Schools Matter: Free Course Syllabus for Graduate Level Ed Leadership Program

I am offering this syllabus to anyone who wants to use it in its entirety or in part. All that I ask is acknowledgement of its origin. --James Horn

Course #______ Antiracist School Leadership

Department Name: Educational Leadership

Program: Educational Leadership

Course Title: Antiracist School Leadership

Syllabus: James Horn, PhD

Course Dates and Time:

Class is designed for 6 class meetings. It was taught as a weekend intensive in-person course. It was last taught in 2023.

Six Meeting dates TBD, each 9 AM-4 PM

Description:

The course will provide school leaders opportunities to understand how schools can be a powerful force for equity and equality in American society. Through readings, presentations, and critical discussions, students will identify effective strategies for identifying and countering institutional racism and for creating and sustaining antiracist schools and communities. This course will engage school leaders and prospective leaders in strategies and tactics for creating and maintaining school policies and practices consistent with democratic principles of equity and equality. Central to the course will an examination of specific frameworks, principles, strategies, and tactics that may be used to design effective antiracist school programs and environments.

3 Graduate Credit Hours

Course Content and Design:

This class will operate principally as a readings-based critical discussion, even though lecture may be offered to provide connections and contexts among the ideas, events, and concepts that form the focal points of the course. Because assigned readings will provide the focal point for our discussions, it is essential that students read with a spirit of inquiry, mindful awareness, and collegial sharing.

Course Requirements:

Students are required to:

 Attend all classes
 Engage in all assigned readings, activities, posting, and assignments
 Exhibit professionalism and civility at all times.

Required Readings:

Aguilar, E. (2020). Coaching for equity: Conversations that change practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Paper $23.80)

Benson, T., Fiarman, S. & Singleton, G. (2020). Unconscious bias in schools: A developmental approach to exploring race and racism (Revised edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. (Paper $30.40)

Lewis, A., & Diamond. J. (2015). Despite the best intentions: How racial inequality thrives in good schools. New York: Oxford University Press.

Recommended Readings Not Required:

Brooks, J. & Theoharis, G. (2019). Whiteucation: Privilege, power, and prejudice. New York: Routledge.

Bryant, T., & Arrington, E. (2022). The antiracism handbook: Practical tools to shift your mindset and uproot racism in your life and community. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston: Beacon Press.

Fritzgerald, A. (2020). Antiracism and universal design for learning. Wakefield, MA: Cast, Inc.

Kendi, I. (2019). How to be an antiracist. New York: One World.

Love, B. (2020). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Boston: Beacon Press. (Paper $12.69)

Other readings and videos will be assigned as the course proceeds to supplement these basic texts.

Outcomes of the Course:

1) Students will analyze, understand, and reflect upon the role of schools in a free society to advance antiracist programs and practices that strengthen democratic governance, equality, and equity;
2) Students will understand how societal power relations are reflected in schools in ways that advance and inhibit equity, equality, and social justice;
3) Students will understand that commitments to organizational structures, curriculums, and assessment practices have deep ethical implications for the ongoing development of healthy, informed, citizens who are capable of making life choices that work for them and for the good of society;
4) Students will understand where their own values fit within a range of political and moral constituencies and special interests;
5) Students will understand that academic achievement gaps are focused on in ways that conceal education debts to oppressed groups that have gone unpaid for generations;
6) Students will explore current awareness strategies for achieving best practices for antiracist ideas and actions within the school community;
7) Students will interpret, explain, and critique specific educational policies and practices that impede or encourage healthy antiracist practices in schools and the communities they reflect;
8) Students will reflect carefully and critically on their own assumptions, educational background, cultural history (vis-à-vis race, ethnicity, language, SES, etc.), that affect our values, ideas, and actions to structural and institutional racism;
9) Students will understand that the organization and curriculum of schools reflect widely varying levels of commitment to democratic principles and conceptions of equality.

Procedure

This class will operate principally as a readings-based critical discussion, even though a number of lectures will be offered to provide connections and contexts among the ideas, events, and concepts that form the focal points of the course. Because assigned readings will provide the focal point for our discussions, it is essential that you read with a spirit of inquiry and mindful awareness.

Assessment 1: Discussion questions from the readings— 6 @ 50 points (300 points)

Your contribution to the class is essential. In large part, your contribution will depend upon your timely and reflective engagement with the assigned written and visual texts. In order to help the reflective process, I am as asking you to write one (or more) insightful question(s) for each of the assigned readings for our six class meetings. These questions should focus on important insights, claims, ideas, themes, concepts, or theories that are central to the readings and that are worth discussing among the group.

