Just before the winter holiday, the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice repealed federal guidance for protecting students from discriminatory disciplinary practices. Now it is in the hands of educators and education leaders to set the bar for addressing disproportionate punishment of students of color and create the conditions for better discipline policy and practice in their schools and districts. This requires data leaders to play a key role in holding ourselves accountable to right action, education data leaders like Dr. Akisha Jones Sarfo, a recent Strategic Data Project Fellow at Guilford County Schools.
In 2012, Guilford County Schools sought to address the achievement and disciplinary gap dividing African-American males from their counterparts through the African American Male Initiative (AAMI). By partnering with SDP and Say Yes, Guilford hired SDP Data Fellow Dr. Akisha Jones Sarfo to help measure and tackle this national problem.
The data are clear. Nationally, students of color are more likely to be suspended from schools than their white peers for the same behavior. Persistent disparities for Black and Latino students plague our schools and the promise of education for all. What can we do? Through this work, Jones Sarfo revealed encouraging ways in which AAMI was working. She also identified clear, evidence-based opportunities to improve, which the district then put into place.
Dr. Jones Sarfo, now a professor at the University of Delaware, recommends districts regularly gather discipline data disaggregated by race and produce reports to identify referring teachers. Identification isn’t meant to penalize teachers but to support them with the techniques and strategies that can be used to fairly manage the classroom and keep all students in school and learning. School systems can also adopt research-based programs to improve school climate and culture, and data leaders are well-positioned to interpret studies about which of those programs lead to better outcomes and where additional research is needed.
Across the country and spanning the educational spectrum, SDP Fellows have been profoundly affecting educational equity and access for the past decade. Just as Akisha Jones strengthened Guilford County’s AAMI, SDP Fellows Tara Chiatovich and Elizabeth Rivera Rodas built a model for Passaic Public Schools to predict which students are less likely to graduate as early as 4th grade, early enough to support the students who need it most.The complex problems facing education today require thoughtful, informed solutions. By building the capacity to analyze and promote rigorous evidence, SDP has been making room for positive change. Whether tackling “summer melt”—the phenomenon keeping well-intentioned high school grads from showing up for their inaugural college classes—in Ft. Worth, Texas, mapping a course to quickly improve low-performing schools in Boston, SDP Fellows have continually revealed how wrestling with data is necessary if we are ever to produce both educational excellence and equity in American schools.
This is why, during our tenth anniversary year, we're excited to explore even more stories of data changemakers from across the field and the country. In the coming months, we'll be bringing you ten stories covering the ten years of critical work that has been carried out by our fellows. It is now more important than ever to continue and scale this work.