all, how can we possibly deliver equitable learning experiences, opportunities, and outcomes for our students, without first pinpointing problems of practice?

That’s where Equity Visits will prove absolutely indispensable to district and school administrators. It details how to combine a strong focus on instruction with explicit, intentional efforts to address systemic inequities. Inside you’ll find

• A range of data collection activities and tools to target central issues of equity in your school
• Clear guidelines on how to investigate the ways instructional practices, structures, and beliefs lead to inequitable educational experiences—and how these are often masked in the day-to-day life of schools and districts
• A frank discussion of how to make race and racism an explicit part of investigating and addressing educational inequities
• Voices of school and district leaders who have taken crucial first steps to become “equity warriors”
• Recommendations on how to develop policies, initiatives, and practices to confront those inequities

Few dispute that instructional improvement must be a central focus of educational leadership, but for too long achieving educational equity has been absent from the conversation. Here is your opportunity to ensure equity occupy a central spot in data collection and analysis, and be explicitly discussed at all levels of your school or district organization. In short, essential reading and doing for all administrators!

Rachel Roegman is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research examines the support and development of equity-focused leaders. Her work has been influenced by her experiences as a middle school teacher in traditional and alternative schools in the San Francisco Unified School District, and her commitment to anti-racist, equity-focused practice.

David Allen is an Associate Professor of English Education at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York (CUNY). His research focuses on how groups collaborate and create together, in schools and other settings. His most recent books include Protocols in the Classroom: Tools to Help Students Read, Write, Think, & Collaborate (with Tina Blythe, Alan, Dichter, and Terra Lynch, Teachers College Press), Facilitating for Learning: Tools for Teacher Groups of All Kinds (with Tina Blythe, Teachers College Press) and Powerful Teacher Learning: What the Theatre Arts Teach about Collaboration (Rowman & Littlefield Education).

Larry Leverett is one of the co-founders of NJNS and the former Executive Director of the Panasonic Foundation, a corporate foundation with a mission of partnering with public school systems and their communities to break the links between race, poverty, and educational outcomes so that all students are improving academically and socially. Prior to that, he was a school superintendent in Greenwich, Connecticut and Plainfield, New Jersey. Dr. Leverett is also a former district superintendent in Englewood, New Jersey, Plainfield, New Jersey, and Greenwich, Connecticut.

Scott Thompson is one of the co-founders of NJNS and served as Assistant Executive Director of the Panasonic Foundation for 22 years. His publications include Leading from the Eye of the Storm: Spirituality and Public School Improvement (Roman & Littlefield Education) and numerous chapters, articles, and reviews. Prior to joining Panasonic Foundation, Thompson was Director of Dissemination and Project Development at the Institute for Responsive Education, where he edited the national journal, New Schools, New Communities, published in collaboration with Corwin Press.

Thomas Hatch (@tch960) is a Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and Director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST). His research includes studies of school improvement efforts at the school, district, and national levels. His latest book, The Education We Need for a Future We Can’t Predict (Corwin, 2021), focuses on efforts to create more powerful learning experiences both inside and outside schools in developed and developing contexts. He is also the founder and managing editor of internationalednews.com. He previously served as a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.  His other books include Managing to Change: How Schools can Survive (and Sometimes Thrive) in Turbulent Times (Teachers College Press, 2009); Into the Classroom: Developing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Teachers College Press, 2005); and School Reform Behind the Scenes (Teachers College Press, 1999). Learn more about Tom and keep up with his latest blog posts at thomashatch.org.