Episode 150: Doing the Work of Equity Leadership with Decoteau Irby and Ann Ishimaru

This week’s guests are Decoteau Irby and Ann Ishimaru, authors of Doing the Work of Equity Leadership. Irby, a Professor at the University of Illinois, focuses on improving Black students' experiences through equity-focused leadership. Ishimaru, a Professor at the University of Washington, cultivates leadership among educators and racially minoritized youth.

In this episode, they share how they entered the world of education and what brought them to working to increase equity. They also discuss writing the book, what they hope it achieves, and what it actually takes to increase equity in learning spaces.

 
 
 
 
 

Read the transcript for this episode:

Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.

Today, I'm joined by Decoteau Irby and Ann Ishimaru, authors of “Doing the work of Equity Leadership.” Dakota Irby is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and co director of UIC Center for Urban Education Leadership, a creator, activist, consultant and musician. Irby's work focuses on improving Black students academic and social experiences through equity focused leadership. Dr Ann Ishimaru is an award winning scholar, writer, educator and the Killinger Endowed Chair and Professor of Educational foundations, Leadership and Policy at the University of Washington, College of Education. Through her work, she cultivates the leadership and solidarities of educators, organizational leaders and racially minoritized youth, families and communities to realize more transformative futures. Welcome Dakota and Anne. So nice to have you here.


Ann Ishimaru  0:53  

 Thank you so much for having us.


Lily Jones  0:55  

So I would love for you both to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your professional journeys.


Ann Ishimaru  1:05  

I'm happy to go first so Ann Ishimaru and I'm a mom of three kids, an auntie, an educator, a researcher, scholar, writer, also a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, and my I like to joke that I got started teaching controversial subjects in the classroom at a young age, around eight years old.


Lily Jones  1:31  

That is young.


Ann Ishimaru  1:32  

I am Japanese American. And so when the histories of World War II incarceration of the Japanese Americans would come around while we get to the American history at school, and that history of my own family committee wasn't in the classroom, my mom would make me go in and teach it. So that's how I got my started in teaching. I later actually became a middle and high school teacher, but also did a lot of education in other spaces, outside of schools, and then spent a little bit of time as a performing artist, as a professional performing artist, but also leading cultural and community work. And then my research subsequent to that was really focusing on a really expansive notion of leadership, and what does it mean to for everyday people to lead change and to cultivate the conditions for every child to thrive.


Lily Jones  2:28  

Amazing. Thank you, right.


Decoteau Irby  2:30  

Well, Lily, thanks so much for inviting us to be on your show. My name is Decoteau Irby. I'm a father and husband community member and resident of the wonderful south side of Chicago. I've been here for about 10 years before coming to Chicago, I lived in Milwaukee. I've also lived in Philadelphia, where I did my graduate work, and I'll talk a little bit about how formative that experience was for my career in just a moment. But to back way up, I grew up in South Carolina in a family that was very loving, where I got my black history from church and from my community, and where I got a broader understanding of kind of everything else in the world. From school, I went to College of Charleston and South Carolina, and when I graduated with my degree in economics, I moved to Philadelphia, fully intent on working in community development, but a fate had a different idea of what was I was supposed to be doing. So when I got to Philadelphia, I was working at Sunglass Hut in King of Prussia Mall. And a lot of people know this very famous mall, and so I was selling sunglasses to rich people. It wasn't very fulfilling, and I decided I was going to start volunteering my time, and I'm going to age myself. But the first time I started working with high schoolers, was helping them create email accounts and learn how to use email so that they could apply to college. This is right around the time when the financial aid applications were starting to kind of transition online, and at the time, only people in college had email accounts for the most part. So fast forward. I fell in love with working with high school students, ended up teaching adjudicated youth in GED programs, did a lot of hip hop based education, and also started running a program called Young Scholars Program at Temple University. Those experiences and the tremendous amount of effort that I saw students and families give to trying to gain access to higher education really started to, number one, inspire me, but also started to concern me, because many of their efforts didn't pay off. Even though they followed the exact trajectory of what they were supposed to do, they didn't get the outcome that they wanted, and it made me curious about the education system, and from there, I applied. To get a PhD in urban education. I graduated from Temple University and fell in love with doing educational research and using research as a tool for advocacy, and that led me to where I am today, at university, Illinois, Chicago,


Lily Jones  5:16  

Wonderful. I love hearing about both of your backgrounds and how inspiring and just, it's always so interesting to see, like, what led to the next thing and what piqued your curiosity or made you wonder or inspired and upset at the same time. Like, I think we all kind of relate to that in a lot of things, right? And so I'd love to hear you both touched on this. But what's the focus of your work right now? What's peaking your curiosity? What do you feel most inspired by or passionate about right now?


