Navigating Uncertainty

May 2020

• Increase our efforts to listen to Black students and colleagues about their experiences in California’s education systems to inform the questions we ask, issues we research, and impact we have.
• Re-examine our statewide initiatives—the CSU Student Success Network and California Education Policy Fellowship Program—through the lenses of anti-racist scholarship and action. This includes, for example, the curriculum, pedagogies, and recruitment—and who is at our leadership table. These initiatives are driven by the belief that we must question and change who sets the agendas for public education. We can and will improve our work.
• Re-double our efforts to conduct research that reveals racial disparities in education and be clear about actions that should follow. This includes renewing pressure to be able to access data that can be disaggregated by race in order to understand the disparate impact of policies and practices on Black students.

April 2020

During these unprecedented and uncertain times, many of us are focused on how California can serve our most marginalized students well—with deep concerns about basic needs and the best possible learning opportunities. We need to know how our large bureaucracies can move quickly to support students in new ways. We learned in these last weeks that our education systems can move more quickly than we thought possible a month ago.

EdInsights’ mission is to inform and improve public policy and practice in California by conducting rigorous, independent, research and facilitating networks of policymakers and practitioners. With a steady eye on equity, we are uniquely positioned to support our public education systems and their students in this moment. We bring together groups of people who excel when working to solve complex system challenges—through our California Education Policy Fellowship Program and through the CSU Student Success Network. We know that in times of crisis, relationships are critically important; we will move quickly in the short- and medium-term to use our networking platforms, as well as our policy research and evaluations to learn quickly about the following pressing issues:

• What is working well to serve students equitably—to share promising practices and policies? Where are we falling short and what are academic leaders doing to remedy the problems?
• Which tools and resources do educators need in the short-term to be able to provide equitable learning opportunities?
• Which tools and resources do educators need for the fall, knowing the uncertainties facing the next academic year?
• How do we need to re-think our structures, processes, policies, and practices given that the current situation is deepening existing inequities?

We will raise these important questions at our first virtual CSU Network Middle Leadership Academy in April and our first virtual Education Policy Fellowship Program seminar in May. We will share our learnings immediately through blog posts and on social media. We will also explore ways to leverage those platforms as “hive minds” to support students, systems, and institutions in this time. We are working on longer term pivots as well, to ensure that our work is timely and useful.

As the next few months and upcoming year unfold, our goal is to make meaningful contributions related to the new issues facing our systems and our students, within the context of our research projects and statewide initiatives. If you have suggestions for us, please contact me directly at venezia@csus.edu. Thank you.

From everyone at EdInsights, we hope you stay safe and healthy.

All my best,

Andrea Venezia
Executive Director, EdInsights