 Good morning or afternoon depending on where you are joining us from my name is Maria Heiler and I'm the deputy director of the Washington DC office and a senior researcher for the Learning Policy Institute. A nonprofit nonpartisan organization committed to advancing evidence based policies that support equitable and empowering learning for each and every child. Welcome to our virtual briefing state and federal opportunities to support more diverse and inclusive school systems. I'd like to let the audience know that this webinar is being recorded. A video recording will be emailed to you in a few days and the slides are currently available as a link in the chat box. I'd like to recognize and thank the event co-sponsor, the National Coalition on School Diversity, and the offices of Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut and Representative Marsha Fudge from the 11th district in Ohio, who will hear from shortly. We're going to begin with some framing remarks from LPI's president and CEO, Dr. Linda Darling Hammond. Thank you so much, Maria. And thanks as well to Jessica Kardashian and the entire LPI team that has organized this briefing. It does take a village, as well as to Senator Murphy and Congresswoman Fudge, whose work we will be discussing today and my good friends Gloria Letts and Billings and Carlos Cortez and Eric Gordon who are brilliant leaders in this field, and we'll be speaking later. As you all know, today we are experiencing three crises, a public health crisis, an economic crisis, and a civil rights crisis that has been long in the making, and as a recurrent feature of the American landscape. All of these crises are manifesting in ways that illustrate the effects of systemic racism and inequality in this country. We also illuminate the great divide that characterizes America by race and class and by neighborhood. Communities of color and low income communities are hardest hit by both the health effects and the economic effects of this pandemic are long standing inequalities have grown and now create a chasm between the haves and the have nots. This is an experience of different children at this moment in different communities in some places where there is plenty of advantage. Kids and districts were all wired up with one to one laptops and high speed internet when the schools were closed. They have been at home and maybe squabbling over who gets you know access to which part of the house for their online learning. But basically in a safe space with all of the tools that they need, both as a family and as children to be able to both learn and engage in society in this moment and in other communities where there have been problems of the digital divide which still continue in many parts of the country, where many many children had no bandwidth, no high speed internet and no digital devices, where the health effects have meant that many families have lost have experienced illness where jobs have been lost where health care insecurity food insecurity housing insecurity, mean that children may be finding that they don't have places to live much less to study where homelessness is growing where schools are the source of food and where people are going to drop off spots to pick up their meals for the day and perhaps the evening and even the weekend. The experience has been dramatically more traumatic and predictive of a growing chasm in educational opportunity. The challenges that are exacerbated by the fact that inequitable school funding formulas often privileged the more privileged in at least 30 states where there is overall nationally a difference of about $1800 per pupil and spending for those districts serving predominantly white students and those serving mostly students of color. These under resourced schools that serve the highest need students also typically have inadequate resources, a revolving door of inexperienced teachers, the inability to offer a full rich curriculum crumbling facilities, especially in the growing partied schools with concentrated poverty and segregation and unequal funding have tended to go hand in hand for decades, something that was understood by Thurgood Marshall and others who brought the board Brown versus Board of Education litigation. And in fact, the suits leading up to that final decision, variously argued about the inequality and funding of schools serving different groups of students, and the segregation that accompanied those inequalities. And now we have seen that they were right that when districts and states in the federal government make significant investments in creating more diverse schools and inclusive learning experiences, a significant gains can be made. In the 1960s and 70s we saw rapid progress made on desegregation and school funding reforms, the federal government invested in schools at a much higher rate. It created many of the equity oriented federal programs we have today, and provided funding to districts to reduce segregation, the transportation supports magnet schools and other vehicles. And during that period of time the black white achievement gap declined by more than half in reading, and by more than a third in math and had we stayed on that trajectory. The achievement gap would have been closed by the year 2000. The effects were captured in a book by Rucker Johnson recently on major nationwide study entitled Children of the Dream, in which he found that black students who were able to be exposed to court order desegregation for at least five years experienced significant gains in achievement and graduation rates and increase in their wages and a big decline in annual poverty rates. Despite those gains, however, we were treated from these investments in the 1980s. As a result, black students are half as likely to be a majority white schools today, as they were 30 years ago, the same kind of segregation, as occurred for Latinx students, and more of these schools are under resourced. Today, the achievement gap is 30% larger than it was 30 years ago. As we'll hear more about our discussion today, the research on the benefits of integrated and culturally responsive education for students is well documented. These benefits include not only stronger academic achievement, but also greater cross cultural understanding reduced bias and prejudice stronger civic participation in a diverse global economy, among others. This is the time to recommit ourselves as a nation to advancing anti-racist policies that lead to a more just and inclusive nation. Every era of equity progress has come on the heels of great social upheaval when people of conscience joined together to confront injustice and inequality. These have come most powerfully in 30 