Decoteau Irby  5:46  

Well, I can get started. I'm very excited about our book doing the work of equity leadership. It's a culmination of almost a decade of research that we've been doing collaboratively. And I know we're going to talk about that in a moment. I think at the at the the forefront right now, in addition to continuing this work with about equity leadership, I'm becoming increasingly curious about the more micro level interactions between adults who are in caretaker roles with black children in particular. And I'm interested about how these micro interactions look, regardless of whether the person is, you know, white or black. I'm very interested in how those micro interactions, conversations, communications, verbal cues, you know, physical cues, how you look at students, and those sorts of things actually shapes students aspirations. So that's something I've been looking at, which is, you know, a different level than what we've been writing about and studying more recently, which is district level leadership. And my previous work focused on school level leadership, and I've become increasingly interested in those classroom level and out of classroom, kind of micro interactions.


Lily Jones  7:03  

So fascinating, yeah, having both lenses too, like, kind of from the systems level down to the micro level, and seeing everything in between, like, it's all important, and it's all a piece of the puzzle. So I appreciate that. Thank you.


Decoteau Irby  7:14  

 Thank you. 


Lily Jones  7:14  

How about you, Anne?


Ann Ishimaru  7:16  

Yeah, I've been, you know, I think one of the the metaphors that we use in the book is this morning, midday and evening. We can talk more about that in a minute. But the the idea is that there, that there are different eras of of efforts. And you know, I think with all of the the mandates and all of the policies and things that are being handed down right now in education. We're in this time of darkness, and so I've been thinking a lot about, what does it mean to continue to do this work in this moment? And, you know, I think a lot of the lessons that we learned from the last 10 years are still they're not only still pertinent, but they're like, more than ever, the only way we're going to move. And there are things like being able to not go it alone. They have to move collectively. And to Decoteau's point, I mean, I think my work is really focused around, how do we co create change across these different levels, both like at the systems level, but also, how do we think about that in terms of the everyday interactions, and where are the opportunities to make change in the everyday in ways that are also kind of interventions, and what's happening at the systems level? So there's a lot of the work that I'm focusing on right now, and it's really connected, though, to the work that we have been up to for the last 10 years or so.


Lily Jones  8:42  

Yeah, so important, and yes, it is, as we all know, a dark time in many ways, like especially thinking about education and equity work like it is hard to continue, despite all the pressures not to do this work. And so I appreciate you know the focus and being like this beacon that folks can be continued, to be sustained in this work, in this dark time as well. So can you tell us about this book?


Ann Ishimaru  9:12  

Yeah, I'll go. I'll just kind of build on what I started to foreshadow there. So we looked across the last about 10 years or so, and said, Well, what does it look like to do Equity Leadership in a variety of different contexts and districts? And one of the, I think one of the short comes of some of my work prior to this is that it's been very short snapshots. And I think that's very typical of the research that often happens. It's like, you know, six months, or it's a year, or maybe a year and a half, but we don't get this longer arc and a longer sense of what's happening across time. And so we all the time say, context matters, but how does it really matter? So we looked at that across these different eras. And so the morning times were sort of there was a spark, there was a kind of awakening. And. Book, we talk about the killing of Trayvon Martin and the beginning of the million hoodie movement as one of those sparks. Also the Dear Colleague letter that came down from the Obama administration about discipline disproportionality. That was a kind of spark. And there were morning so then there was, there was morning work happening, where there was a lot of seating and creating new policies, new positions. And then we got into the midday, and that was really in the wake of the pandemic 2020, the killing of George Floyd, where it's kind of like all the lights are on, there's there's a sense of concern and urgency. There are resources flowing towards this work. And then, all too soon, the pushback began, right? And the the anti CRT, the book banning, and that's as evening comes about, and then moving into night and really thinking about, what's the different work that equity leaders are doing during those different timeframes? How is that very by geography and the context of their districts? And then we'll also like how, what are some of the through lines are similarities that across those, and so I spoke to one of those is just we move from seeing individuals and in very clearly defined role, or not clearly defined roles, but really specifically named roles, to really watching how equity was unfolding across systems, across multiple people and multiple roles, including teachers, including school level leaders, including folks, young people themselves, families and communities as well.


