Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools

'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