Director Meetings Changed How We Think About Equity Data
Here’s our favorite thing about education meetings. And it’s not what you think.
I’ve been visiting district special education director meetings to talk about promoting equity and preventing disproportionality. There’s a particular part of these meetings I enjoy, and it’s not what you’d expect.
It’s the pre-meeting talk. You know the one I mean: two or more directors who arrive at a meeting early and get caught up while they wait for the meeting to start. During this pre-meeting, directors talk about all manner of issues, ranging from managing complex special education programs to the latest federal compliance procedures. During this pre-meeting, the directors engage each other enthusiastically, like friends reuniting after a long time apart. It’s part problem-solving and part moral support.
And I think that’s what I like about this part of the meeting—I get to hear what leaders are up against as they try and build the best possible experience for their students.
The Challenge of Responding to Equity Data
After observing many of these pre-meeting discussions, I had a realization: the pre-meeting topics are almost never about using data to promote equity, the very thing I was there to talk about.
In a way, this makes sense. Our project’s focus is on prevention. It’s proactive work. And proactive work is, by nature, not urgent, even when the goal is as critical as equity in schools.
So if we have the passion, data, and training to promote equity in schools, what’s stopping us? I’ve been thinking hard about this and have some ideas.
“Maybe the barrier isn’t a lack of passion, data, or training. It might be simpler than that: what if the barrier is a lack of time and clarity of action?”
Maybe the barrier isn’t a lack of passion, data, or training. It might be simpler than that: what if the barrier is a lack of time and clarity of action?
This seems especially true when it comes to working with data. It takes time and clear thought. Usually, we have the opposite of that—we juggle demands that compete for our time and there’s no clear script for how to promote equity.
Thinking Routines
So what to do? While there’s no single solution, there are some research-based routines that can save you time and inspire clear action. We like routines like this—ones that spark big thinking in a short period of time.
Recently, our team started playing around with high leverage thinking routines from Harvard’s Project Zero. The founders of Project Zero created these routines to help teachers show students how to think about new ideas, make connections, and take different perspectives. But we think they work just as well when you need to respond to data efficiently and meaningfully.
See, Think, Wonder
One of these is called “See, Think, Wonder.” We’ve been using this a lot in our data literacy trainings and talks recently. We like it because it reminds us to structure our response to data around our senses, our intuition, and our curiosity. And since it’s a routine, the more you use it, the more automatic it gets.
Try See, Think, Wonder when you first receive data or reports. Our Team thinks this routine works great with all kinds of data, but disproportionality reporting from the California Department of Education, risk ratio graphs from EDDS, or California School Dashboards are a few that come to mind.
We know you care about equity in schools and you feel the urgency to act. We hope tools like these thinking routines help you and your teammates have a consistent way to respond to the data. We’re here to help.
Next time you get a disproportionality data report, try the See, Think, Wonder activity. If it gave you clarity of action and saved you time, let us know so we can share your story with others.
Visit Project Zero and download instructions for the See, Think, Wonder thinking routine.
Notes
The activity in this post is inspired by Project Zero: “About | Project Zero.” Project Zero, http://www.pz.harvard.edu/who-we-are/about. Accessed 9 December 2021.