There is no magic bullet for enhancing equity in education. The K-12 system sits at the center of American culture, systems, and structures. It is complicated. But that complexity does not need to paralyze action. In this section, we offer concrete ideas for enhancing equity in education as well as an analysis of progress.

We invite you to help us deepen, extend, and share this understanding. And if you are interested in bringing these ideas, or others, to life and require implementation support, we would be delighted to help.

Internal

The natural inclination of white dominant culture is to identify goals, create a project plan, execute the project plan, and declare, “voilà, mission accomplished!”

But this doesn’t work in the equity space. It doesn’t work because, as Peter Drucker so aptly put it, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” When we talk about the work of equity in education, we need to think about how the people within the education system behave, and the way they behave is deeply influenced by an American culture that teaches bias.

So how do we address bias so the wonderful work we do on systems and structures succeeds? The answer is in story telling.

External

Systems and structures are challenging to change, and reinforce cultural norms. They cannot be ignored or any progress making cultural shifts will backslide.

When it comes to equity work, however, we can not seek to shift systems and structures from the top down. We need to enable communities to help lead the change. Those with power and influence need to partner with communities, offering the lessons learned on what types of systems and structures work, and where they fail.

So what does it look like to mobilize communities to lead meaningful change? The answer is in how we approach the work and enabling it with technology.