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

Front Cover
Glenn E. Singleton, Curtis Linton
SAGE Publications, Nov 18, 2005 - Education - 304 pages

Deepen your understanding of racial factors in academic performance and discover new strategies for closing the achievement gap!

Examining the achievement gap through the prism of race, the authors explain the need for candid, courageous conversations about race in order to understand why performance inequity persists. Through these "courageous conversations," educators will learn how to create a learning community that promotes true academic parity. Practical features of this book include:

  • Implementation exercises
  • Prompts, language, and tools that support profound discussion
  • Activities and checklists for administrators
  • Action steps for creating an equity team

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About the author (2005)

Glenn Eric Singleton hails from Baltimore, Maryland. A product of public elementary and independent secondary school, Singleton earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his master’s degree from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Singleton began his career as an Ivy League admissions director. In 1992, he founded Pacific Educational Group, Inc. (PEG) to support families in their transitions within and between K–12 and higher education. His company rapidly grew into a vehicle for addressing systemic educational inequity by providing a framework, guidance, and support to K–12 systems and institutions of higher education focused on meeting the needs of under-served students of color. He is now its president and chief executive officer.

Singleton and his associates at PEG design and deliver individualized, comprehensive professional development for educators in the form of training, coaching, and consulting. Working at all levels, from beginning teachers to superintendents at local, state, and national levels, PEG helps educators focus on heightening their awareness of institutional racism and implementing effective strategies for eliminating racial achievement disparities in schools. In 1995, Singleton developed Beyond Diversity, a widely recognized seminar aimed at helping administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community stakeholders identify and examine the intersection of race and schooling. The Beyond Diversity seminar is the foundation for the PEG Systemic Racial Equity Framework and its theory of transformation, which focuses on leadership development, teacher action-research, and family/community empowerment. Today, participants around the world use Singleton’s Courageous Conversations Agreements, Conditions and Compass, introduced to them in Beyond Diversity, as they strive to usher in culturally proficient curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Over its 20-year history, PEG’s scope of work has expanded to include online professional learning, independent school partnerships, and international efforts in Canada and Australia that focus on educational equity for indigenous populations. PEG hosts an annual Summit for Courageous Conversation, in which scholars, educators, community members, and other stakeholders convene to identify strategies and best practices for creating high-level, equitable learning environments for all students.

Singleton currently resides in San Francisco, California. He is the founder of the Foundation for a College Education (FCE) and currently serves on the FCE Advisory Board.

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.

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