Act by Friday: Will your voice be heard on Leadership Policy? | Cloaking Inequity

Act by Friday: Will your voice be heard on Leadership Policy? | Cloaking Inequity:

Act by Friday: Will your voice be heard on Leadership Policy?

Will the Council of Chief State School Officers ignore educational equity, inequality, race, class, gender, ability, language, special status, marginalization, and social justice? I recently received several letters from leaders in the field that are suggesting that this may be the case.

The following letter came via email from Professor John Roberts at Penn State:

Dear Colleagues and Fellow Educational, Parent, and Community Leaders:

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is in the final stages of updating the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards, and the public comment period closes on the 29th of May. These highly influential policy standards shape the practice, professional development, and evaluation of school leaders across the country.

We want you to know that in the current draft, none of the seven core standards themselves make explicit reference to educational equity, inequality, race, class, gender, ability, language, special status, marginalization, or social justice. You may access the seven draft standards in a press release by the CCSSO here.

This omission is dismaying since a previous draft of these standards included specific language around educational equity and racial inequities. The findings of research and the voices of practitioners are very important for influencing the development of the language in the standards. We believe it is critical that the educational research community, school leaders, and local communities speak again on this issue.

At this time, we are inviting you to support an open letter addressed to the CCSSO, which is available at the following link:

Your signature in support of the letter will include your institution or organization name, which is for identification purposes only and is not intended to imply an endorsement or support from your institution. Your name, should you choose to sign in support, will appear in an attachment to the letter that we will present to the CCSSO Trustees and leadership team.  If you do not wish to sign in support of the letter, please forward this email to your colleagues and contact the CCSSO directly if you share the perspective that equity and equitable schools are a critical part of developing standards for future school leaders.

Thank you for considering this request.

Sincerely,

Ann M. Ishimaru, Assistant Professor, University of Washington

John E. Roberts, Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University

Bradley W. Davis, Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Arlington

Mollie K. Galloway, Chair, Department of Educational Leadership, Lewis & Clark

Mark A. Gooden, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin

Michael E. Dantley, Dean, College of Education, Health and Society, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

Bradley Davis, faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington also relayed the following,

In September of 2014, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released a draft revision of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards. Last updated in 2008, these highly-influential policy standards shape the practice, professional development, and evaluation of school leaders in 45 states and in our nation’s capital. The most apparent change in the September 2014 draft was an expansion in the total number of standards from six to eleven. Chief amongst these additions was standard 10, which dealt with equity and cultural responsiveness, imploring school leaders to ensure “the development of an 

Act by Friday: Will your voice be heard on Leadership Policy? | Cloaking Inequity: