Over the past two decades, many school districts across the United States have engaged in some form of ‘equity work’ in an effort to change persistent racialized patterns in student experience and achievement. Communities have engaged in a wide range of efforts to increase opportunity and expand educational excellence and equity. While the impacts of…

Students and student voices must lead our work in building equitable and liberatory schools. The Youth Liberation Symposium, an entirely youth-led virtual symposium featuring youth from across our network of 18 school districts connected to learn about the history of education liberation struggles and dive into questions around their own activist identity. The symposium culminated…

Each school has a “sphere of success,” a set of students for whom current practices are working to get on the path to college and career-readiness. Regardless of how successful a school is, not every child is within its sphere of success. In order to bring increasing numbers of young people into that sphere, educators…

Liberatory Design is an approach to addressing equity challenges and change efforts in complex systems. It is a process and practice to: Create designs that help interrupt inequity and increase opportunity for those most impacted by oppression Transform power by shifting the relationships between those who hold power to design and those impacted by these…

When we listen to young people who are not experiencing belonging and success in the current system of school, and co-design both micro- and macro-innovations in partnership with them, trust is built, healing occurs, and the changes implemented benefit all young people.

Our framework includes 10 dimensions to equip you — in partnership with other education leaders and advocates — with a foundation for unlocking better, more equitable school experiences for children in your community.

This resource and webinar series introduces field leaders that can help guide the choices that we make. particularly in this school year, leaders can either ignore or further exacerbate inequity, or can be leveraged to create more equitable, identity-affirming, safe environments where all young people, especially BIPOC youth, can learn and thrive.

The Design Principles for Schools is a new playbook that aims to support K-12 educators and youth-serving professionals in transforming all learning settings to meet the acute needs we are facing right now and also provide a solid down payment on the better, more equitable education system we need for our kids and their futures.

This playbook suggests a set of design principles that were developed by a group of educators, practitioners, scientists, and parents, building on the knowledge we have today and the contributions of many in the field to nurture innovations, new models, and new enabling policies

Initial lessons from contemporary research that have significant implications for those working to advance opportunity, equity, learning, and youth development.