By Denisa R. Superville, Education Week, November 5, 2019
The country's second-largest school district—where 82 percent of students are Latino and African American—is tapping principals to root out racial bias and inequitable practices in their schools.
Los Angeles Unified School District and the Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California have partnered to train principals and other school leaders to tackle systemic inequities. The Racial Equity Leadership Academy for principals will begin in early 2020, with the first cohort consisting of about 40 principals from some of the district's highest-needs schools.
"We know that the pursuit of racial equity in schools requires skill-building among principals, and teachers, and everyone who is involved in the ecosystem of schooling," said Shaun Harper, a professor and the executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center. "Part of this [program] is a recognition that many people did not learn in their prior educational and professional upbringing how to solve complex racial problems, what to do when data consistently show us pervasive inequities between racial groups, how to make good use of racial tension when it arises in a school. Those are all teachable things."
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