year cycles, the 1870s ushered in reconstruction, the 1900s, early progressive changes for workers and schools, the 1930s brought FDR's new deal on the heels of the crash and the Great Depression, the 1960s ushered in the great society and the war on poverty, even as we were protesting and civil rights and against the Vietnam War. The early 1990s strengthened economic and educational equity, so that 30 year cycle brings us to 2020 and that moment is now with us again. Our nation's schools play a critical role in creating a more racially just and inclusive democracy, and we hope that our conversation today will surface specific policy actions that can be taken at the local, the state and the federal level to move us forward as a nation. And now it is my great honor and pleasure to introduce Senator Chris Murphy from the great state of Connecticut. Senator Murphy, it's great to see you. Thank you for joining us. He is a member of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, the Appropriations Committee as well and an eloquent and untiring voice justice and equality and education. Senator Murphy consistently puts forward research based policy ideas for supporting state and local efforts to ensure that all students have access to the resources and the supports they need to fully participate in a democratic and global society. And in Senator Murphy's home state of Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that the racial, ethnic and economic isolation in the city of Hartford violated the state's constitutional obligation to provide all children with racially integrated and equal educational opportunities and in response to that decision, the state and district took a number of measures that led to greater diversity, including an inter-district desegregation effort that proved highly successful. It's documented in an LPI report called Sharing the Wealth and recognizing that there is a federal role in supporting states and districts in this effort. Senator Murphy, along with Congresswoman Fudge, introduced the Strength and Diversity Act, which provides federal funds to support state and local efforts to create greater racial and socioeconomic diversity in our nation's public schools. That work is the topic of today's event. Senator Murphy, thank you so very much for joining this conversation. Great. Can you hear me okay? Yes. All right. Linda, great to see you. Thank you for inviting me both to LPI and to NCSD. I apologize. I'm going to be very brief because we have a pending vote on the Senate floor. I've got about two minutes left to make it, but I did want to be able to jump on and encourage you in this conversation. As Linda mentioned, for the last several years, I've been the proud cosponsor along with Representative Fudge of legislation that would authorize significant federal funding for voluntary school integration efforts, racial and economic integration efforts. And we hope that in the next Congress we can convince our colleagues in the new administration to take up this initiative, but we have understood from the beginning that what we are offering is a relative drop in the bucket. And that ultimately this is going to have to be a fairly massive combined state, local and federal effort to reverse a really disturbing trend line. I picked just up the last few minutes of your remarks, Linda, but you may have talked about the fact that while we're proud of chef in Connecticut and while we have made progress specifically through the build out of our magnet school system, the number of intensely segregated minority schools has doubled in the state of Connecticut since 1988. And while that sounds pretty bad, the number of intensely segregated schools nationally during that period of time has tripled. And so we are heading in the wrong direction rather than the right direction at the same moment when we have just reams of data to tell us that kids are better off if they are in environments where they get to know kids of different economic and racial backgrounds. As we have this sort of second civil rights movement that is building all across this country, we need to understand that if we aren't able to build empathy and understanding, if we are only able to teach white kids about what it's like to be black through instruction and teach black kids about what life is like in other neighborhoods, then we're losing. If you want to understand what it feels like to have police targeting you, then you need to have a black friend growing up. You need to go to school with students of color. A civil rights reckoning in this country demands a revolution of empathy. And that revolution of empathy can only happen if we desegregate our schools and our communities. So voluntary funding can help. But in the end, this has to be a massive effort in which we are changing our zoning laws. We are changing our housing laws. We are eliminating these school financing gaps that again in a state like mine are getting worse, not better. And well, this can happen through legislation. And I know you're going to talk about the ways in which we can push federal and state legislation to encourage more inclusive learning environments. We also need to recognize that there's a fundamental imbalance of political power right now and that we can have conversations all we want about what legislation is most important. But if we don't also do the hard political work of empowering communities of color, empowering students to speak for themselves, then none of this is possible. We've got a laundry list in Connecticut of bills that will create more integrated learning environments, but almost none of them can pass. Not because people in the state legislature don't know that the right thing to do, but because there is no political power to get it done. All of the power in Connecticut rests in the white suburbs. Very little of it rests in communities that care about civil rights, that care about this integration diversity agenda. And so that's my pitch is to work with those of us like myself and Representative Bush who want to deliver federal solutions, but to also not be afraid of getting into the political work here. I know it's not a topic for this call, but ultimately the only way to pass these measures is to provide that political power behind communities and behind agendas that right now significantly lack it. And I see that in a very real way on the ground in my state of Connecticut. So I'm going to run down and vote, but thank you so much for convening this conversation on increasing diversity, inclusivity in schools to LPI and CSP. Thanks for being such great partners to me and to my office. And of course, as you know, I sort of steal all this advocacy from my wife, Kathy, who works in and around this field and with many of you, so I should never fail to give her credit. If I sound like I know 5% of what you all know on this is because of her so have a great event. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being with us. And I'm going to hand it back to Maria Heiler our moderator. Thanks Maria. Thank you. Thank you Linda for your framing comments and we are so appreciative for Senator Murphy Murphy and his time in the efforts and especially around introducing the Strengthened Diversity Act. I would like to now welcome Ian Garrison from the Office of Congresswoman Marsha Fudge, who represents the 11th Congressional District of Ohio. Congresswoman Fudge is a member of the House Education and Labor Committee and the subcommittee on civil rights and human services. Congresswoman Fudge is a longstanding advocate for providing every child with actual access to a quality education from preschool through post secondary education programs and for protecting civil and human rights. Please join me in welcoming Ian Garrison who serves as Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislator Director for Representative Fudge to provide some remarks on behalf of the Congresswoman. Thank you for that introduction. Linda, thank you the Learning Policy Institute, the National Coalition on School Diversity for hosting today's webinar. I'd be remiss if I didn't give a special thanks and shout out to Cleveland Metropolitan School District Superintendent Eric Gordon for participating in today's webinar. Congresswoman Fudge, thanks you all for the work that you do to address the issue of school diversity in her home in her home district and throughout the country. Congresswoman Fudge, she typically begins any remarks on this issue by making the point that racial segregation and public education has been illegal for more than 66 years in the United States but still American public schools are more segregated than any time since the 1960s. In addition to the research that Ms. Darling Hammond articulated, research also tells us that school desegregation leads to cross racial friendships and a decline in stereotyping allowing students to better navigate an increasingly diverse society and preparing them for real world experiences. The Congresswoman Fudge has worked on school diversity legislation since 2016. The Strength and Diversity Act as Senator Murphy said in his remarks, it directly addresses inequities in public education by authorizing funding to support local education leaders in their efforts to lessen racial and socio economic isolation and public schools. The bill provides support for school districts that are developing or expanding or implementing school diversity initiatives. Now, one point that I think we haven't made just yet and I'm sure this was something that that may be discussed later on in the webinars that this is practically the same policy. As the Obama administration sought to pursue in 2016 with its opening doors expanding opportunities program. That program provided $12 million to help school districts increase school diversity. Nearly 30 school districts from 22 states in the District of Columbia applied for the Obama era grants. But the program was eliminated by the current administration in 2017. Like Senator Murphy said in his remarks which I thought were great. Our nation is experiencing a racial reckoning and Congresswoman Fudge is hopeful. Congress will push the house past Strength and Diversity Act, either this year or next Congress across the finish line, so that we can start to put an end to racial isolation and segregation in our nation schools. The importance of this issue cannot be overstated. Again, Congresswoman Fudge, she thanks you all for hosting this webinar. She thanks you all for your leadership on issues of school diversity, and she looks forward to continuing to work with you all on this very important issue. So my remarks are brief. But again, like the Congresswoman is so happy that you guys are hosting this webinar so thank you again for inviting me. And I look forward to hearing everyone's remarks. Thank you so much for your office's leadership on these issues. We appreciate your time and sharing those thoughts and remarks. I'd like now to introduce Janelle George, Senior Policy Advisor for LPI to share the research on one evidence based approach to increasing school diversity and improving outcomes for students. Janelle. Thanks so much Maria. For this introduction. Today I'm going to share research from an upcoming LPI report on the common components of magnet schools that are effective at creating greater diversity and successful outcomes for students and the policy implications of that research. Magnet schools are public schools that emerge in the 1960s as remedies in school desegregation cases, particularly following the Brown versus Board of Education ruling is court sought ways to support districts and fulfilling Brown's promise of expanding access to quality integrated education opportunities. While magnets vary widely in design and structure. What the school can be defined as a public elementary or secondary school or an elementary or secondary education center that offers a special curriculum capable of attracting substantial numbers of students of different racial backgrounds. Some magnet schools focus on specific themes like the arts or science. They focus on various educational approaches, such as Montessori or international baccalaureate programs. They're designed to foster racial and socio economic diversity. Despite their intent, not all magnet schools are achieving these goals. In our upcoming report we examine the research on magnet schools and identify five key components of magnet schools that increase diversity and provide high quality learning opportunities. These include first the magnet school is structured as what's called a whole school magnet school where all students enrolled participate in the magnet school theme is embedded throughout the school. This is compared to an in school magnet program where only a portion of students in the school are enrolled in this which can have an exclusive or tracking effect, even when housed in an otherwise diverse school. The magnet school incorporates integration into school design structure mission and goals, such as implementing targeted enrollment practices within and across districts through inter-district programs. Third, the school conducts outreach to diverse families to inform them about the magnet school and support their application to the school. Third, the school implements inclusive admissions or enrollment practices, such as lotteries or open