Excellence Through Equity: Five Principles of Courageous Leadership to Guide Achievement for Every Student

by Alan M. Blankstein, Pedro Noguera, Lorena Kelly

Overview

Excellence Through Equity is an inspiring look at how real-world educators are creating schools where all students are able to thrive. In these schools, educators understand that equity is not about treating all children the same. They are deeply committed to ensuring that each student receives what he or she individually needs to develop their full potential—and succeed. To help educators with what can at times be a difficult and challenging journey, Blankstein and Noguera frame the book with five guiding principles of Courageous Leadership:

* Getting to your core
* Making organizational meaning
* Ensuring constancy and consistency of purpose
* Facing the facts and your fears
* Building sustainable relationships

They further emphasize that the practices are grounded in three important areas of research that are too often disregarded: (1) child development, (2) neuroscience, and (3) environmental influences on child development and learning.

You’ll hear from Carol Corbett Burris, Michael Fullan, Marcus J. Newsome, Paul Reville, Susan Szachowicz, and other bold practitioners and visionary thinkers who share compelling and actionable ideas, strategies, and experiences for closing the achievement gap in your classrooms and school.

Ensuring that all students receive an education that cultivates their talents and potential is in all our common interest. As Andy Hargreaves writes in the coda: “The opportunity for all Americans is to articulate and believe in an inspiring vision of educational change that is about what the next generation of America and Americans should become, not about a target or ranking that the nation should attain."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416622574
Publisher:	Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Publication date:	02/26/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Award-winning author and educational leader Alan M. Blankstein served for 25 years as presi-dent of the HOPE Foundation, which he founded and whose honorary chair is Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. A former high-risk youth, Alan began his career in education as a music teacher. He worked for Phi Delta Kappa, March of Dimes, and Solution Tree, which he founded in 1987 and directed for 12 years while launching Professional Learning Communities beginning in the late 1980s. He is the author of the best-selling book Failure Is Not an Option®: Six Principles That Guide Student Achievement in High-Performing Schools, which received the Book of the Year award from Learning Forward. Alan is senior editor, lead contributor, and/or author of 18 books. He has also authored some 20 articles in publications includ¬ing Education Week, Educational Leadership, The Principal, and Executive Educator. Alan has provided keynote presentations and workshops for virtually every major U.S. education organization and throughout the United Kingdom, Africa, and the Middle East. Alan has served on the Harvard International Principals Center’s advisory board and the Jewish Child Care Agency, where he once was a youth in residence. Pedro Noguera is a Distinguished Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA. His research focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions, as well as by demographic trends in local, regional and global contexts. He is the author of eleven books and over 200 articles and monographs. He serves on the boards of numerous national and local organizations and appears as a regular commentator on educational issues on CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and other national news outlets. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA he served as a tenured professor and holder of endowed chairs at New York University (2003–2015), Harvard University (2000–2003), and the University of California, Berkeley (1990–2000). From 2009–2012 he served as a Trustee for the State University of New York (SUNY) as an appointee of the Governor. In 2014 he was elected to the National Academy of Education. Noguera recently received awards from the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences, from the National Association of Secondary Principals, and from the McSilver Institute at NYU for his research and advocacy efforts aimed at fighting poverty. Lorena Kelly is an assistant principal in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She began her career in education as an elementary teacher. After 9 years of teaching, she became an instructional specialist. Her interest in cur¬riculum, specifically literacy, led to a position as a lan¬guage arts curriculum coordinator. She used this opportunity to work with colleagues and partners to enhance learning for all students.

Table of Contents

Part I. For Every Student
Introduction: Achieving Excellence Through Equity for Every Student - Alan M. Blankstein and Pedro Noguera
Chapter 1. Brockton High School, Brockton, Massachusetts - Susan Szachowicz
Chapter 2. The Path to Equity: Whole System Change - Michael Fullan
Part II. Getting to Your Core
Chapter 3. Building a School of Opportunity Begins With Detracking - Carol Corbett Burris
Chapter 4. The Voices and Hearts of Youth: Transformative Power of Equity in Action - Linda Harper
Chapter 5. Empowering Students and Teachers Through Performance-Based Assessment - Avram Barlowe and Ann Cook
Part III. Making Organizational Meaning
Chapter 6. Human Capital as a Lever for Districtwide Change - Ann Blakeney Clark
Chapter 7. Personalized Learning - Allison Zmuda
Chapter 8. Who Wants a Standardized Child Anyway? Treat Everyone the Same—Differently - Dennis Littky
Chapter 9. Equitable Ways to Teach Science to Emergent Bilinguals and Immigrant Youth - Estrella Olivares-Orellana
Part IV. Ensuring Constancy and Consistency of Purpose
Chapter 10. The Journey Toward Equity and Excellence: The Massachusetts Experience - Paul Reville
Part V. Facing the Facts and Your Fears
Chapter 11. Focusing on Equity Propelled Us From Good to Great: Abington School District’s Opportunity to Learn Initiative - Amy F. Sichel and Ann H. Bacon
Chapter 12. Equity and Achievement in the Elementary School: How We Redesigned Our Math Instruction to Increase Achievement for Every Child - Darlene Berg
Part VI. Building Sustainable Relationships
Chapter 13. A Journey Toward Equity and Excellence for All Students in Chesterfield - Marcus J. Newsome
Chapter 14. Equity Through Expanded Learning Time - Lucy N. Friedman and Saskia Traill
Part VII. Coda
Chapter 15. The Iniquity of Inequity: And Some International Clues About Ways to Address It - Andy Hargreaves

What People are Saying About This

Brenda Yoho

Education is not something we do to children; it is something we do with children. Children are the travelers on an educational journey. We are the tour guides. Each traveler comes with a different set of luggage and as a tour guide we need to help provide them with the best accommodations, modifications and enrichments to help them maximize their journey. As they send out their postcards, we want to make sure each is full of equal opportunities! You see these are our future tour guides and they will design future destinations for the travelers who come.

Daniel A. Domenech

Equity is not ensuring that all children receive the same thing, but ensuring that every child gets what he or she needs in order to succeed. Pedro Noguera and Alan Blankstein provide examples of how courageous Americans are taking this charge head on by illustrating how excellence through equity can be achieved. To ignore this issue means to undermine the future of our children. This book is a must-read for teachers, principals, administrators, policy and business leaders, and parents or anyone interested in becoming champions for children and strengthening our nation s public education agenda.

Rosa Aronson

Amidst the confusion created by a highly polarized country, sound educational policies and practices have become as uncommon as bipartisanship. In the cacophony that marks the current education debates, Noguera and Blankstein demonstrate that there need not be a choice between excellence and equity but that the two are complementary and necessary. Their stories of school transformation told by teachers and other leaders are compelling and show us the way to a new paradigm.

Editorial Reviews

This book comes at a time when we are experiencing unprecedented inequality throughout American society and, in particular, in education. The recommendations in this book, if implemented at the state, federal and school district level, could change the trajectory in which we are now heading that threatens to create a social tsunami that will impacts the lives of every citizen in America.”

Bolgen Vargas

“This book provides timely insights and powerful examples that educational equity and excellence is necessary and possible. In addition, the stories of courageous leadership and persistence amplify what is required from each of us to achieve sustainable and lasting change in public education.”

Victor Cary

The twin goals of equity and excellence have been illusive in schools serving children of color, immigrant children, poor children, and children whose first language is other than English. Illusive not because they are unattainable but because we have lacked the political will to provide the necessary resources and to recognize the many talents and cultural 'funds of knowledge' students bring from their homes and communities. This volume is filled with "existence proofs" that demonstrate that some dedicated teachers, principals, and communities have (and continue to) meet those goals. This book gives new (and certainly less punitive and strident) meaning to the notion of "no excuses." It is a must read.

Gloria Ladson-Billings

Education is not something we do to children; it is something we do with children. Children are the travelers on an educational journey. We are the tour guides. Each traveler comes with a different set of luggage and as a tour guide we need to help provide them with the best accommodations, modifications and enrichments to help them maximize their journey. As they send out their postcards, we want to make sure each is full of equal opportunities! You see these are our future tour guides and they will design future destinations for the travelers who come.”

Brenda Yoho

Pedro Noguera’s and Alan Blankstein’s book should be on the shelf of every school leader and community member who is committed to providing exceptional educational opportunities for all. Excellence through Equity is a well written combination of research, philosophical approaches, and practical effective implementations.”

Luvelle Brown

Excellence through Equity is an exemplary look at how educators across the country are tackling today’s issue of equity to ensure all students not only have the opportunity to learn but excel. A great read for all those interested in providing the best possible education to all students!”

Greg Wolcott

In the United States, as population decreases and the percentage of poverty levels of children increases, it is critical that policy maker, schools, and communities galvanize their work toward equitable educational outcomes for our children. This book provides a range of perspectives that will inform the work and inspire courage in those that can make it happen.”

Merrianne Dyer

Equity is not ensuring that all children receive the same thing, but ensuring that every child gets what he or she needs in order to succeed. Pedro Noguera and Alan Blankstein provide examples of how courageous Americans are taking this charge head on by illustrating how excellence through equity can be achieved. To ignore this issue means to undermine the future of our children. This book is a must-read for teachers, principals, administrators, policy and business leaders and parents—or anyone interested in becoming champions for children and strengthening our nation’s public education agenda.”

Daniel A. Domenech

Amidst the confusion created by a highly polarized country, sound educational policies and practices have become as uncommon as bipartisanship. In the cacophony that marks the current education debates, Noguera and Blankstein demonstrate that there need not be a choice between excellence and equity but that the two are complementary and necessary. Their stories of school transformation told by teachers and other leaders are compelling and show us the way to a new paradigm.”

Rosa Aronson

A movement is born out of the convergence of dire conditions, a powerful idea, and people committed to carrying out that idea.
This landmark (work) by Alan M. Blankstein and Pedro Noguera, may be a catalyst to such a movement.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate