The Center for Inquiry invited Consortium educators to submit Equity Portfolios between 2018 and 2021 to highlight and share curriculum and school practices around issues of deep concern to us: recognizing and including students’ cultural backgrounds, interests, and lived experience in the design and structures of our schools.

We know Consortium schools have long been leaders in developing equity-driven curriculum. Work that has become identified recently by other new titles: Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education, Social and Emotional Learning, and Equity-Driven Innovation, among others.

Our schools have a rich collection of curriculum, practices, activities, and events that reflect these concerns and honor our students. We have used a moment of DOE support for “equity-driven innovation” to gather some of our expertise in a portfolio and make it available to schools across and outside the Consortium.

Culturally responsive pedagogy guided the Equity Portfolio submissions. Marsha Vernon (Schomburg Satellite) has summed up for us some of the teachings of Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor of Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin, who first coined the term “culturally responsive pedagogy.”

Three main tenets of this work include:

High expectations for teaching and learning. Start at one level of expectations and continue to move up to ensure student growth. Know your students so you know which tools and resources will best support them. Expect all of them to achieve—the antithesis of a deficit-model.
Affirm students’ cultural knowledge and experience. Validate their experience and recognize them as equals in your learning community. Honor their voice rather than focusing on any skill deficits.
Support students’ awareness of inequities in educational and other institutions that directly affect their lives. Engage them in curricula that teach the power of analysis and evidence-based critiques. Include multiple perspectives of topics, especially those of marginalized groups in an empowering way.

For more information on culturally-responsive teaching click here.