enrollment. And finally the district or school provides free transportation. So states and districts can support these efforts in a few key ways. First targeted funding, including for family outreach, including throughout the admissions process, funding for the equitable provision of transportation for students in particular who are drawn from surrounding districts to aid in the recruitment hiring and development of teachers to support teaching in diverse magnet schools. This includes providing ongoing professional development for magnet educators, including on culturally responsive learning in the non discriminatory administration of school discipline. And in addition to funding support states can allow inter-district transfer programs. This was previously mentioned that ensure that school students from surrounding districts can attend the magnet school. This is particularly important because research shows that segregation often incurs between districts due to housing segregation. In addition, states can establish public school choice zones and revise school boundaries. And there are also a number of ways the federal government can support these efforts. First, it's important to honor and visibly uphold the historic federal role in supporting state and district diversity efforts, particularly to states and districts that the federal government is poised to offer support is vital to these state and local desegregation efforts. And federal support through grant funding to schools and districts that are operating independently or in collaboration with neighboring districts, as well as to regional educational authorities and education service agencies is also vital. This policy and others are included in the Strength and Diversity Act, which has been discussed. Congress can also significantly increase funding for the magnet schools assistance program. In fiscal year 2020, just 107 million was provided for the program, compared with 440 million directed to charter schools, which have been found to be more segregated than other choice options. The Department of Education can also work together to ensure that the magnet schools assistance program prioritizes applicants to incorporate the components described earlier, such as inclusive enrollment practices and the centering of diversity in school design structure and finally, as it did following passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal government can offer technical assistance and guidance to aid states in implementing evidence based components to foster diverse and effective magnet schools. Thank you, Maria and everyone please stay tuned for the reports official release. Thank you so much. You know, we really appreciate that evidence based example how to support diverse and inclusive education system and appreciate the policy recommendations that you gave at the state, federal and local levels. So we're going to expand this conversation a bit. And we're going to go ahead and introduce our esteemed panelists. They're full by their full bios can be found in the chat. But very briefly, Dr. Gloria Latsen Billings is the former Kellner family distinguished professor of urban education and the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and faculty affiliate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Dr. Carlos Cortez is Edward a Dixon emeritus professor of history at the University of California Riverside. He serves on the faculties of the Harvard institutes for higher education. The summer Institute for the intercultural communication in Portland, Oregon, and the federal executive Institute. Dr. Gordon is the chief executive officer of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, and is responsible for the leadership and daily management of Cleveland's 39,000 student school system. As a reminder, please submit questions for panelists using the Q&A button below. So let's turn to our panelists. Thank you all so much for joining us today. I'm looking forward to this conversation and want to jump right in with the first question for Gloria. I so enjoyed reading dreamkeepers and the research that you've done on culturally relevant teaching. Could you please describe the pillars of culturally relevant teaching for folks, what they are, and why they're important for all teachers to practice. Thank you Maria. My work is indeed about what happens in the classroom. So the pillars that define culturally relevant pedagogy are important, but I want to make sure that we don't gloss over some of the misconceptions that this is somehow a pedagogy for black or Latinx students. Indeed, it is a pedagogy that's comprised of the three components to improve the learning experience for all students. And those three components include academic achievement or student learning, where teachers are indeed responsible for the academic growth of students. And it's important, we believe for teachers to know where our students begin when they arrive in their classrooms and be able to document their progress throughout the year, so that they have an accurate assessment of that progress. And because of that, we are also suggesting and really arguing that formative assessment is as important as the summative assessment that we are looking along the way is how students are doing, because that formative assessment gives teachers indicators for what they can do and what kinds of moves they can make pedagogically, what kind of adjustments they can make. The pillar is cultural competence and this dual function of cultural competence is to both encourage students understanding and the appreciation of their own culture of origin, as well as their cultural practices, in which they participate. And it's also designed to help students develop facility in at least one other culture beyond their culture of origin. So that suggests that even white mainstream students need to develop cultural competence. So they'll be prepared to operate successfully in an increasingly diverse nation and a globally interconnected world. And then finally we have this notion of the socio political or critical consciousness. And this third component focuses on the democratizing function of education. It prepares our students to critically examine both what they are learning in the classroom, as well as what they are experiencing in the community and the wider world beyond the classroom. Thank you so much for that brief introduction to the pillars and I think the point that you make about it being for all students is so critical I think people hear culturally relevant pedagogy and they think oh that's for those kids over there. Right. From listening to the pillars it's obvious that it's for all students in all classrooms so thank you so much for sharing that. I actually want to turn think really related to this is ethnic studies. And we think about the connection there and Carlos we know that research has found that access to ethnic studies courses cannot only increase students knowledge but also propel stronger achievement and attainment for students. What do you think about that and how do you think those courses should be designed and incorporated into school curriculum. Yes, we know that ethnic studies can increase student achievement and things other than ethnic studies itself. The question is why, and I think because of sent the concept of centrality. In other words, when students take ethnic studies they can find themselves central to the educational enterprise not simply observers of that. It's particularly true for students who have been marginalized that both in the curriculum or in society itself, in that sense of centrality carries over into all of their work. So this is why I think ethnic studies is such an important concept for education. Now, what can ethnic studies be and what should good ethnic studies be. I wrote a thing eight principles of ethnic studies that for the California State Board of Education last year, and I'm going to give three of them here. Number one, I think good ethnic studies to be ever give every student sense of self where they came from where their groups of stories are historically and in the contemporary world. The second thing and this connects with what Gloria was saying is ethnic studies should help students better understand others of other ethnic groups other than their own and to understand how those other experiences are similar and different than those of their own group. And finally, to go along with the third point, ethnic studies should help students gain a more critical understanding of societal forces, cultural forces, institutional forces that have actually helped to shape the trajectories of different ethnic individuals and ethnic groups. So it is that centrality of those experiences that makes up good ethnic studies. Now, who should be included in ethnic studies. Certainly, the core of ethnic studies as those groups who have been historically marginalized historically marginalized in society, so sort of historically marginalized in curriculum and textbooks, and that should be the core. And ethnic studies should also stretch out to include all people so that every student has the sense that they are our participant in the long trajectory of America that's why I think one of the cores of ethnic studies should be the opportunity for students to engage in family history, and how students to do that when I taught Chicano history, even for students who are not Chicano is what I did was say, write your own family history, and then compare it to the experience of Chicano's that you've been studying in the class. It makes an inclusive ethnic studies. And so good ethnic studies should then enlighten it should enlighten history, it should enlighten how history is affected the present. It should enlighten how the equity challenges we still face, and it should enlighten pathways to a more just, equitable and inclusive future. When I'm listening to both of you. I'm actually resonance around social and emotional learning, and how that sense of belonging and how all of that ties into the basic needs of students to that have to be in place before they can even get to academic, which is part of the contents of both culturally relevant and ethnic studies so thank you for that. Now to Eric, and hear a little bit about what this looks like on the ground. We know that the Cleveland public school system has taken a number of steps to support more diverse inclusive schools so will you please tell us a little bit about these efforts and how they can be supported the state and federal level. Certainly so I'll start actually by building on the social emotional learning that you lift up lifted up because Cleveland has been focused on explicit social emotional learning culture for over a decade. And as Dr. lads and billing said that's not because we serve black and brown children, but because it's good for every child. So we work really aggressively to make sure students understand their self regulation and self management, their understanding of others, and their emotions and how we engage in that relationship, and then how we use those tools as problem problems in the presence of academic content as as we heard, which has really built a muscle over time to be able to have the critical difficult conversations that lots of us talk about but very few of us actually do around issues like race and race equity. And that's a body of work from pre K through 12th grade for students and adults. We want to lift up Janelle George's work on magnet schools we do not call ourselves a magnet system but that is exactly the model we've implemented for now nine years, where every student picks their own school, based on themes or a curricula. They are inclusive and all the ways that was described in the literature, and we work aggressively particularly for high school that every eighth grade family needs to make an active choice. We will not assign a student to ninth grade, even it's the day before school, so that families do engage in a choice making process that gives them power and gives them the opportunity and it has drawn diverse populations from our suburbs back into the city to manage of our programming including our school of the arts, schools of science, inter baccalaureate and others. A third area is we've really leaned hard into how do we recruit a really top quality diverse staff. And so we've created a partnership with Cleveland State University we've expanded now to two others where student teachers who used to get assigned to Cleveland and felt assigned into this into the urban center and didn't get the choice they want now actually Cleveland State students compete for a fellowship where they work hard to become our teachers we get a year to work with them. It has diversified those candidates and we get first pick at hiring them. We've also expanded our efforts on recruiting so if you look at our teach Cleveland recruiting. It's implicit about what it's like to be a black person in Cleveland Hispanic person in Cleveland, a gay person in Cleveland so that people know that when you come here, you're not coming to work you're coming to live and be part of a community. We've extended that into a five year support program and I'm really proud to say that every single person of color we hired last school year returned this school year. It's only one year but that's a big marker and urban urban education. The last thing in staffing is we do have affinity groups. Mocha is an example are men of color shaping achievement, where we come together regularly, all leaders of color, whether you're a security leader, whether you're a teacher leader, custodial leader to talk about the important role, in this case of the black male in our schools. And then finally I would say we've also been very explicit at building support systems that create the capital and social capital from an equity perspective, the middle and middle school students already enjoy. So we have a 25 year tuition scholarship in place, every graduate for the next 25 years will be go able to go to trade school two year or for your college for free. And we provide a mentor, so that somebody who's studying what you're studying is talking to you and creates that social capital that says, Hey, I know Maria, I'll get your resume tour, like what happens in the suburb, and then K through health, mental health, legal out of school options and other basic needs supports in place. Again, so that families have both the capital they need I need food, and also the social capital I know someone who can help me as a measure of equity, and also to attract diversity back into Cleveland central, because like district boundaries we are the ninth most segregated major city in the country. And we have to do things within and outside to bring people back. Thank you so much, Eric for sharing. I'm impressed at the scope of the work that you're doing you haven't chosen one little piece but you all have our thinking about multiple ways to get at and to structure supports and system so really appreciate the work that you're doing, you're being here and sharing about that I appreciate especially the flipping of the script around having student teachers and candidates competing for placements there because so often we do have this sense that oh, a deficit view of our, our teachers are urban centers so I love that you're flipping that sweet script and making that move so thank you for sharing and hopefully you'll share a little bit more as we continue the conversation. It makes me actually think Carlos about the work that you've been doing with bilingual education and thinking about ways to create more inclusive and culturally diverse learning environments for those students in particular multilingual learners in our bilingual students can you share a little bit about bilingual education the work you've done in that area. Yeah, thanks Maria this is this has been a huge jump because we started back in the early 70s of bilingual education. It was mainly of two kinds it was transitional which means get the kids through it as fast as you can, so they're in English only, or into make it maintenance which is get kids and let them continue to use that language. We've evolved to now we have, we have dual immersion programs where you have students who are English speaking background, going to in the same classroom with students who come from another language background. And the students these sometimes these go from kindergarten through third grade, sometimes kindergarten through high school where you can, where both can be learning those languages. And sometimes these programs are very technical in which the goal is language learning which is good. But to go along with a point that Eric and Gloria have mentioned, many of them are very robust in the cultural and social aspects too. So you're getting this bridge building among cultures and social groups in ways that you, you can get any other way. As a matter of fact, one of the, as you probably know, I was the creative and cultural advisor for Dora the Explorer and Diego go and one of my favorite shows. They called a first day of school in which we had boots and Tico both going to a dual immersion school, the trajectory they had both were nervous because they were going to go to a school where monolingual boots was going to have to learn to speak in the work in Spanish and monolingual Tico had to learn to work in English, but they got there in there and they suddenly the bridges were built among kids of backgrounds. So, some fairly magical things can be done to well constructed bilingual education. I'm wondering if I'm Eric or Gloria, their work intersex with that and that's one of my favorite shows. I would just really want to magnify what Dr Cortes said that, you know, good equity work is both the science of equity and the agenda of equity and early English learner work tended to be very technical very science, but didn't have sitting behind the atmosphere agenda. We have a large and increasingly diverse newcomer community here in Cleveland, and we intentionally named our welcome center the multicultural multilingual department with culture first. And our message is that we want to help you learn the English language and American culture while protecting protecting and honoring your home language and home culture. You need to be able to say why you're doing what you're doing so that the technical stuff you build the what you build does what you're trying to do from an equity point of view so I really resonated with the transitions we've seen in the yellow world over time. And I would just say that the intersection for me has to do again with the pedagogical I'm very much reminded of an art of very old article that Larry Cuban wrote many, many years ago entitled ethnic content, white instruction. And in that article, I think was probably written in the 70s that he argued, if we do the same thing with ethnic studies content that we've been doing with whatever content we have we're going to get the same results that we do have to do some other things pedagogically in the classroom to engage students, students not going to be any more excited about learning a list of names and dates and places about black or Latinx people than they were about learning all about whites. And I think about the work of culturally sustaining pedagogy and thinking about, you know, I think that technical, the way that it was done technically also had assimilationist tone to it as well become as American as possible and I think now there is definitely a focus on culture love the title of your newcomers center Eric, very thoughtful and very needed to be inclusive of the nation's diversity. So, if you would just say a little bit more Gloria about your work in teacher preparation and how you think that what you think the role of teacher preparation is and laying the groundwork for in practice. And what are some of the strategies that we've heard from all of you today. Well, thank you. And this work actually takes me back to Eric's comments about retain recruiting and retaining the