This page is archived - For information only Introduction - Seminars - Proposal
Social Justice Proposal to the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
In support of the University of Michigan School of Education’s consideration of “Equity and Social Justice” as a common theme in the school’s identity and future work.
I. The Goal
While education serves many public interests within a democracy, one of its ultimate aims must be to promote equity and social justice within society. The School of Education at the University of Michigan is committed to making visible this theme in its work, and to further strengthening the fundamental connections among education, equity, and social justice.
To accomplish this goal, the School of Education has undertaken a multi-pronged initiative of which the effort described in this proposal is a part. The larger initiative commenced with the formation of a Diversity Task Force (DTF) in the spring of 2000. The activities overseen by the DTF include conducting a cultural audit of the climate of the School with regard to issues of diversity and inclusiveness, and developing the beginnings of a post-doctoral fellows program for young scholars of color. The effort described in this proposal focuses on a central piece of the larger effort. Specifically, this effort seeks to orient the public intellectual life of the school to make visible the connections between ongoing work and the broader national issues connecting education, equity, and social justice.
This work is not new to us. Many significant studies now underway at the School share this theme, but the connections between seemingly disparate studies are not yet explicit. In the first phase of this ambitious, long-term effort, which will be led by the dean and members of the school’s faculty and student body, the School will consider how research, teaching and practice in education bear on the issues of equity and social justice in American society. The School will design a seminar series to recognize and celebrate work already under way at the School. This activity will provide an integrating intellectual thrust to separate but related activities now underway at the School, will further invigorate and focus the curriculum, and will assist us in recruiting diverse, and talented students and faculty. The ultimate goal of the seminar series and other activities of the early years of this project is to enable the School to provide national leadership on educational issues of great importance in our society. With the groundwork laid through the early years of this effort, we expect to be able to begin to provide this national leadership using vehicles such as an annual “Michigan Colloquium on Education, Equity, and Social Justice.” We expect to inaugurate this annual event in the third year of this project.
Certainly no institution or school can responsibly “claim” the right to represent leadership in the areas we describe without thoughtful study and preparation. The text below considers the need and potential for such an effort and describes how it will create a coherent context for identifying and pursuing scholarly inquiry; energize the public intellectual life of the school; and link to related initiatives now underway to enhance the School’s teaching and service.
Ultimately our goal is to strengthen the connection between the work of educators and the pursuit of a more just and equitable society. Through this initial investment, the School hopes to build internal and external consensus, to inspire, and to align relationships so that we can credibly assume a nationally visible position as a leader in this effort.
II. Background
Inequality of access to learning is the central problem facing US Education at the dawn of the 21st century. A broad range of public opinion has expressed a sense of urgency about the need to address social and ethnic inequalities in access to learning. The policy prescriptions diverge sharply. Some hold that supplying inner-city families with vouchers will increase school choice, promoting competition among schools and increasing educational quality where it has been lowest. Others argue for a new infusion of public resources into schools serving poor children, thereby reducing class size and increasing access to well-trained teachers. A debate rages among pre-school educational policy experts about whether to expand Head Start in its current form or whether to require Head Start to emphasize academic instruction. Post-secondary administrators are engaged in an unprecedented appraisal of admissions standards, curriculum, and grading based on pressures to combine equity with excellence. What is remarkable about these debates is not that prescriptions should clash so sharply but that they are all based on a common diagnosis: the nation’s educational institutions are not serving a large segment of our young people well. The resulting inequality in access to academic learning, while comparatively easy to overlook when manufacturing jobs were plentiful, is hard to ignore in an information economy.
Paralleling the concern about educational equity is a concern about the amount and quality of empirical evidence available to those engaged in policy deliberations like those described above. Conferences sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a new volume published by the Brookings Institute and, more recently, several seminars at the US Department of Education have highlighted contrasts between medical research and educational research. All agree that funding for research and expectations for the role of research in policy and practice are far higher in medicine than in education. Partly as a result, recommendations for practical action in education tend to veer wildly, free from the constraint of evidence. A moderately large industry promotes new educational programs and materials, untested by serious research, to educators hard-pressed to produce better results. Without serious attention to historical experience and current evidence, the current quest to overcome educational inequality may spawn well-intentioned but ineffective innovations, ultimately promoting cynicism about the prospects for policies that, in the words of current legislation, will leave no child behind. While good ideas and better evidence are not sufficient to increase social justice in education, these ingredients are indispensable.
The University of Michigan’s School of Education is uniquely positioned to provide national leadership to the quest for better research and training to support policies and practices that can overcome educational disparities. First, the School is organized around subject-matter learning in school settings, with nationally renowned faculty in mathematics education, science education, reading literacy, and history. Overcoming disparities in opportunities to learn requires a deep understanding of how those opportunities are created and sustained in the context of specific subject matter, and no faculty in the nation is better equipped to illuminate how this happens. Second, faculty and students at the School are already deeply engaged in ambitious research on instructional reform in schools serving educationally disadvantaged students; in studying how technological innovation can promote new learning opportunities; in inventing and evaluating new reading and writing instruction; in assessing how neighborhood and family differences are linked to schooling outcomes; in clarifying how school organization and academic press affect opportunities to learn across ethnic and social class boundaries; in uncovering lessons from the history of urban school reform; in clarifying how colleges promote or hinder the success of non-traditional students; and in devising innovative and effective ways of educating teachers to meet the challenge of educational equity.
In sum, a great national debate now considers ways to overcome massive inequalities in educational opportunity. A critical weakness in this debate is a lack of solid research evidence to inform this debate. The School of Education at the University of Michigan possesses key ingredients to provide leadership to overcome this weakness.
However, if the School is to fulfill its potential in this national debate, it must change in certain ways that have recently become clear. A series of internal discussions, launched by the Dean’s office with the help of outside consultants, has revealed not only the assets described above but also the changes that will be required if these assets are to be mobilized in ways that can enhance the School’s impact.
First, we seek to orient the public intellectual life of the school to enable its members – and others in the University – to make visible the connections between ongoing work and the broader national issues sketched above. In particular, we aim to emphasize how the theme of equity and social justice cuts across current work on subject matter learning in the disciplines as well current work on school organization, school reform, and educational technology. Specialists in each domain of inquiry around the nation know a great deal about each aspect of the School’s work. The School’s faculty and students are clearly well integrated into these separate national networks. But the communications across networks within the school – and between the school and the larger University community – could be articulated more strongly. Such communication requires that specialists learn how to convey the broad significance of their work to their colleagues; and it requires that their colleagues take an interest in work beyond their own domain of specialization. Such broad internal communication requires a compelling rationale, because students and faculty at this research-intensive School tend naturally to focus on their own specialized work. A powerful rationale is that a broader dialogue and critical appraisal of work across specializations will inevitably enhance the quality and impact of the work within each specialization. Specifically, the act of articulating the broad significance of work enhances one’s awareness of the most essential aspects of the work, having the effect of enabling the presenter and the audience more fully to grasp its significance. The articulation of broad significance is, to some extent, then, self-fulfilling. A learning environment for students and faculty is thus enhanced when powerful ideas from seemingly separate domains are linked. This synergy requires a shared interest. The current national concern about educational equity provides that shared interest, as articulated among many faculty and students during the internal discussions mentioned above.
Second, the intellectual and organizational thrusts we recommend will require additional leadership. To achieve the impact described above, the School’s recruitment of faculty and students must reflect the priorities stated herein. Nothing short of the best new thinking about equality of educational opportunity will be required if an inspiring vision is to be translated into durable, practical, and usable knowledge. Not surprisingly, the best thinkers nationally on these issues and the most motivated students tend not to reflect the demography of the traditional academy. Many of the leaders in understanding these issues are of ethnic minority background or of other “non-traditional” backgrounds, including seasoned teachers or inspired reformers, often women. To fully develop the theme of equity and social justice in our work will require new forms of diversity, intellectual as well as demographic. The proposed seminar series will therefore be initially designed to support related new commitments, including a post-doctoral fellowship program, to recruit diverse faculty and students.
Ultimately, we will be guided by some very basic questions:
What connections are possible across our work and between what we do as a school and the society we serve?
What does the demand for greater equity and social justice require of us as we go forward as an academic community? What will it mean to be a leader in this effort?
A rich history of leadership within the field of education provides us with an opportunity and a responsibility to act on behalf of the themes of equity and justice. Schools of education across the country have struggled, in some cases, to articulate their places in the modern university and in their service to society. Ironically, this is at a time when more public attention than ever is paid to schooling and to the outcomes of our educational processes. Through this effort, the UM School of Education will affirm its role as a leader in the profession in the communities and society in which we serve.
III. Proposal
Our efforts to provide for leadership as a school and academic community committed to equity and social justice begin by looking at ourselves, at our research, our teaching and our service.
Ultimately, we seek support to establish an annual “Michigan Colloquium on Equity and Social Justice in Education.” This colloquium will be a public forum involving the various constituent audiences concerned with these issues including educational and community leaders, policymakers, and legislators. Initially, however, we will hold a seminar series. The seminar series will be more internal to the School of Education and the University at large as we prepare to provide leadership to the larger community. Themes for the early seminar will include culturally responsive pedagogy in reading, mathematics, science, history; and in the university at large; comprehensive school reform; educational technology and educational equity; school organization and educational inequality; higher education and K-12 connections; and schools, communities, and social justice. Each seminar will include some aspect of research currently underway at the school, but scholars from outside the school (within and outside of the University) will be invited as co-presenters or discussants. The seminar will be linked to visits by external scholars who have shown great potential to give leadership on issues of social justice and equity in education. We will be especially interested in external colleagues who can assist us in recruiting diverse faculty and students, or who themselves might be suitable recruits.
