Abstract
We are pleased to bring you this special issue and to share cases from the Fourth Annual Duquesne Educational Leadership Symposium (DELS) titled “Children in Poverty: Preparing Educational Leaders to Assure Student Success” held at Duquesne University, May 23 to 25, 2011. In partnership with the Homeless Children’s Education Fund, the 2-day symposium was designed to critically engage scholars from the United States and Canada, practitioners, and community stakeholders about the unique challenges faced by educators and students living within a poverty context.
A bit of background helps to understand how these cases were developed. First held in 2008, DELS began as a small gathering of internationally and nationally recognized educational leaders invited to Duquesne University to support the School of Education’s efforts in redesigning our educational doctoral program. We were not starting from scratch, but rather building on the innovation and successes of the School of Education’s Interdisciplinary Doctorate in Educational Leadership (IDPEL). Our goal was to stay abreast of the complexity of educational contexts faced by educators today. At the time, we were also new participants in the Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate (CPED), a project whose mission is to understand the best ways to train educational leaders for the classroom and for the academy; specifically distinguishing the EdD from the PhD. Understanding the importance of feedback and reflection in an intentional planning and creation process, DELS became the setting where our colleagues, also known as “critical friends,” helped us think harder and better about the types of learning experiences needed if we wanted to develop educational leaders whose training prepared them to transform schools as a matter of social justice. DELS was added to a list of many opportunities we created to collaborate with local schools and community partners on an urgent issue in education as a means of learning with and from each other. In 2009, the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Center for Educational Leadership and Social Justice (CELSJ) began sponsoring the annual symposium. Partnering with school, academic and community stakeholders, what we refer to as the SAC model, builds on the work of Bryk and Gomez (2008). As per our understanding, the SAC model claims that investing time and energy in developing a shared understanding of a problem is critical to designing and developing solutions for equity in education that will be accepted and supported by all stakeholders. SAC partnerships recognize that to better address the complexities of equity issues faced by students, all stakeholders must be present and effectively working together.
The cases you are about to read represent our desire at the CELSJ to share DELS with a larger audience. Each case in this special issue was in some way informed by the discussions and dialogues that took place at the Fourth Annual DELS where we challenged ourselves to think critically about K-12 students who experience homelessness as a part of their schooling experiences and to partner with educational stakeholders to work to improve education for our most vulnerable students. These nine cases are informative to those who prepare educational leaders at colleges and universities as well as practitioners who grapple with complicated and complex scenarios in school districts everyday. The cases illustrate that there are no easy answers and no one-size-fits-all solutions. In a variety of ways, the cases explore the challenges that educational stakeholders face in their attempts to ensure quality education for children in poverty. This is particularly the instance with the first five cases, all of which highlight the internal struggles, professionally and personally, when school leaders are challenged to work on the behalf of marginalized students, when organizational and structural barriers prevent them from taking actions that would liberate students. In “Homelessness Here? A District Administrator Encounters an Unexpected Challenge” by Miller, Pavlakis, and Bourgeois, a superintendent in an affluent suburban district advocates for two homeless students. In this case, students must consider the McKinney–Vento Act from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. Similarly, “Disrupting Myths of Poverty in the Face of Resistance” by Pollock, Lopez, and Joshee highlights the challenges of a forward-thinking principal, as he challenges the myths and stereotypes faced by low-income and poor families. Leaders reading this case are encouraged to consider how to create stimulating, positive, and inclusive learning contexts where all students see themselves as learners. Case 3, “Attracting Diverse Students to a Magnet School: Risking Aspirations or Swallowing One’s Beliefs,” by Taggart and Shoho, once again highlight the difficult choices school leaders must make when addressing social justice issues in their context. Like the first three cases, this representation of leadership encourages students to think critical and intentionally about the ethical decisions they will have to make on the behalf of students. The fourth case shares the activist work of Sister R, Dominican Sister of Peace with more than 30 years of pastoral experience. Highlighted are the ways in which she describes her leadership with and among indigenous, pre-literate people. This case is useful in assisting students to rethink traditional norms and assumptions of power and literacy. Similarly, Case 5 by Arnold and Brooks titled “Getting Churched and Being Schooled: Making Meaning of Leadership Practice” draws upon the work of a Black, female principal, whose professional narrative highlights the intersections of race, spirituality, and social justice. Case 6, “School Leaders Successfully Partner With Community Organizations: Providing Nutrition So Students Focus on Learning Instead of Hunger,” provides a close look into the collaboration of a school-based leader and a community activist to form a food basket program that feed more than 3,000 students suppers every weekday. Cases 4, 5, and 6 represent narratives that integrate personal beliefs about the role of education to emancipate historically oppressed groups. Students are encouraged to contemplate the significance of integrating the personal and professional in ways that benefit others.
The seventh case highlights the experiences of a first-year, White female teacher designated to revamp a charter school to promote a quality education for all students. The challenges working with and among school community members are central to the learning process in this case. “Inclusivity in the Classroom: Understanding and Embracing Students With ‘Invisible Disabilities’” by Maxam and Henderson highlight the troubling intersections between learning disabilities, high-stakes testing, and poverty. Learners who read this case will have to grapple with how they might advocate for inclusivity while striving for academic success for the most neglected students.
Finally, Green and Dantley, being the great critical friends and intellectuals that they are, explore notions of White privilege to better understand racial consciousness. They do so as a means of disrupting systems of oppression within schools. Their case encourages school leaders to consider how urban school reform oftentimes serves the status quo (and those White leaders in power). Learning for this case aims to move students to “extend past epistemological and racial awareness, to action.”
Understanding that poverty and student success includes a constellation of factors, this special issue highlights the multiple approaches that leaders attempt, in their various contexts, to address socioeconomic disparities. It underscores their success and failures, realities and wishes.
The cases presented make it clear that educational stakeholders working to assist marginalized children struggle everyday in their attempts to better serve these students. There is much that can be learned from each other through these daily experiences about the intersectionality of poverty on issues such as homelessness, race, drug abuse, funding inequities, and high-stakes testing.
The goal of this special issue is to highlight several experiences of educators working through the complexities of serving impoverished students and families. As codirectors of the UCEA CELSJ, we believe that each case meets this goal by serving as examples of the symbiotic relationship between educational leadership and social justice.
We wish to thank all of the reviewers who so graciously volunteered their time to make this special issue:
Gary Crow, Mark Gooden, Rosemary Papa, Ann O’Doherty, Linda Skrla, Kathryn McKenzie, Gerardo Lopez, Monica Byrne-Jimenez, Brendan Maxcy, Thu Suong Nguyen, Carlisa M. Russell, Floyd Beachum, George White, Lauri Johnson, Sue Winton, Khalifa Muhammad, Martin Scanlan, Gaetane Jean-Marie, Leslie Hazle Bussey, Vonzell Agosto, Bradley Carpenter, Sarah Diem, David Parker, Launce Brown, Rodney Hopson, Rick McCown, Connie Moss, Jill Perry, Darius Prier, Sarah Peterson, Lisa Bass, Zorka Karanxha, and Carlos McCray.