Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation

by Shane Safir, Jamila Dugan

Overview

Radically reimagine our ways of being, learning, and doing

Education can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead of the focus being on “fixing” and “filling” academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up—with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing.

By breaking down street data fundamentals: what it is, how to gather it, and how it can complement other forms of data to guide a school or district’s equity journey, Safir and Dugan offer an actionable framework for school transformation. Written for educators and policymakers, this book

· Offers fresh ideas and innovative tools to apply immediately

· Provides an asset-based model to help educators look for what’s right in our students and communities instead of seeking what’s wrong

· Explores a different application of data, from its capacity to help us diagnose root causes of inequity, to its potential to transform learning, and its power to reshape adult culture

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781071812716
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	03/23/2021
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	25,344
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Shane Safir has worked at every level of the education system for the past 25 years, with an unwavering commitment to racial justice and deep learning. After teaching in San Francisco and Oakland, California and engaging in community organizing to launch a new public high school, Shane became the founding principal of June Jordan School for Equity (JJSE), an innovative national model identified by scholar and policy leader Linda Darling-Hammond as having “beaten the odds in supporting the success of low-income students of color.” For over a decade, Shane has provided equity-centered leadership coaching, systems transformation support, and professional learning for schools, districts, and organizations across the U.S. and Canada. She writes for Edutopia, Ed Week, Educational Leadership magazine and is the author of The Listening Leader: Creating the Conditions for Equitable School Transformation (Jossey-Bass: 2017). Shane is thrilled to co-author this book with Dr. Jamila Dugan, a long-time collaborator who conducted foundational research for The Listening Leader and facilitates equity workshops with Shane, as well as Carrie Wilson, a colleague whose groundbreaking program for teacher-driven inquiry centers street data in the pursuit of equity.

Jamila Dugan is a leadership coach, learning facilitator, and researcher. She began her career as a teacher in Washington D.C., successfully supporting her school to implement an International Baccalaureate program. After being nominated for Teacher of the Year, she later served as a coach for new teachers in Oakland, California. As a school administrator, Jamila championed equity-centered student services, parent empowerment, and co-led the development of the first public Mandarin immersion middle school in the Bay Area. Jamila and Shane began their work together 7 years ago during the development of The Listening Leader for which Jamila acted as the primary researcher. Jamila currently serves as an equity-centered leadership development coach across all sectors including non-profits, public school districts, charter networks, parochial, and private schools. She is an avid supporter of dual language learning, serving on the boards of Independence Charter Spanish Immersion School in Philadelphia and Parents of African American Students Studying Chinese (PAASSC) in the Bay Area. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Fresno State University, a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education from George Mason University, and a doctorate in Education Leadership for Equity from University of California, Berkeley. Jamila is also a loving wife and the mother of three amazing children who remain her constant inspiration for her work.

Table of Contents

Foreword Christopher Emdin xi

Acknowledgments xv

About the Authors xxi

Prologue: Data in a Time of Pandemic 1

Part 1 Why Street Data, Why Now?

Chapter 1 Leading for Equity: Another World is Possible 7

Guiding Principle: Reimagine our ways of knowing and learning.

Core Stance: Holism

Chapter 2 No Shortcut: Avoiding Equity Traps and Tropes, by Dr. Jamila Dugan 25

Guiding Principle: See the barriers; imagine what is possible.

Core Stance: Awareness

Part II Choose the Margins

Chapter 3 Flip the Dashboard: Street Data Drives Equity 49

Guiding Principle: Center voices from the margins.

Core Stance: Antiracism

Chapter 4 Pound the Pavement: Digging Into the Levels of Data 69

Guiding Principle: Seek root causes over quick fixes.

Core Stance: Deep Listening

Part III Deepen the Learning

Chapter 5 Redefine "Success": Street Data and the Pedagogy of Voice 97

Guiding Principle: Equity work is first and foremost pedagogical.

Core Stance: Agency

Chapter 6 Build Coherence: Focus, Holism, and Well-Being 121

Guiding Principle: Less is more; focus is everything.

Core Stance: Coherence

Chapter 7 Make Learning Public: Valuing Teacher Voices, by Carrie Wilson 147

Guiding Principle: Mobilize a pedagogy of voice for educators.

Core Stance: Symmetry

Part IV Transform the Culture

Chapter 8 Embrace Vulnerability: Moving Through Street Data Cycles 169

Guiding Principle: Break the cycle of shame.

Core Stance: Vulnerability

Chapter 9 Calling Folks In and Up to Equity: Street-Level Conversations 197

Guiding Principle: Every moment is an equity moment.

Core Stance: Warm Demander

Epilogue: The Journey Toward Liberation 215

Appendices 219

Glossary 229

Bibliography 237

Index 243

Editorial Reviews

"Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan have given us a vivid and immensely readable account of what public education could and should be. Rather than quick fixes, the book is rich with real-life examples and immediately actionable equity practices that educators and leaders can use to tackle root causes. The authors have also issued an unspoken but clear challenge to all of us who care about children's learning and development: 'What if policy decisions were anchored in the lived experiences of students, their families, and their educators?' Their call to action is clear and urgent: we must reverse-engineer and radically reimagine our resources, policies, and practices to support the broad conditions in which students can authentically thrive, and most particularly students who are the most marginalized by the current system. The vision of educational justice laid out in the book will not be more widely practiced if we simply rely on individual teachers and principals to push forward alone into the headwinds. It must be supported at systems and state levels, so that it becomes the rule and not the exception. "

Sophie Fanelli

"Street Data gives us a vibrant picture of what it means to do school when we authentically center our students. Shane and Jamila provide inspiration and clear examples of how we can humanize our classrooms and create a more just education system. Critically for change agents, we also find practical advice for supporting adults across the system as they begin to shift their approach to a new normal that builds with and for students. There is no doubt that we need a new way forward and Street Data is a trusted map for charting a course for maximum impact. "

Shanna Peeples

"For far too long, education leaders have implemented reform strategies without engaging and centering those most impacted – the students. Shane Safir provides an energizing, anti-racist, actionable framework that centers the voices of the most marginalized students as the experts and co-conspirators that we need to create an education system worthy of their brilliance. Read this, share it, and be a part of ushering in this 'new normal' of street-level data to unlock racial justice in our schools. "

Taryn Ishida

"Street Data issues an urgent, timely provocation to listen to, honor, and be informed by the experiences, wisdom, fears, and aspirations of children and families who have been forced to the margins by our schools and institutions. Rich with stories that affirm our shared humanity and connectedness, Safir and Dugan offer a humanistic approach and practical guidance for embedding love, equity, curiosity, and courage in our efforts to manifest learning spaces where every young person learns, develops, and thrives.

"Safir and Dugan call on us to free ourselves from old constructs about data for improvement that are rooted in Whiteness as normative and, instead, model ways to integrate concepts of wholeness, justice, deep culture, personal mastery, and agency into our school transformation efforts. This book is an important contribution to all of us who are working to create a world that works for all of us. "

La Shawn Routé Chatmon

"In this absolutely path-breaking book, Shane Safir uses the concept of 'street data' as an entry point to a fundamentally different paradigm for schooling. Foregrounding listening, understanding, and loving over counting, measuring, and classifying, Street Data illustrates what it would truly mean to develop a humanizing and liberating approach to school transformation. Startlingly fresh in its prose, clear in its convictions, and moving effortlessly between theory and practice, we can only hope Street Data will mark the beginning of a new and different era for American education. A spectacular book! "

Jal Mehta

"Street Data calls upon readers to 'flip the dashboard' from a focus on big data to a focus on the voices at the margins – those learners and their families who have been most affected by deep-rooted systemic inequities. When we listen closely to these voices with curiosity, courage, and humility, we gain a greater understanding of the meaning and root causes of these inequities, as well as how they can be addressed in ways that transform and heal. Policymakers and educators at every level of the system need this book to forge a path to genuine equity. "

Linda Darling-Hammond

"With Street Data, Shane and Jamila have built a conversation more than a framework, wherein students, their communities, teachers, leaders and systems are interconnected parts of a family unit. As a Professor and Psychologist, I found myself drawn to the work’s human and family centered focus. Throughout the work, these are linked to an emphasis on building approaches to the art of teaching grounded in listening, making and holding room for all members of the learning family, and setting goals and evolving approaches that begin with the student as their core. Shane and Jamila are engaging us all in a critically important conversation, where the data we gather and share around learning spaces is shaped and centered on the voices and beings of students. It is family systems centered teaching and learning. It is holistic, and it is necessary."

Napoleon Wells

"Old systems are crumbling before our eyes as new ones are being built. Street Data offers key insights about how to transform data and explore indigenous knowledge creation for a new world. Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan give us new ways to analyze, diagnosis, and assess everything from student learning to district improvement to policy. This book is a must read for researchers and practitioners searching for a fresh and deeply authentic model for school transformation."

Shawn Ginwright

"Street Data issues an urgent, timely provocation to listen to, honor, and be informed by the experiences, wisdom, fears, and aspirations of children and families who have been forced to the margins by our schools and institutions. Rich with stories that affirm our shared humanity and connectedness, Safir and Dugan offer a humanistic approach and practical guidance for embedding love, equity, curiosity, and courage in our efforts to manifest learning spaces where every young person learns, develops, and thrives.

"Safir and Dugan call on us to free ourselves from old constructs about data for improvement that are rooted in Whiteness as normative and, instead, model ways to integrate concepts of wholeness, justice, deep culture, personal mastery, and agency into our school transformation efforts. This book is an important contribution to all of us who are working to create a world that works for all of us."

LaShawn Routé Chatmon

"Street Data issues an urgent, timely provocation to listen to, honor, and be informed by the experiences, wisdom, fears, and aspirations of children and families who have been forced to the margins by our schools and institutions. Rich with stories that affirm our shared humanity and connectedness, Safir and Dugan offer a humanistic approach and practical guidance for embedding love, equity, curiosity, and courage in our efforts to manifest learning spaces where every young person learns, develops, and thrives.



"Safir and Dugan call on us to free ourselves from old constructs about data for improvement that are rooted in Whiteness as normative and, instead, model ways to integrate concepts of wholeness, justice, deep culture, personal mastery, and agency into our school transformation efforts. This book is an important contribution to all of us who are working to create a world that works for all of us. "

La Shawn Routé Chatmon