New Spaces for Educational Leadership: Disrupting Color-Blind Neoliberal Agendas in Education

• In Event: 69.013 - Confronting Racism in Schools: Then and Now

Abstract

In today’s school reform context, we are witnessing more extreme measures of activism as policymakers and educational leaders often capitulate to resistant white stakeholders’ who fear that policies promoting racial equity may impede their personal rights and interests. Recognizing the opportunity existent in urban communities and school districts, the purpose of this paper is to provide a much needed anti-deficit, racially conscious approach to education policymaking, particularly when it comes to school closures. We emphasize how educational leadership should be a collective effort of administrators, parents, teachers, and students fighting to suspend racially problematic policies like school closures.

Authors

• Anjale DeVawn Welton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Sarah Diem, University of Missouri