Decoteau Irby  11:30  

I guess the only thing that I would add is that we mentioned that this book is the culmination of about 10 years of research that combines in depth, multi year case studies, qualitative interviews with equity leaders from around the country, and some surveys, but it also includes the voices and the contributions of many of the people who we had the opportunity to learn and study. So that's one of the things that we're really excited about is it has a strong kind of emphasis in terms of like theory and thinking about context and but it also has very practical educator ready and useful information in it, because we invited our co authors from the field of practice to actually contribute to the book as well, where we were very committed to making sure this wasn't in this, you know, pie in the sky type theory, despite the fact that our book cover has like a clouds in it. It's very it's very grounded, and we're really focusing on the practices and the activities and the things that people actually did to impact, you know, their schools and their systems in the pursuit of justice.


Lily Jones  12:47  

Yeah, fantastic. I love that. And what a great culmination. And be able to share that. And I appreciate the framing of the morning, the midday and the evening. I'm curious what you hope comes after the evening.


Decoteau Irby  13:02  

That's a really good question. I think for you know me, one of the things that I'm all I always say, is that you know struggle is necessary and but with struggle, progress is possible. And so I think part of what we hope this book will convey is that progress is possible. Um, Ann mentioned the idea of this kind of like longer, you know, arc that the stories unfold in. And you know, one of the chapters we write about this idea of the fruits of unsuccessful leadership. And so when we look back to 2017 2018 many of the leaders didn't think that their, you know, policy advocacy work, or writing a policy was going to make that big of a difference. But when we look at the impact that it's had now, we see the fruits of all of the kind of like seeding policy work that they were doing, the advocating for a more expansive curriculum that reflects students identities and communities for things like gender neutral and multiple, you know, gender neutral bathroom options for students, gender reforming language use in the schools, and all those different sorts of things that at one point in time might have seemed kind of in vain, But that now we see as things that are important, that things that need to be preserved, and things that students stepping into schools in 2025 and 2026 have, that their that their students wouldn't have had 10 years ago. So I think one of the things that we want people to leave this book understanding is, number one, the practices and the kinds of activities that led to where we are right now, and also to understand that we still have a long ways to go, so that they can take some of the lessons from the leadership practices that we explore in the book and carry those forward in their own work.


Ann Ishimaru  14:56  

I think the only thing I would add is just this idea that. Um, there aren't the heroes aren't going to come in and save us. There's no individual who's going to come save the day. It's going to be all of us and that we can't wait to be given permission or to be given a title, to take up this work. And then if we're really, truly doing the kind of work that that changes power, that changes systems, that changes the possibilities for young people, then the pushback is going to come, and it's inevitable. So even in those morning and midday times, and you know, there's the opening chapters talk about the many challenges that folks are facing, and even in the midday that that pushback is, is, in some sense, the one constant it, it varies in terms of how intense it can be, but we have to be ready for that. And by, you know, not waiting for permission, moving together, then we can actually navigate that inevitable pushback. And so we need to be, you know, even this, this eat this night time is a time for strategizing and planting seeds, because the next morning will come.


Lily Jones  16:09  

Yes, so powerful. And yeah, I mean, progress is possible, even if it's not perfect, right? Like, what I heard you say, Dakota is like, all this progress was made, and maybe I didn't even feel like enough, right? Like, because there's still so much more to do. And so I think it's both and right. Like, it's affirming that that progress is made, and also keeping on going. And I think both are important. Like, it's hard to keep going if you don't feel like progress is being made and that the pushback is so much. And so having both really seems like the way to go. 


Decoteau Irby  16:36  

Yeah, absolutely, towards the in the section on evenings. One of the one of our colleagues, Dana movies, writes about this exact thing and how people who are in the trenches engaged in the struggle to improve students learning experiences begin to seek out networks of people who could support one another. And, you know, these networks of care, these networks of concern, and so we argue in the book, you know, the book is called doing the work of equity leadership. And part of the work is seeking out and finding the kinds of relationships and communities of care that will sustain people in the struggle that you know equity work, unfortunately, is.


Lily Jones  17:27  

Absolutely and so I appreciate something that you said, Anne about, like an expansive view of leadership. And I'd love to hear from both or one of you about just what you see an equity leader as?