staff and though we keep hearing a lot about oh we need more black teachers we need more Latinx teachers, but we say that again as if we need more black teachers for black students or we need Latinx students for Latinx. We need these teachers. Period. We really need white students to have an experience in a classroom with a teacher from a different background or group, different from their own so that they can begin to shift some of their thinking about hierarchy and and who's capable. And who is you know who has authority who has knowledge. So I think that's an important component of who we are recruiting and teacher preparation. But I also think the financial burden that rest on a number of our black black black and Latinx candidates is too great for them to choose teaching you know if I could choose to go get an MBA and make three times more money. Logical that I would do that. So one of the things we're doing here at Wisconsin is we've just launched what's called the teacher pledge where if you will agree to teach stay in the state. Because we prepare lots of folks but they go elsewhere if you will agree to stay in the state we will pay down all of your will pay your tuition at the end state rate we will also pay if you have financial hardships we will do that. Like for housing books those kinds of things. What's interesting about this pledge and we have $18 million to launch this. These are all donor dollars. And I think what's problematic about that is that the state has not stepped up. We are the University of Wisconsin not the University of big donors we are the university of, you know when I first came here I used to say we were state because I looked at the proportion of money the state contributed which wasn't very great. Well over the 30 years I've been here that proportion has continued to go down to the point where I describe us as state located. That's the part I can attest to we are in this state, but I can't tell you what it is that my state legislature is is apportioning to us and so we're struggling to get people to understand the importance of increasing our teacher workforce and making sure that it is a diverse workforce that is willing to stay here in this state. And that financial support is so key and so grateful that you're going after the donors if you're not finding in the state because we know that black and Latin X candidates enter through alternative pathways at higher rates and that causes larger survivors so if we're really thinking about a sustainable teacher workforce we want one that has a high quality teacher preparation experience which means a year long residency or a clinical placements with a high quality mentor teacher so that's so important. So glad to hear that works being done at Wisconsin. Okay 12. Eric, what's the role of a superintendent and other leaders in creating more inclusive learning experiences within the school. Well, you know, I think it's really critical that the school top school leader is very clear and and very explicit about the equity agenda for their community and so, you know, an example in Cleveland we have adopted what we call a declaration we didn't adopt a policy we adopted a declaration of who we're going to be as an organization that cares about diversity equity inclusion. We picked a research based model called the multicultural organizational model by Dr. Bella Polvino, because we want science driving this and if we are four years into surveying employees against that model and scoring ourselves on how inclusive our organization is. I've written into state law that my high school students have a 400 student advisory committee by law, they're the only ones in the nation that we know of have the right and the responsibility to inform key decisions of this district. And we bring meaningful things to our kids. I mentioned that scholarship program. We brought all of the scholarship materials to my student advisory. We did a design challenge and they gave us back product that made sense to kids and families, instead of the product that educators created and thought made sense. We hired a polling firm and sit behind the glass and focus groups and listen to not just our friends talk about us but random people feedback on what's the district's doing and not doing and, you know, thinking about that. I think there's a really nice opportunity here that I'm afraid we're going to miss though in state and federal policy. This pandemic gives us an opportunity to rethink policies that have been in place. Since Laura Ingalls was roaming around farms like in Ohio and start creating systems that are designed for the communities we're serving. I'm a big fan of accountability, good accountability. We have not figured this out when the accountability system can be predicted by color of skin poverty and zip code. It's not working. So how do we think about coming out of this with a new accountability of growing kids and closing gaps, as opposed to just racking and stacking what we already know that my kids from a poor community 86% of color are going to score works than the middle class suburban community right next door. So I hope we take advantage as leaders not only internally, but as leaders pushing policy, in my case in Ohio, and also at the nation and I've got great leadership and Congresswoman fudge helping us do that. I am so glad to hear you say this Eric, I have been zooming around the nation, talking about the opportunity that this pandemic is, is presenting us I've been quoting out of our undotty Roy's notion of the pandemic is a portal. And that indeed, we can drag all that crazy stuff that we had through the portal or we can leave it, and we can start again and I've been using the metaphor of the hard reset, we all have these devices. And we know what happens when they don't work the way we want them. And when you have to hear that person in the device store say, you need a heart reset, we don't ever want to hear it. But if you haven't backed up stuff. You're going to get back a device that is taking everything off all your contacts all your pictures going to be like it was from the factory. It's time for us to engage in a hard reset in schools. And I point out to people that it's not the first time that someone's had to do it. After World War two, Japan had to do it. Italy had to do it. They rethought the whole thing. And so when I hear people say let's go back to normal I go no no no no no, because normal was a bad place for far too many of our kids so let's let's let's go ahead to something much more exciting. So I'm glad you just you know I was copying off your paper because my state of the school speech I said the earth is angry and she's hit the button. And is it a pause or a reset that was exactly my words, we cannot go back to normal and I quote Audrey Lord a lot on that the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house we have a chance to have new tools and do something different I'm with you. You know, you're saying you're talking about the recent and leadership, the state of California, the ethnic studies requirements for graduate from high school was vetoed by the governor, but it's coming back. At my local school district Riverside took the leadership to approve ethnic studies as a graduation requirement a month ago, and just this week, the city of Riverside adopted a two page vision, which I wrote a two page vision for and then what includes work with schools. So leader and it was brought forth by the mayor so you cannot underestimate the importance of leadership. There's there's certainly courage at the local level it's going to require conviction of state policy leaders and federal policy leaders. And right now my fear is that people either don't have the courage to push on these current policies and replace them so they're keeping their head down, or they don't have the will that they don't feel it's important for kids like mine here in Cleveland. It makes me think that now is the moment that people can choose to be on the right side of history or the wrong side of history so let's hope that more will be on the right side of history. We have an interesting question from the one of our participants. Brinker off I hope I pronounced that right asked about what about the empathy gap cross racially, we've talked about you know achievement gaps and more importantly opportunity gaps which lead to achievement gaps but what about the empathy gap across race cross racially I'm going to jump in on that area. I want to tie that in with something that concerns me as English language learners. I think the cross empathy gap is a critical thing. And I got a daughter who's, who's the director of educational services to English language learners in a large school district and works with has supervised 100 elementary schools. One of the things we found is that that empathy with English language learners is an important step for teaching, because they like to buy English language learner education they like to talk about the dual backpacks these kids bring that kids who come a raise in English speaking homes don't have one of them is that they, that they are learning a new language, but they're also learning subject matter in the language that they're just learning. And now COVID has come along and that's added a third backpack, which is they're learning for often from home without the exposure to language in the schools. Even when they get computers, they get instructions to use the computers written in technical English, which is a language they're just learning in which they're even their parents may not be able to read. So, empathy of reaching across effects. It can be devastating. I would just also argue that, again, this is one of those opportunities that the pandemic presents. I'm talking the principles and superintendents all the time and I'm telling them your first order of business is not getting back to preparing people for state assessments. The first order of business is checking on the social and emotional needs of both your students and your staff, because we've all been traumatized as a part of this now some people have written it out like I said, you know a lot of times you hear people say we were all going we're all going through this well we're going through the same storm, but we're not all in the same boat. We're all in a luxury liner doing this thing and some people are just hold on to a wrap, but we are still experiencing the storm, all of us. And so, I think, once we, we sort of drill down to the social emotional and mental health needs that this particular situation has placed us in that we have an opportunity to begin to draw on this whole issue of empathy in a very different way I don't think George Floyd happens absent the pandemic. The pandemic forces us because we can't go to the baseball game we can't go to a basketball game we can't go to a dance we have to sit there and see this man murdered in our living rooms, and it sparks something in this nation now doesn't mean everybody was moved no, but certainly enough people that we can have the right kind of conversation around empathy. It's not short of time but I would just say we two quick points one is we have to differentiate empathy gap from sympathy gap. And that is by calling questions. So one big one in my community the worst connected community in the country was well, Eric why aren't you parking school buses out in parking lots with hotspots on them so that kids can come and lean against the bus and have internet. And there was because none of us on this webinar are leaning against the bus to have internet. That's a sympathy gap, solve the problem for the poor child for the black child, as opposed to empathy of what are we going to do. I think the other issue is that and we mentioned it earlier, we have to broaden this conversation outside of the diverse community that I'm in, and into the white suburban communities that I've worked in in my past. I think that the empathy is not that we all like each other, but the rest of the world doesn't like us, but that we all start to understand the beauty of the diversity of our country. The empathy requires the courage to deal with otherness in an honest manner. If you're not willing to do that. All you can be a sympathetic, you can't be apathetic. And you have to engage, you can't have empathy from across there you have to have relationship and engagement. Oh, it pains me. The fact that we're at time. Thank you so much for your conversation today your insights your examples. We so appreciate that and hopefully in the future we'll have another opportunity to gather together. But unfortunately that's all the time we have for today. So on behalf of LPI and the National Coalition on School Diversity, we'd like to thank all of our speakers for not only participating in this event but for the important work they do each and every day and taking time from that work to be with us today. Our partners and presenters also have some wonderful resources available on their websites, as shown on this slide and on the link shared in the chat box of recording of this webinar as well as all of the resources we've shared today will be sent to you via email. And finally, I'd like to mention that a survey will appear in your window when you leave this webinar and we'd appreciate your feedback. Thank you again for joining us we hope you all have a wonderful day.