Leadership magazine Sept/Oct 2015 V45 No 1 | Page 10

After centuries of educational
initiatives and policy changes,
we find ourselves addressing the
same inequitable circumstances
for students. We must realize
that the system was designed
to produce what it is producing;
that the two-track system
appears to remain in effect as the
“achievement gap.”

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Leadership

son. As a result of this, we tend to get caught
in the daily routines of leadership that stem
from the current educational demands and
trends that ultimately result in the same
outcomes: the achievement gap. Instead, we
must take the time to increase our awareness
of the complex aspects of equity leadership.

Data and research
As educators, we are the first to know that
there is an abundance of research and data
that supports the need to be culturally proficient to lead for equity. Student achievement
and discipline data clearly represent great
disproportionalities between historically
oppressed students and their entitled counterparts.
However, to be culturally proficient we
must reach a deeper level of awareness of research and data to help us understand how
policies, practices and behaviors perpetuate the inequities that have existed in public
education since 1779, when Thomas Jefferson proposed a two-track educational system, with different tracks for “the laboring

and the learned.” Scholarships would allow
a select few of the laboring class to advance
by “raking a few geniuses from the rubbish.”
After centuries of educational initiatives
and policy changes, we currently find ourselves addressing the same inequitable circumstances for students. We must begin
to realize that the system was designed to
produce what it is producing; that the twotrack system appears to remain in effect as
the “achievement gap.”
Once we have gained awareness of the
data, research, and historical impact of
public education, we can move to a place of
addressing our belief systems and assessing
ourselves through several tools that guide
one to cultural proficiency.

Addressing one’s belief system
It is an uncomfortable feeling to look in
the mirror and face the fact that you are
guilty of being biased. Millions have challenged themselves through activities such as
taking the implicit bias test through Harvard University. Educators have also en-