Facilitator: Nikum Pon, PhD Director, Equity in Education Puget Sound Educational Service District

Stay Engaged Don’t Let your heart and mind check out! Experience Discomfort Agree to experience discomfort so that we can deal with issues of race in an honest way. Show yourself In order to experience the discomfort necessary for growth, be willing to take risks and share what you are thinking and feeling so that we can offer guidance when and where it is needed. Expect and accept non-closure Accept that you will not reach closure in your understandings about race and race relations. There is no such thing as a “quick fix.” (Adopted from Glenn Singleton, Courageous Conversations) Intent vs Impact Recognize that what we say may have an unintended impact, even though we may have positive intent. We need to own the impact.

Definition  Raising the achievement of all students while narrowing the gap between the highest and lowest performing students and eliminating the racial predictability and disproportionality of which student groups occupy the highest and lowest achievement categories.

Equity Message:  The compounding effect on achievement gaps between our lowest and highest performing students when race and ELL intersect displays true achievement gap – 62% for Reading and 73% for math.  Three quarters of state prison in-mates are drop outs. In addition, 90% of youth in adult detention facilities have no more than a 9 th grade education. Third grade reading score is used as a predictor to determine the number jail cells to build since 75% of students who do not pass will end up there. (American Youth Policy Forum).

Personal/Cultural Popular Mainstream Academic Transformative Academic School (Banks, 1996)

Model Minority

Model Minority Myth

=Visible =Invisible

Male Asian-American Able bodied

Father Husband Youngest of seven siblings Cambodian refugee Christian

Identity consists of, but not limited to:  Who you are  What you are  Where you are from  Your life experiences  Race/Ethnicity  Ableness/Differently Able  Religion/Spirituality  Sexual Orientation  Gender Identity  Culture/Customs  Socio-economic Status  Community  Language  Learning Style

 Share your map with 1 other person who you believe is most different than you, discussing the following:  What are the significant elements that you chose to place on your Map?  What about these elements makes them significant to you?  What elements most drive your values & interactions with others?

“The attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.” Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review 2014, p.16,

“Debiasing”  Raise awareness about implicit bias  Make time to sincerely understand diverse individual’s stories  Seek and learn about people who are the opposite of the common stereotype  Harvard Implicit Association Tests: “Project Implicit”

Consciousness  ColorvsCulture Asian AmericansCambodian refugees BlacksEast Africans WhitesWhiteness Consciousness  Non-dominant vs Dominant Left Handedness Right Handedness

“While they are increasing in numbers on university campuses as students, they are virtually nonexistent as administrators. Asian Americans are even more scarce in the upper strata of the corporate hierarchy: they constituted less than half of one percent of the 29,000 officers and directors of the nation's thousand largest companies.” ~Ronald Takaki Model Minority

 The median household income statistic is misleading because it may be interpreted as suggesting that Asian Americans do not face economic discrimination. The truth is that several factors more than account for the difference in median household income:  Asian American employees have lower status and less income than comparably educated Americans of every other race.  59 percent of Asian Americans live in California, Hawaii and New York, all states with far higher per capita income and costs of living than the national average.  Spouses and children work in Asian American households in far greater numbers, and for longer hours, than in white families.  The percentage of Asian American families living below the poverty level far exceeds the national average. Despite this, social services often exclude Asian Americans because of the stereotype of success. Model Minority

Systems are made up of people. If we change people, then we change systems. Value Gap  Opportunity Gap  Achievement Gap

How are you leading yourself? Do your daily actions move you and others toward removing the predictability of success and failure that currently correlates with any social or cultural factor? Do your daily actions move you and others toward interrupting inequitable practices, examining biases, and creating inclusive school environments for all? Do your daily actions move you and others toward discovering and cultivating the unique gifts, talents and interests that every human possesses?