We see this effort as unfolding in three stages.
Stage 1: Encouraging faculty and student involvement and ownership
In early September, the Dean will propose equity and social justice as a cross-cutting theme for the work of the School. She will solicit ideas from the faculty on papers, topics, and external colleagues to be involved. The present proposal will be disseminated for reading in preparation for the faculty retreat.
In mid September, the Equity and Social Justice Committee, chaired by Stephen W. Raudenbush, will plan the first seminar, to occur during November, 2002. Planning will be based in large part on faculty ideas for papers, topics, and visitors.
On October 15, 2002, the faculty will hold a retreat to consider equity and social justice in education as a cross-cutting theme for the school’s work over the next three years. Faculty will discuss the present proposal and provide ideas about how to make the seminar series successful.
During this same period, a student committee on equity and social justice in education, three of whose members are currently part of the School-wide committee, will organize support among graduate students for the seminar series while seeking student input on topics, speakers, and supportive activities.
Stage 2: Launching the Seminar Series
The first of the seminars will be held in the fall of 2002, most likely on the topic of “culturally relevant pedagogy.” During the Winter term, two additional seminars will be held. The second seminar, held during the spring, will coincide with a week-long visit of an outside scholar with a national reputation on research related to the equity and social justice theme. The outside scholar will not only participate in the seminar, but will also give a broad audience talk, meet with research projects and instructors interested in her work, and also meet with interested graduate students, providing them guidance on their teaching and research.
Stage 3: Sustaining and expanding the seminar series, integrating its theme into related School initiatives, and launching the Michigan Colloquium.
During the second year of the proposed work, the seminar series will be sustained as a regular feature of school life, meeting twice each semester. At least one of the seminars occurring in a semester will coincide with the visit of a national expert, who will meet with small groups of faculty and students.
During the same period, the school will have launched two closely related initiatives. The first is a post doctoral fellowship program focused on recruiting diverse scholars interested in equity and social justice to the School’s faculty. The seminars will be an integral part of the post doctoral program; visiting scholars will meet with the post doctoral fellows and, and the fellows will participate in the seminars as presenters and discussants. The second related initiative involves finding novel and effective ways of evaluating and improving instruction occurring within the school. Visiting scholars will meet with faculty who are working on instructional innovation. Planning for new courses will take into account ideas generated by the seminars. In sum, vigorous and widespread discussion of course design and pedagogy will consider not only how the content of the School’s curriculum ought to be affected by what the seminars uncover but also how interactions between faculty and students in the School’s classrooms might be enhanced.
In the third year, we will launch the "Michigan Colloquium on Education, Equity and Social Justice." The Colloquium will be a natural extension of the seminar series. However, the Colloquium will draw a national audience of speakers and participants and produce annual proceedings.
IV. Budget
Across the three years, we plan 11 seminars (three during the first year, four the second year, and three plus the first annual Michigan Colloquium in the third year). We expect each of the seminars to cost about $3,000.00 including travel and honoraria for two external discussants or presenters and refreshments for the audience. We are budgeting $7,720 which includes $500 contributed by School of Education, for the first Annual Michigan Colloquium. We also plan to accommodate one visiting scholar for each year of the three years. We anticipate the cost $7,000.00 per visit, including travel, honoraria, and lodging. The total cost will therefore be about $70,000. We seek $50,000 support from the Kellogg Foundation, with the School sharing the cost through a contribution of $20,000. See budget table in Appendix A.
V. Evaluation
Students and faculty will be surveyed for their evaluations of every seminar and visiting scholar. They will be asked about the overall quality and usefulness of the events, fit with the theme of equity and social justice; adequacy of organization and facilities, and ideas for new seminars and visiting scholars. School presenters will be asked about the utility of their involvement for their research and teaching. Another important way of assessing the effectiveness of the proposed work will be in terms of the recruitment of diverse and talented new faculty and students, the national, regional, and local impact of the work discussed in the seminars, and the effects manifest in new courses taught within the School. Another indicator of success will be the capacity of the school to secure external funds from new sources for the launching of the Michigan Colloquium on Equity and Social Justice in Education.
VI. Project Personnel
Dean Karen Wixson will provide leadership for this effort and will be guided by a faculty and student committee chaired by Dr. Stephen W. Raudenbush, whose vita is attached. The committee reflects the diversity of the school in terms of seniority, roles, and demographic considerations.
Inquiries about the proposal or the planned project should be directed to:
Dr. Karen Wixson, Dean
School of Education
University of Michigan
610 East University
Ann Arbor, Michigan
