A Snapshot of Anti-Bias Education in U.S. K–12 Schools
Findings from the 2021 American Instructional Resources Surveys
Photo by JohnnyGreig/Getty Images
Date: |
Wednesday, February 23, 2022 |
Time: |
1 to 2 p.m. EST / 10 to 11 a.m. PST |
Program
Research demonstrates that teaching students explicitly about issues of identity, diversity, equity, and bias—sometimes referred to as anti-bias education—can lead to positive student outcomes. Yet, many states have started passing or are considering laws limiting discussions of racism, sexism, and bias within their classrooms.
In this webinar, RAND researchers share new data from a national teacher survey administered in spring 2021 about the extent to which public school teachers report addressing anti-bias education in their K–12 classrooms and what that looks like.
RAND researchers will be joined by discussants representing organizations that support high-quality teaching and learning: Tanji Reed Marshall, director of PK–12 education at the Education Trust, and Lawrence Paska, executive director for the National Council for the Social Studies, will provide some reflections on RAND’s findings and their implications for helping all students in public schools be successful.
Featured Speakers
Ashley Woo is an assistant policy researcher at RAND and a Ph.D. student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research interests include wealth and income inequality, educational equity, neighborhood and school segregation, teacher recruitment and retention, education curriculum, and standards-based school reform. Prior to joining Pardee RAND, she worked for KIPP LA Schools, where she taught 2nd grade at a South Los Angeles charter school. In addition, she is a Teach for America alumna, having completed two years of teaching at a Title I elementary school in Miami, Florida. As a former educator, she is experienced in standards-based and data-driven instruction, curriculum design, and tailoring teaching methods to support specific academic and social-emotional student needs. She has a B.A. in political economy and a minor in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley, where she also conducted research on how American educational outcomes compare to those of other wealthy, industrialized nations in terms of both equity and levels of student achievement.
Tanji Reed Marshall
Tanji Reed Marshall, Ph.D., is the director of P-12 practice, leading Ed Trust’s Equity in Motion assignment analysis work. Prior to joining Ed Trust, Marshall worked in the Office of Academic Programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University to prepare the school of education’s accreditation with the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. Before that, she supported prospective secondary English teachers who were working to obtain licensure through the school of education. Before joining Virginia Tech, Marshall worked for as a district-level literacy specialist in Charlotte–Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, where she supported middle schools across the district to refine their literacy practices. Her career also includes elementary and middle school classroom teaching in North Carolina and New Jersey. Marshall holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction, with an emphasis on teacher practice with high-achieving African American students, from Virginia Tech; a master’s degree in English education, with a focus on critical literacy, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Boston College.
Lawrence Paska
Dr. Lawrence Paska is the executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies. He began his appointment in October 2016. Paska began his career as a middle school social studies teacher in New York State public school districts. He later served in multiple roles at the New York State Education Department, leading New York’s standards and assessment programs for P–12 social studies education as a state social studies specialist. Paska returned to schools as the Director of Social Studies for the Harrison Central School District, leading K–12 social studies, business, and library media departments. Most recently, Paska served as the director of professional development for the Southern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), where he and his team provided instructional programs and services for 32 public school districts in the greater New York City region and were instrumental in implementing New York State’s K–12 Social Studies Framework. He earned a B.A. in History and an M.A.T. in Social Studies from Union College (Schenectady, NY) and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University at Albany (Albany, NY).
Julia Kaufman is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation where she codirects the American Educator Panels. Her research focuses on how states and school systems can support high-quality instruction and student learning, as well as methods for measuring educator perceptions and instruction. She has led studies on how to support students' civics knowledge, skills, and dispositions; how state policies can encourage effective use of high-quality materials; implementation and student outcomes associated with the strategies of the Louisiana Department of Education; perceptions and implementation of state standards for kindergarten through twelfth-grade students; and implementation, outcomes, and costs associated with pipelines for preparing, hiring, and supporting high-quality school leaders and teachers. Kaufman has also led several projects to develop innovative measures of instructional practice, including measures of student-centered learning and teachers' mathematics instruction. Prior to coming to RAND, Kaufman's research focused on the main factors that support teachers' use of inquiry-based mathematics curricula and the extent to which survey measures can accurately capture teachers' instruction. She holds a Ph.D. in international education from New York University and an M.A. in teaching from the University of Pittsburgh.