About the Book
'The beauty of this volume is that it is designed to help lay people-teachers, administrators, parents, community leaders, and even university professors begin to engage in the emotionally and psychically difficult conversations about race. Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton have offered us an important book that provides us with empirical data and well constructed exercises to help us think through the ways that race affects our lives and our professional practices. My sincere desire is that after you have had an opportunity to read this volume you will, indeed, engage in some courageous conversations about race' - Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of The Dreamkeepers
Singleton looks at the achievement gap through the prism of race, and in Courageous Conversations About Race, he begins by examining the evidence that points to race-not poverty-as the underlying cause behind the achievement gap.
This work, while exploring how race affects all educators, declares that we need to have engaged, sustained, and deep conversations about race in order to understand students and the achievement gap. Singleton calls this process "courageous conversations." Through these "courageous conversations," educators can learn how to redesign curriculum and create community and true equity.
Action steps to close the achievement gap include creating an equity team and collaborative action research. The final chapter presents a systemwide plan for transforming schools and districts, including activities, exercises, and checklists for central office administrators, principals, and teachers.
Table of Contents:
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. Breaking the Silence: Ushering in Courageous Conversation About Race
Part I. Passion: An Essential Characteristic of Anti-Racist Leadership
2. What's So Courageous About This Conversation?
3. Why Race?
4. Agreeing to Talk About Race
Part II. Practice: The Foundation of Anti-Racist Leadership
5. The First Condition: Getting Personal Right Here and Right Now
6. The Second Condition: Keeping the Spotlight on Race
7. The Third Condition: Engaging Multiple Racial Perspectives
8. The Fourth Condition: Keeping Us All at the Table
9. The Fifth Condition: What Do You Mean By "Race"?
10. The Sixth Condition: Let's Talk About Whiteness
Part III. Persistence: The Key to Anti-Racist Leadership
11. How Anti-Racist Leaders Close the Achievement Gap
12. Exploring a Systemic Framework for Closing the Racial Achievement Gap
13. Using Courageous Conversation to Achieve Equity in Schools
Resource: Racism and the Achievement Gap
References
Index
About the Author :
Glenn Singleton has devoted over thirty years to constructing racial equity worldwide and developing leaders to do the same. Author, thought leader, and strategist, he is the creator of Courageous Conversation a protocol and framework for sustained, deepened dialogue, and Beyond Diversity, the curriculum that has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to use it. Glenn is the Founder and President of Courageous Conversation TM, an agency that guides leadership development in education, government, corporation, law enforcement, and community organizing. He is the award-winning author of Courageous Conversations About Race; A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, Second Edition; and of MORE Courageous Conversations About Race.
Glenn has consulted executives at Wieden + Kennedy (W+K) Advertising, Google, Amazon, Procter & Gamble, the New York Department of Education, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, the Stavros Niarchos, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and the Bill & Melinda Gates foundations. Along with W+K, he received the 2017 Most Valuable Partnership (MVP) Award by AdColor. He is the recipient of the George A. Coleman Excellence in Equity Award by the Connecticut State Education Resource Center. Cited in the June 2018 edition of the Hollywood Reporter for his work with 21st Century Fox Animation, most recently, Glenn was awarded the AdWeek/AdColor 2020 Champion Award, and the 2020 National Speech and Debate Association Communicator of the Year Award. In 1995, Glenn founded the Foundation for A College Education and continues to serve on its Board of Advisors. He is also the founder and Board Chair of the Courageous Conversation Global Foundation, which develops partnerships to promote racial justice, interracial understanding and human healing worldwide.
Glenn has trained law enforcement leaders with the U.S. Embassy in Western Australia, and established the Courageous Conversation South Pacific Institute in Auckland, New Zealand. For eight years, he served as an adjunct professor of educational leadership at San Jose State University. Glenn has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University and has instructed faculty, students and administrators at the University of Minnesota, New York University School of Medicine, and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University, Glenn Singleton is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and 100 Black Men. He currently resides in Washington, D.C. Curtis Linton is a co-owner of The School Improvement Network where he is co-executive producer of The Video Journal of Education and TeachStream. He has spent the last 10 years documenting on video and in print the improvement efforts and best practices of the most successful schools and school systems across North America. Each year, he visits more than 100 classrooms and schools, capturing what they do to succeed with all students at the classroom, school, and system levels. Linton has written or produced dozens of award-winning video-based staff development programs. His areas of expertise include closing the achievement gap and improving minority student achievement, using data, leadership, effective staff development, brain research, differentiation, action research, and coaching. With the goal of delivering results-based professional development efficiently to large numbers of educators, he works with school systems to design comprehensive school improvement plans that integrate workshops, video, electronic media, and other resources. As a part of this, Linton conducts workshops on effective classroom practices. Linton also works extensively in the community, including serving on the Davis School District Equity Committee. Linton received his master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Southern California.
Review :
"The beauty of this volume is that it is designed to help lay people-teachers, administrators, parents, community leaders, and even university professors-begin to engage in the emotionally and psychically difficult conversations about race. Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton have offered us an important book that provides us with empirical data and well-constructed exercises to help us think through the ways that race affects our lives and our professional practices. My sincere desire is that after you have had an opportunity to read this volume you will, indeed, engage in some courageous conversations about race." -- Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Challenges educators to talk in honest and open ways about race, and provides various tools to stimulate and inform the conversation. Singleton and Linton remind us that the achievement gap will not be eliminated until we learn to talk about race in ways that build bridges of understanding that lead to effective action." -- Dennis Sparks, Executive Director "Given the sensitive issues of race in our nation, schools and school leaders need tools that can illuminate the concerns, guide the discussions, and generate momentum for growth and change. This book provides the tools and resources needed to move from open dialogue to meaningful action that can make excellence and equity in schools a reality." -- Monte C. Moses, Superintendent "Talking about race and its effect on academic achievement remains one of the most elusive conversations today. In their new book, Singleton and Linton help educators understand and engage in the discourse around race that affects the success of any curriculum, instructional methodology, or program implementation. The book's exercises and prompts assists school and district leadership teams in articulating those innate behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes that impair our ability to be effective in closing the racial achievement gap. I am encouraged to know that educators will be empowered and supported as we develop our personal capacity to address one of the most crucial elements of our society: the education of our children." -- Yvette M. Irving, Principal "This is an important book that challenges one to think critically about the effects of race and student achievement. It is an invitation to sustain a strong desire for fairness and equity for all children." -- SMSG Newsletter "In an era when America seems content to sweep candid talk of race under the rug, Courageous Conversations About Race recognizes that denial isn't a prescription for interracial tolerance and social progress. The authors provide thoughtful educators with innovative instructional tools to successfully navigate the most robustly diverse nation on earth." -- Hugh B. Price, Former President and CEO "Singleton and Linton challenge educators to move beyond recognizing the existence of a racial achievement gap and to develop strategies to eliminate it." -- Curriculum Connections, Fall 2006
