by Alice Skipton
A first-of-its kind collaboration between the state’s educators’ union, higher education researchers and community organizations facilitates necessary change
In 2019 the Washington Education Association (WEA) made a specific commitment to partner with researchers to address the barriers to educational justice that our state’s system of education presents for underrepresented and marginalized students. The organization also understood that to effectively fulfill this role required actions that explicitly further equity and anti-racism.
To inform this work, WEA reached out to UW College of Education faculty members with an open-ended invitation. In response, the three project leads Manka Varghese ― a leading scholar on teacher identity and multi-lingual youth, Ana Elfers ― a researcher on teaching quality, and Marge Plecki ― an expert in policy and the economics of education, formed a larger contributing team of UW and Washington State University faculty and community-based organizations already engaged in relevant educational justice work around the state. The result is a series of 13 in-depth reports centering the voices of communities, students, teachers and administrators of color and their networks. Called A Roadmap to Reducing Barriers to Educational Justice in Washington State, the scholarship seeks to inform WEA and the larger system.
With the report recently completed, it’s still early in the process. Next comes the challenging task of digesting and using the information to make change both within the WEA and beyond. “We want the authors to be working partners in presenting and explaining their work,” says Djibril Diop, government relations director at the WEA. The WEA’s recently created Center for Racial, Social, and Economic Justice will also support this effort, led by its newly hired director, Michael Peña. Leaving his position as a Mukilteo district math teacher, he’s a longtime WEA member and a strong advocate for Washington Senate bill 5044 concerning dismantling institutional racism in the public school system, which passed into law and became effective in July of 2021.
Read the full article to learn more about how they are acknowledging harm, have been committed to equity since 1889, and are centering the knowledge and expertise by those most impacted.
