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In this article, we argue that ESSA provides a unique policy window for district-level leaders to advance an equity agenda by working closely with local community advocates.
This study focuses on "community advocacy committed to expanding educational equity and opportunity for underserved Black, Latinx, and English learner students. Guided by community equity literacy as an organizing framework grounded in the literature on school–community relations, partnerships, and collaboration, we find that community advocates, who in some cases became school board members, identified educational inequities through various forms of knowledge, and then took deliberate actions to dismantle inequities in their respective school districts(Sampson and Horsford, 2017, p.725)."
WHY ESSA?
"In the case of American education, the violation of these equal protections for racial, ethnic, or religious minorities by states and local school boards have compelled civil rights groups and community advocates to seek support from both the federal government and the courts to advance an ongoing struggle for educational equality, opportunity, and equity (Cross, 2004; Hochschild, 2005; Maeroff, 2010; Wilson & Horsford, 2013 in Sampson and Horsford, 2017, p.726)."
The Every Student Succeeds Act marks a dramatic shift in federal education policy when compared to its predecessor, No Child Left Behind, and the original authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. Its focus on limiting the federal government’s role in education and granting increased powers to states and local communities provides a unique opportunity for district leaders to work with community advocates in charting new visions for their school systems in ways that were not supported or fostered under NCLB.
Research Questions
(1) What does community advocacy and education leadership look like among community advocates in culturally diverse school districts in the U.S. Mountain West?
(2) How might community advocacy, in these contexts, inform the work of school district leaders under ESSA?
Findings
"We found that community advocates used knowledge stemming from district data, program elimination, restrictive policy requirements, and school observations to identify educational inequities (Sampson and Horsford, 2017, p.726)."
In response to knowledge about educational inequities, the actions of community advocates included influencing positions of authority and applying federal and legal pressures to school districts (Sampson and Horsford, 2017, p.726)."
Interestingly, we find that some school board members play a dual role as community advocates prior to and during their tenure as official school district leaders (Sampson and Horsford, 2017, p.726)."
Sampson and Horsford's (2017) CEL’s emphasis on knowledge and actions and the framework’s five components:
(1) understanding community history
(2) working from asset- and structural-based perspectives about community
(3) recognizing and leveraging community assets
(4) navigating the community power structure (run for school board, support school those running, demand for new positions)
(5) advocating for community and school equity
Sampson and Horsford's (2017) 11 recommendations for how district-level leaders might leverage community advocacy and education leadership at the local level under ESSA (p.745)
1. Invite community advocates to substantially participate on executive level, district wide committees.
2. Be transparent with community advocates and provide various levels of dis aggregated data.
3. Collaborate with community advocates to lobby state policymakers in support of resources and programs that are proven useful in addressing educational inequities.
4. Welcome community advocates to observe schools and classes.
5. Provide space and time to discuss observations in relation to educational equity.
6. Invite community advocates to participate in hiring decisions.
7. Include community engagement expectations within position descriptions.
8. Develop structures and opportunities to help community advocates become school board members.
9. Recruit superintendent candidates that are culturally responsive and competent in relation to the district wide community.
10. In addition to #8, develop structures and systems that encourage school board members to represent and address community advocates’ concerns in relation to educational equity.
11. Develop a formal and transparent mechanism for community advocates to share their concerns regarding educational inequities at the district level and receive substantial and timely responses
Reaction
This article was a practical way for community advocates to see what steps could be taken for them to advocate in the community. Six recommendations are given by the researchers. Additionally, the researchers give eleven recommendations for how district leaders might "leverage community advocacy and education leadership at the local level under ESSA (p.745)." The one that stood out to me most was that school boards should reflect the people that they represent. School boards have a lot of power to make decisions that will impact students, teachers, families, administrators, and many other stakeholders. In the study, there were community advocates that were representative of the community. As a result, they understood the community more. They also were passionate about what was going on. One of the community advocates ended up becoming school board members. This is in line with one of the five components of CEL's which is to navigate the community power structure. The practical recommendations in this study were very informative.
We hear things like "we want to empower students, families, and communities" but then we see those same people trying to take the power back from those people. That is why, as suggested in the article, we need people that are representative of the people that they serve on boards. In one of my past courses, one of the assignments was for us to go to school board meetings and observe the mannerisms of the board. There were other things that we had to collect as well. I attended a school board meeting, spoke with most of the people on the board, and had a long conversation with the superintendent. It was an eye-opening experience for me that ignited a fire. I am now very involved in learning more about school board politics. This also makes more apt to make sure that I support those that I believe in are running to be on the school board.
Queshonda J. Kudaisi
References
Sampson, C., & Horsford, S. D. (2017). Putting the public back in public education: (Links to an external site.) Community advocacy and education leadership under the Every Student Succeeds Act (Links to an external site.). Journal of School Leadership, 27(5), 725–754.