The Challenges of Equitable Education in Florida: Navigating the Pandemic(s) Amid Assaults on Antiracist Education

• In Event: Organizing Teacher Leaders for Change

Abstract

This study presents the outcomes of an equity-oriented teacher professional development (TPD) project, its applicability during the 2020 pandemic(s) and the implications for educational equity given contemporary bans on critical education about race. The results comprise 1) four dimensions of conscientization as learning outcomes of the three-year TPD; 2) three challenges to equity participants experienced during the pandemic(s); and 3) a synthesis of the researchers’ autoethnographic anticipations for equity-oriented education in the context of the state assault on critical education about race. The authors conclude that educational equity cannot be framed as the individual struggle of isolated teachers, and call for collaborative institutional moral leadership to facilitate collective transformative resistance to the assaults on equity-oriented education.

Authors

• Dilys Schoorman, Florida Atlantic University

• Kimberly C. Foster, Broward County Public Schools - School Board

• Jay Sohn, Broward County School District

• Shanett Dean, Florida Atlantic University