Leading for Equity | The Importance of an Equity Mindset
School and district leaders can lead for equity with intention and success if they define, communicate and cultivate equity. This intellectual work can serve to undergird the pedagogical and organizational practices that exist and/or need to be in place to accelerate the achievement of students who need the most and the best.
Define
Equity is one of those words that is frequently used but not collectively defined by a community of practitioners. Leaders committed to equity should ensure that a definition of equity exists and is communicated to their organization and stakeholders. Any definition of equity should always include a focus on outcomes, distinguish between the words equity and equality and not confuse fairness with what is needed to ensure every students’ success. While a definition of equity is essential, in order for equity to be realized, an equity mindset is also essential. With an equity mindset, educators will be able to reject deficit practice, grasp the urgency of the work to educate students of color and students of poverty and work together to ensure each student’s school success.
Communicate
Leaders have the opportunity to communicate the importance of an equity mindset to ensure that all stakeholders can work together to support the dramatic improvement of students of color, students whose lives are affected by concentrated poverty and any student who needs excellent education in order to survive in school and in life. Many have not been privy to the knowledge base on the role that race, culture, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, immigration status, native language, disability status, and implicit bias play on beliefs, values, and actions and on the importance of affirming diversity. The intended result of an equity mind-set are actions to support the right educational opportunities for all students to ensure that each student gets what he, she, or they need to be successful in school, college, and life.
Leaders can take advantage of opportunities such as staff meetings, weekly memos and professional development workshops to communicate their own reflections on how they are cultivating the development of their own equity mindset and how they are translating their thoughts into leadership actions to promote equity.
Cultivate
Leaders also have the opportunity to create an empowering culture of learning to cultivate an equity mindset and corresponding practices. An empowering culture of professional learning is needed to support educators in the development of an equity mindset and their subsequent ability to develop practices that will lead to equitable student outcomes. An empowering culture of learning can support the cultivation of an equity mindset by providing safe to fail ongoing opportunities for educators to:
Learn about implicit bias, racism, and equity issues and explore the connections to schooling
Reflect on their own school experience and fill in gaps learning
Collaborate with their colleagues to plan culturally relevant and rigorous student learning experiences
Gain support and the will to do whatever is necessary to change the trajectory of poor student outcomes.
Being intentional about a focus on equity and working to cultivate an equity mindset is critical work for school leadership as our country prepares to enter 2019 amidst heightened challenges related to race, diversity, immigration, poverty. Schools have the opportunity to change minds. Leaders have the opportunity to cultivate the equity mindset that will enable this to happen.
Contact ATAPE Group so we can support you as you lead for equity.