A Latina Leader’s Consejo: Get To Know Your People And Get Them On The Path Of Continuous Improvement

The author explains, in detail, strategies used in her experience to develop a shared vision, with every group she led, to serve as their guide for all improvement efforts. These are strategies that she used throughout her leadership experience. The first strategy helps the leader know the school and the community partners. The second strategy is designed to clearly define a compelling future of excellence for the organization. The Theory of Action is simple: Once every single member of the school community shares in this vision and sees themselves as a contributing member, they find purpose in the endeavor. This shared vision becomes a call to action and the commitments they bring to the school are materialized. The mandates become an opportunity for change and a shift from a "Compliance to a Commitment" mindset begins.  Through her Testimonio, the author will help readers understand the importance of developing a clear road map that can be revisited multiple times to keep the teams focused on top priorities for all students. The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of using social capital and the will of the team members to activate a vision in any educational setting ensuring an equitable approach to begin the journey of continuous improvement (Bryk et al., 2017)

Crossing the Digital Divide and the Equity Expanse : Reaching and Teaching All Students During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the digital divide revealing an expanse of inequity among students who had access to the internet, personal devices, and parental support during remote learning and those who did not. Framed with the theoretical lenses of structural ideology and culturally responsive school leadership, this paper details the results of a survey completed by 56 Minnesota district level technology directors. The survey asked how school districts were responding to the technology needs of students and families while in hybrid and distance learning models. Often those without access to digital tools and information were those who were also experiencing poverty. Recommendations for further research are provided including advocacy for the expansion of broadband access, the pandemic’s impact on the mental health of students, and efforts to sustain access to technology for all learners after the COVID-19 pandemic concludes. Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic, equity, technology, distance learning, hybrid learning, students, education, structural ideology, culturally responsive school leadershi

Keeping the Freedom to Include: Teachers Navigating “Pushback” and Marshalling “Backup” to Keep Inclusion on the Agenda

Abstract: This paper shares K12 educators’ efforts to marshal local support for the act of basic inclusion: welcoming all communities as equally valuable. We share data from a national pilot of #USvsHate (usvshate.org), an educator- and student-led “anti-hate” messaging project. In interviews, participating educators revealed careers of “pushback” against even their basic efforts to include (mention or empathize with) marginalized populations. They also shared five key forms of “backup” they had learned to marshal to keep such topics on the agenda. Building on scholarship positioning basic and deeper inclusion work as the unarguable task of schools, we explore how keeping the freedom to undertake even basic inclusion efforts requires teachers to preserve agency through assembling local backup -- supports from other people

Foreword: Enough is Enough!

The Center for Leadership, Equity and Research (CLEAR) was established on the premise and promise for joining the fight towards equity and social justice through action-oriented leadership and scholarship.  As such, it promotes a culture of activism through engaging participants in difficult and courageous conversations especially during the era of dominant cycles of ignorance, noisy empty rhetoric, and grotesque passive silence. One of the key aspects of CLEAR’s mission is to amplify the voices that need to be heard, despite those desperately seeking to silence them.  It also serves as a tool for disenfranchised minority scholars and social justice leaders whose counter-stories do not fit the narrative of the mainstream “elite” professional organizations as they seek to disseminate their empirical accounts and research. Consequently, the Journal for Leadership, Equity, and Research (JLER) has attracted novice and veteran social justice pioneers to share their research efforts and authentic accounts in an attempt to help us understand and face the challenges in society’s educational and social institutions

Book Review

Book review of: Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIsEd. Gina Ann GarciaInformation Age PublishingPages: 381Published: 2020Price: $45.99 (Paperback

Undocumented Chicanx/Latinx Graduate Students: Illuminating Home-Based Sources Of Support

This qualitative research study explores the experiences of Chicanx/Latinx undocumented graduate students in higher education and specifically examines the home-based teachings and learnings employed by their parents to access and navigate higher education institutions. The study is guided by the research question: How do undocumented Latinx graduate students make sense of the forms of support and participation they receive from their families around education? The authors used Bernal’s (2001) Pedagogies of the Home as a guiding framework. The findings revealed important learnings from their family’s migration, laboral experiences and struggles, and strategies to resist marginalization. Through this study, student experiences highlight important considerations for policy and practice that validate the teachings and learnings that occur in their families and homes

Implementing Policy: Navigating the English Learner Roadmap for Equity

This essay explores a variety of ways California’s new policy, the English Learner Roadmap, can be used as a tool to make significant, transformative changes to provide meaningful learning opportunities for students classified as English Learners. It explores the Roadmap’s four principles and provides suggestions for ways to capitalize on the policy to improve educational opportunities for English Learners

Making Movidas: Cultivating Leadership Through Conocimiento In An Undergraduate Student Retreat

This educational case study examines the efforts of one Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) to counter deficit narratives and provide institutional as well as interpersonal supports for Latinx student success through a Student Leadership Retreat. We consider these activities and students’ experiences therein through the lenses of Latinx leadership and Gloria Anzaldúa’s notion of conocimiento. To do so, we rely on established methods in Chicanx Studies that center the voices of participants and communities to foreground emic systems of knowledge and activity qualitatively. Specifically, we examined students’ experiences in programming undergirded by conocimiento (iterative and dialogic understanding of ourselves and others), cariño (care for self and others), and confianza (trust) in contrast to more traditionally individualistic, competitive, and transactional arrangements within higher education

Book Review

Book review of Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy by April Baker-Bel

The Right To The University: The Experiences Of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx Students At A Predominantly White University In Upstate New York

Having the right to a space is not only the right to be present without being harassed or bothered, but it also includes the right to have a say in how that space should be experienced. Yet, spaces have long been contested and not everyone has equal access to shared spaces. This paper examines the experiences of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) undergraduate students at a predominantly white university in the Northeast. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, plagticas, and document analyses, I argue that MMAX students do not have the right to their respective university because their university does not address their specific needs as Students of Color. The denial of the right to their university is experienced through a lack of resources and institutional support. This includes, but is not limited to, (a) Inconsiderate University Investment Patterns; (b) Inadequate University Services; (c) Unequal Housing Accessibility; and (d) Unfair Treatment by Campus Police