DPS & DEI

DEI - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - What are Our Goals?

Last week DPS named Jeff Dase as our new Assistant Superintendent of DEI.  Dr. Rochelle Clark, our Superintendent, said in a news release about the newly created position,

This new position shows just how committed we are at Decatur Public Schools to ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion for our entire school community.  Creating this leadership role is a powerful statement of our belief that diversity, equity, and inclusion should play a pivotal role in all that we offer at DPS.

Additionally, DPS has spent $62,530 on DEI training for high school teachers at MacArthur and Eisenhower. 

This is happening now in Decatur while the current climate in the US is to push back on DEI programs.  In the news recently we’ve read how DEI programs are getting cut in corporations around the country due to high costs and ineffectiveness.  Twitter and Meta just went through severe DEI cuts, with Twitter slashing their 30+ person staff to just 2.  The liberal leaning New York Times offers an explanation for the reasons for the nationwide cuts in an opinion piece two weeks ago that stated (and I want to reinforce that this is the ideologically left NY Times we’re talking about here)…

D.E.I. trainings are designed to help organizations become more welcoming to members of traditionally marginalized groups. Advocates make bold promises: Diversity workshops can foster better intergroup relations, improve the retention of minority employees, close recruitment gaps and so on. The only problem? There’s little evidence that many of these initiatives work. And the specific type of diversity training that is currently in vogue — mandatory trainings that blame dominant groups for D.E.I. problems — may well have a net-negative effect on the outcomes managers claim to care about.

It’s a good piece and I encourage everyone to read the whole article, so you’ll see that I’m not just picking out a few sentences that are damning toward DEI.  In fact, the piece gets worse…

If diversity trainings have no impact whatsoever, that would mean that perhaps billions of dollars are being wasted annually in the United States on these efforts. But there’s a darker possibility: Some diversity initiatives might actually worsen the D.E.I. climates of the organizations that pay for them.

And how’s the training going here in our district?  I’ve interviewed a few teachers (names withheld upon request) that have been taking the DEI training and I would not be surprised if what’s been implemented in our Decatur schools fits in the category of providing a “net-negative” benefit.  The consultants do not provide consistent actionable items for our teachers to consider, do not directly answer questions about specific issues that arise in our schools, and generally, have a smug attitude that says: “if you don’t get it, I can’t explain it to you”.

I’m sorry to continue to quote the NY Times to you, but according to the article, is there anything that can be done to help?  (And this will be my last quote from the NYT) …

So, what does work? Robert Livingston, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School who works as both a bias researcher and a diversity consultant, has a simple proposal: “Focus on actions and behaviors rather than hearts and minds.”

And that, I suppose is where we need to focus too.   We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater – there clearly must be some positive outcomes of this relatively new movement.  But this is what Dr. Clark and Mr. Dase need to have frank discussions about:  what are the actionable goals of the consultants and this new position?  And this is what the community should insist on:  goals for our DEI programs that will affect “actions and behaviors”.  For example, for our students is it fair to include increasing test scores as a goal?  I don’t’ think so – at least not directly.  But an increase in test scores will hopefully be a biproduct of a quality DEI program.  Here’s what I mean…

Because we are talking about mostly a different set of goals for students than we will have for our DPS employees, here are my suggestions, first for the students:

1. Diversity.  Recognize the diverse range in abilities of each student.  Make each student feel like they can accomplish their academic goals by teaching, as best as possible, every student at the level of their abilities.  Will recognition of our diverse student body and teaching with more homogeneous grouping result in better test scores – absolutely!

2. Equity.  Give as many students as possible the opportunity to join extra-curricular activities:  theatre, music, chess, (obviously) sports, etc.  The best path toward equity (allowing each person to feel and know that they are truly equal to everyone else) is to allow students the opportunity to accomplish goals and to flourish – no matter what age.  Encourage students to start in extra-curricular activities as early as elementary schools, perhaps even make what would normally be called extra-curricular activities part of the normal daily curriculum.  (Look for a future article on this.)

3. Inclusivity.  We need to force our students to engage with each other verbally during school.  On-line life does not bend toward inclusivity, quite the opposite:  numerous studies point toward the tribalistic mentality created from social media.  Let’s remove the largest obstacle students face, which prevents them from connecting with their fellow students, and feel included in academic life – the cell phone.

You might see through my DEI objectives and say that I’m perversely bending the meaning of DEI to meet my own personal objectives.  In one respect you’re absolutely right, but I will stand by these three objectives as a pathway to more of what DEI attempts to accomplish and a better life for all of our students in DPS.

Next, regarding DEI objectives for the DPS staff, and make no mistake these objectives, whether you agree with my student objectives or not, will be different than the objectives for the student body.  Here is my one suggestion:

1. Hire a more diverse teacher staff.

That’s it – it’s that simple.  Platitudes and shaming are (as referenced above) counterproductive.  What people want are respect and good jobs.  The respect part is something that no amount of consulting/training is going to solve (again, see above), but jobs are… well… jobs.  Our district has about 70% minority students, yet only 27 of our 489 full time teachers in 2022 were black.  We haven’t been trying hard enough to recruit a more diverse teacher corp.  This is really my biggest hope for our new DEI Administrator – work your ass off to hire more minority teachers.

Now, let me address an obvious reaction to this: why should it matter if the teachers are white or black, as long as they are qualified and do a good job.  Two answers:

1. From sciencedirect.com, “numerous studies have found that students who are of the same race as their teacher experience increased academic achievement.”  Furthermore, and more important to our current situation, “below average achieving students benefit most from having a teacher of the same race.

2. The problem is not a qualified vs unqualified issue, it’s where we are looking for employees. If we continue our search in Decatur and the surrounding communities, we will continue to hire mostly white teachers.  Half of the black teachers in the United States are from historically black colleges and universities.  Shouldn’t we join the group of districts recruiting at these institutions?

I’m not implying, and certainly the study cited does not imply that excellent white teachers are ineffective.  Only that, all other things being equal, a same race teacher has a slight advantage with below average achieving students.

And so, district leadership, community, and board members, since we are allocating a great deal of resources toward DEI, let’s make sure the time and money is well spent.  We must focus on actionable items stated with goals of what can be accomplished, otherwise our DEI program will end up like most of the rest of the programs across the country – not only a waste of money but often even counterproductive.  If you don’t like my goals – what are yours?  Make sure you identify the action you’re suggesting, like this:

• Recognize student diversity with homogeneous grouping which will improve test scores.

• Increase student equity by offering a broader focus of extra-curriculars which should engage students and help retain them through high school.

• Encourage inclusiveness among students by removing cell phones.  This will help learning, increase student well-being, and decrease student violence.

• Better staff hiring is simply the most important thing we can do in the DEI space for our teachers.  Efforts in this area will also have the additional positive effect of helping students.

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