"Courageous Conversations About Race" is a book provided by the Pacific Educational Group and is intended as a guide for educators as they confront racial issues in the classroom. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

Lodi Unified tackles racism issue with training program for its staff

Black and Hispanic students aren't achieving at the same rates as white students at Lodi Unified schools. The district is now in its third year of program improvement and is facing possible sanctions handed down by the state if its students don't show enough progress.

While Lodi Unified is trying a variety of different methods to close the achievement gap, none of them have received as much attention as the Equity Initiative.

The Equity Initiative, which started approximately four years ago, is the district's attempt to narrow the achievement gap by exploring issues of racism — institutional and otherwise — in the classroom.

Some Lodi Unified employees say that the district's approach puts its staff in a difficult situation by making them discuss race in the workplace, forcing them to subscribe to a particular ideology and accusing them of not caring for all their students equally.

District administrators say that the initiative is not meant to shame or blame anyone, but to nurture and open discussion on how race affects learning, and to help educators cater to each student's individual needs.

The issue recently bubbled over when some teachers spoke out against the video "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible."

The video follows a group of white people as they discuss their experiences with institutionalized racism and white privilege.

Many teachers felt the video was the district's attempt to take another stab at them by calling them racists.

"That was 45 minutes of making you feel bad," said one Lodi High School teacher who teaches an elective class.

District administrators, though, thought the video could be used as a good learning tool to help spur conversation on the issue.

Here's an in-depth look into the Equity Initiative, who's involved in it and how it originated.

Key players

Bill Huyett

Superintendent of Lodi Unified for more than seven years, Huyett has played a key role in the Equity Initiative since its inception in 2003.

Along with the school board, Huyett guides the direction of the initiative and makes sure it's being carried out.

During his tenure, Huyett has helped Lodi Unified increase the number of minority teachers hired from 14 percent to 33 percent.

Odie Douglas

Douglas became Lodi Unified's associate superintendent in the summer of 2005 after a nineyear career at Elk Grove Unified School District.

At Lodi Unified, Douglas is in charge of overseeing the progress of the Equity Initiative and collaborating with the superintendent to guide its direction.

At a 2006 Martin Luther King celebration in Lodi, Douglas explained the difference between equity and equality.

If a sighted and blind person were each given a book, that constitutes "equality," Douglas said, because they both have a book. But the blind person needs help, such as Braille, to read the book. That would be "equity," Douglas said.

Mark Calonico

The district's administrative director of curriculum instruction and assessment, Calonico is responsible for the professional development of Lodi Unified's teaching staff. After viewing "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible" at a conference last year, Calonico brought the video, which discusses issues of institutionalized racism and white privilege, to Lodi Unified as an option school employees could choose for an Oct. 22 staff development day.

Ken Davis

Recently voted by his fellow board members to serve his seventh term as Lodi Unified's board president, Davis has served as a trustee for 15 years.

He is the only current member of the board who was in office when the initiative started in 2003.

Together with district staff, the school board guides the direction of the initiative.

Davis attended Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas during desegregation. About the Equity Initiative, he said: "I don't think anybody in this district has ever called anybody a 'racist,' but people are drawing the generalization about that. And those are the issues that detract away from what are we doing with kids. Are we doing our best work with kids?"

Katherine Pennington

The assistant superintendent of elementary education, Pennington oversees work done with the initiative at elementary and middle schools.

Barbara Johnston

As the assistant superintendent of secondary education, Johnston oversees high school staffs as they work to provide more equity to their students.

Len Casanega

Casanega, assistant superintendent of personnel, is in charge of hiring a qualified and diverse staff.

Doug Barge

As district's chief business officer, Barge makes sure the district has enough funding to carry out the Equity Initiative.

Art Hand

Along with other members of the district's cabinet, Hand, the assistant superintendent of facility planning, contributes his ideas and thoughts to guide the initiative.

Hand is also responsible for making sure schools meet American Disability Act requirements and supervises maintenance.

Development tools

The following books and video were some of the options that school employees could select for an Oct. 22 staff development day.

The achievement gap is the difference in academic accomplishment — measured by standardized test scores — between white students and students of other ethnic backgrounds, students from poor families and students from financially solvent families, students who speak English as a second language and native English speakers, and students with disabilities and students without disabilities. — "Achieving Success for All Students," the California Department of Education's Web site dedicated to the initiative on closing the achievement gap. (Marc Lutz/News-Sentinel)

• "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible" — A film directed and produced by Shakti Butler that documents a group of white people from around the country as they share their encounters with institutionalized racism.

Butler, who has worked on helping people understand issues of race, gender, class and sexual orientation for 21 years, is the executive director of the World Trust Educational Services, a nonprofit organization dedicated to extinguishing racism and developing understanding.

• "White Teachers/Diverse Classrooms" — A book edited by Julie Landsman and Chance W. Lewis that explores how white teachers can help students of different ethnic backgrounds succeed by reflecting on their own unconscious biases and adapting their teaching style to serve students of different cultures.

• "Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners" — A book by Jane Hill and Kathleen Flynn that offers a set of instructional strategies for teaching students to learn English.

• "Courageous Conversations About Race" — A book by Pacific Educational Group founder Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton that uses race to examine the achievement gap, and explains why educators must have candid discussions about race.

The book, which is available at every school in Lodi Unified, also includes activities, discussion prompts and instructions on how to create an equity team.

The facilitator's guide to this book, written by the same authors, offers group activities, discussion, and journaling prompts and suggestions for further reading.

Pacific Educational Group at a glance

• Pacific Educational Group, Inc. is a company that provides guidance to school districts on how to combat inequity — institutional and otherwise — in schools and how to meet the needs of students of color.

The group started working with Lodi Unified in 2003 to help the district close the achievement gap between white students and students of other races.

The district pays the Pacific Educational Group $50,000 to $60,000 a year for its work.

• Its premise: "Systemic racism is the most devastating factor contributing to the diminished capacity of all children, especially African American and Latino children, to achieve at the highest level, and leads to the fracturing of the communities that nurture and support them."

• Some of Pacific Educational Group's other clients include: Lemon Grove School District, located near San Diego; Oak Grove School District, located near San Jose; San Leandro School District; San Diego Juvenile Court and Community Schools, and Seattle Public Schools.

• The group offers a variety of training services, including books, a video and workshops. Beyond Diversity, the group's two-day workshop, helps teachers, parents and administrators understand how racism manifests itself in schools.

• The company was originally founded in 1992 to help families make the change from kindergarten through high school to higher education, but its mission eventually evolved into tackling the issues of systematic racism in schools.

• Glenn E. Singleton, who founded the Pacific Educational Group, holds a master's degree in education from Stanford University. Singleton established the Beyond Diversity workshop.

Singleton also wrote a book, titled "Courageous Conversations About Race: A Strategy for Achieving Equity in Schools."

What critics say about Equity Initiative

Teri Lawrence, the education director of the Eagle Forum of Sacramento, called the district's work with the Equity Initiative "systematic thought reform."

"The First Amendment protects the right to freedom of conscience — the right to keep our innermost thoughts free from governmental intrusion," Lawrence said in a letter to the district.

As a spokeswoman for the Eagle Forum, a national organization made up of like-mined conservative people, Lawrence took particular issue with the Oct. 22 training day, when many district personnel watched "Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible."

"The teachers' training day that you had on Oct. 22, which presumes to show teachers the specific ideological assumptions they need in order to be better people, crosses the boundary from education into unconscionably arrogant, invasive and immoral thought reform," Lawrence wrote.