Your questions should indicate that you have thought about potential responses to your questions and that you are prepared to weigh in on responses from your classmates and the professor. Discussion questions should require students to think critically and analytically and to provide explanatory or interpretive responses that indicate a close reading of the written and/or visual texts. Your questions, too, should lead us toward fulfilling the goals and expectations for the course.

Please send me a copy of your questions prior to class as a Word doc, rtf file, LibreOffice file, etc. (No Google docs, please). Remember—write at least one good discussion question from each of the assigned reading/viewing for the day.

Assignment 2: Class Participation (200 points)

Evaluation guidelines for Class Participation

A = 200 points

1. Attends all class sessions

2. Consistently contributes to class discussion and group activities

3. Exhibits a constructive, civil, and positive attitude

4. Always ready for class as evidenced by assignments completed.

Assignment 3: Analysis of Racist and Antiracist policies and practices (250 points)

We will spend much of the semester unpacking two of Professor Ibram Kendi’s definitions that are central to this course:

Racist: One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inactions or expressing a racist idea.

Antiracist: One who is supporting an antiracist policy or practice through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.

Furthermore, a racist supports policies and practices, by action or inaction, that maintain or increase racial inequity, while an antiracist supports policies and practices that reduce racial inequity.

This assignment asks students to use all that you have learned during the semester to identify a system-wide policy or practice, a school policy or practice, or classroom policy or practice that discriminates against or disenfranchises a certain group or groups of students based on race or ethnicity. Remember: racism may be intended or unintended, conscious or unconscious. The effects on students are the same, however, regardless of the intent.

You are asked to use our readings and discussions and your own insights to analyze the policies or practices in ways that address these questions:

Specifically, what are the effects on students that make the policy or practice racist?
Whose power was exercised to put the policy into place?
How do those charged with administering the policy or practice deal with criticisms and attempts to change it?
What would be the most effective way to neutralize the racist effects of the policy or practice?
Who wins and who loses by the continued implementation of the policy or practice?

This assignment will be discussed further each time the class meets.

Assignment 4: Final Exam (250 points)

The three books we have read this semester, along with the videos and our discussions of them, offer entry points to many important concepts, insights, theories, strategies, and tools for becoming and continuing to be effective antiracist school leaders. As you reflect on where you started this semester and where you are today with regards to knowledge, skills, cultural competence, will, and emotional intelligence, how would you assess your progress in these and other relevant learning areas during the term? How have the materials and discussions (be as specific as you can) that we have engaged in contributed to your personal and professional growth toward understanding race and racism? What do you see as your primary opportunities and challenges to becoming the equity-focused educational leader that you want to be? (1,500 words minimum)

Grading Scale for Course (1000 points):

930-1000 A

900-929 A-

870-899 B+

800-869 B

Below 800 NC

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to maintain integrity in all academic work. They will not attempt to get grades by any means other than honest academic effort. All work must be completed by individual students except for group projects. It is not permissible to hand in the same work for different courses.

Plagiarism is the use of another’s work, thoughts, or language without giving credit. Cambridge College students will not summarize, copy, or use the work of another person or source without proper acknowledgement. Plagiarism is dishonest and a serious academic offense.

What Is Plagiarism at Indiana University? You will find a short quiz with immediate feedback, as well as other resources.

Part II – Class Agenda

Session 1

Topic: Course overview and beginning the immersion

Required Readings:

Benson & Fiarman (2020), pp. 1-29 (Introduction and Chapter 1)

Aguilar (2020), pp. 1-48 (Introduction and Chapter 1)

Lewis & Diamond (2015), pp. xiii-17 (Prologue and Chapter 1)

Activities and Assignments:

As you become familiar with the readings for the course, examine the Contents pages, prefatory comments, indexes, references, etc. Please bring to class at least one discussion question derived from each of the assigned reading. These questions may be related to how your own experiences relate to the ideas, concepts, and positions taken by the authors.

Videos viewed during class:

A Look at Race Relations through a Child's Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPVNJgfDwpw

Kids speak their minds about race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OKgUdQF-Fg

RACE – THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION: How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Created

https://vimeo.com/133506632

Other resources:

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack:

https://nationalseedproject.org/images/documents/Knapsack_plus_Notes-Peggy_McIntosh.pdf

Worksheets and Other Resources for Coaches—Aguilar

https://brightmorning.wpengine.com/coaching-tools/

Session 2

Required Readings:

Benson & Fiarman (2020), pp. 31-72 (Chapters 2-3)

Aguilar (2020), pp. 49-76 (Chapter 2) .

Lewis & Diamond (2015), pp. 17-44 (Chapter 2)

Required Viewing Prior to Class

If you are not a member of Vimeo, go to this site and sign up. It’s free.

Once you have joined Vimeo, please pay $4.99 for access to this 3-part documentary: Race: The Power of an Illusion. Once you have done so, watch Part 1 prior to class on June 25.