Building Equity: Policies and Practices to Empower All Learners

by Dominique Smith

Imagine a school with a diverse student body where everyone feels safe and valued, and all—regardless of race, culture, home language, sexual orientation, gender identity, academic history, and individual challenges—have the opportunity to succeed with interesting classes, projects, and activities. In this school, teachers notice and meet individual instructional needs and foster a harmonious and supportive environment. All students feel empowered to learn, to grow, and to pursue their dreams.


This is the school every student needs and deserves.


In Building Equity, Dominique Smith, Nancy Frey, Ian Pumpian, and Douglas Fisher, colleagues at San Diego’s innovative Health Sciences High & Middle College, introduce the Building Equity Taxonomy, a new model to clarify the structural and interpersonal components of an equitable and excellent schooling experience, and the Building Equity Review and Audit, survey-based tools to help school and teacher leaders uncover equity-related issues and organize their efforts to achieve



Physical integration
Social-emotional engagement
Opportunity to learn
Instructional excellence
Engaged and inspired learners

Built on the authors’ own experiences and those of hundreds of educators throughout the United States, this book is filled with examples of policy initiatives and practices that support high-quality, inclusive learning experiences and deliver education that meets critical standards of equality and equity.

Genres: Education

331 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 19, 2017

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all say that we want students to feel valued, to know the school is their home, and to feel safe so they will take risks with their learning. However, we educators sometimes struggle to convey this message, to put it into action for all students. This is because we do not always know the messaging or strategies to use. This book offers us those practices. The entire focus is on building equity by providing physical integration, social-emotional engagement, opportunities for all to learn equally (they recommend no tracking and access to any classes students want to take), instructional excellence, and engage and inspired learners (which they propose students will be if we take care of the other items on this list).

We must first begin by exploring who we are and what we believe. From there we examine our school climate. The questions on page 9 could help us with this. I also like the surveys offered in this book that can be used with parents and students. I constantly say that our administrative assistant in Communications is the Director of First Impressions. She sets the tone the moment parents and visitors enter our building. And boy are we lucky to have her!

I have never heard the terms intentionally inviting teachers or unintentionally inviting teachers or unintentionally uninviting teachers, but the book's use of them got me thinking about how this impacts our school culture. And we accidentally fall into these categories some days without realizing it.

Teachers at my school should appreciate the comments about attendance in this book. Like many schools, I am sure, we struggle with absent students. The state changed the attendance policy for schools so it is no longer punitive to students, but many staff are frustrated with this. We don't put restorative practices first; we still tend to focus on punishment as a means to deter or teach students whether it be cutting class or substance abuse/misuse or fighting. This book focuses on restorative practices to create a positive school culture. This includes teaching social skills, addresses trauma, focusing on respect, and always, always, always showing students we care about them because it all comes down to building relationships.

The authors use their school as the example throughout the book, but it does not feel as if they are saying "look how great we are!" Rather, they offer suggestions, share their thoughts, and acknowledge the difficulties.

This is a small book (under 200 pages) and an easy read. It would make for a great all-school read.

[Keeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A better title for this book might be "Building-Level Equity." It is written for an audience primarily of school administrators and teachers, and relies on a foundation of jargon and knowledge one might pick up in a graduate degree program in education. If that audience includes you, I can recommend this book. There are a lot of thought-provoking ideas and anecdotes.
If you are not a school administrator or teacher, I recommend looking elsewhere for something to read on these crucial issues. I serve on a school board which read the book after all of our district administrators and teachers read it as a professional learning exercise. The jargon and assumed knowledge obscured the point for some board members.
The book also suffers from repetitiveness and lazy editing. It could be nice to see these ideas reach a wider audience, perhaps through an abridged edition of the book prepared by a journalist who regularly shares education topics with the wider public.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to write a full review eventually. Short version: I loved this book. Every chapter left me inspired and full of ideas. That said, it was an inspiring read, but not a quick read. As is evident from my reading dates, it took quite a bit of time. Mostly because it took so long to digest everything after each chapter.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have multiple critiques of the first chapter, but the third and fourth chapters compensate, and I think the book is useful and accessible.

[Betty McQueen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only read this book for research purposes.

[Sofie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely some interesting ideas to take into consideration with future classrooms. I liked the examples and an exploration of the various statements from the study. A good read for folks looking to examine their equity practices within their classroom and school.