Ann Ishimaru  17:40  

yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think we have this dominant notion in schools that a leader is somebody who has a title. They're the superintendent or a school board member or principal, and you know, the definition of leadership that I think, really that we're sort of working from in this book, but also comes out of community and community organizing is this idea of really just taking responsibility for what matters, and that comes out of community organizing studies that I've done in the past. But, you know, we're thinking about like teachers in a classroom can be leaders, not just in the classroom, but in their school, in the broader community, and really starting from their own sphere of influence with young people and their families and other teachers, and then expanding from there and building the kind of relationships and stepping in to opportunities for making change, because there are folks all over our systems who are, quote, unquote, doing the work. And one of the the fastest ways to burn out is to try to do it by ourselves, or to only think that the people with the title are the ones going to do it. They are key. They're important. The folks who are named equity directors, or they have this positional authority, certainly play an important role. But like we have a chapter constant Constance da and Fannie Martinez and I wrote about a district where the they were black principals who were not named as sort of equity directors or anything like that. They expanded their leadership to a systems level by working, starting from their own school, and then making change and then connecting with each other to expand their leadership at a kind of systems level.


Lily Jones  19:34  

Awesome. Yes, absolutely. And even the students could be equity leaders, right? Like it could be anyone. And so I think that's empowering too. Again, going back to like, not waiting for permission. You don't have to wait till your principal. You don't have to wait till your teacher, right? Like you could do this in micro moment, moments in systems level change, like you can do this at any level. And so most of our audience are educators, either working within or beyond the classroom. Um, and I'm curious what advice you have for them on creating more equitable and just learning spaces.


Decoteau Irby  20:07  

Yeah, and started to talk about some of the things that they could be doing in terms of, like stepping out. I think there's additional, kind of very concrete things they could be doing, connecting with students in meaningful ways. Again, some of this is complicated by context that we're in right now. So depending upon where people are, you know, closing your door, having the conversations, assigning the books that reflect students realities that are going to give them a kind of consciousness around equity, and get give them access to conversations about, you know, equity and inequities that exist in society. They should also be doing things like making sure that they're connecting, as Ann mentioned with other teachers, a lot of times in my research, there's teachers who feel like they're kind of alone. In most school communities, there may not be a critical mass of people, but there's enough people to have critical connections to be able to kind of make change. So shifting from mass like there has to be a lot of people to thinking about like critical connections and how connecting with like minded teachers is important if there are formal opportunities in the district to join an equity team, join the equity team, if there are opportunities to lead and facilitate student affinity groups. So for example, our colleague, Dr Leticia Reid, wrote about her work advancing policy to support LGBTQIA plus students and her district as an equity specialist. And so part of that was making sure that there were affinity groups and that teachers can be advisors for different kinds of affinity groups, black student unions, student voice alliances, all of those different sorts of things. So those are just some of the things that they can do. I think one of the big things that we want to convey, that we found across all of the stories that we tell in this book is that doing the work of Equity Leadership requires the willingness to color outside of the lines of what's expected in your normal, everyday role. And so we hope that when people read this book, they can gain from these stories the ways that people color outside of those lines. And while our book primarily focuses on how leaders color outside of the lines teachers should be doing the same thing.


Lily Jones  22:46  

Absolutely.


Ann Ishimaru  22:48  

And I think in addition, you know, I work with a lot of systems leaders who, again, sometimes feel isolated. And, you know, really thinking about who are the students that who should be at the center of these conversations, and not just doing things for them, but actually having them be part of the conversation, helping to shape it. And many of these systems leaders say we have but I don't, my work doesn't enable to me to connect with students directly on the everyday level. And that's like teachers superpower, right? They they have those connections. They know that. They have those relationships. They often know the families. And so I think teachers can play a particularly crucial role in helping to connect, especially the students who have been really marginalized by our students or sorry by our systems, with other educators in the system who are trying to make change, because at the end of the day, we, you know, we can talk about data, right? If we can expand our conception of how we think about data, and that the student experience is part of the data that we need to be thinking about, then, you know, there's, there's a we can cut through a lot of the the politics of it, because it's students speaking to their own experiences of schooling and of learning, of trying to be their whole full selves, and that is really powerful when we are trying to foster change and trying to interact and engage with adults in the system is really connecting with and hearing from young people themselves and finding ways for them to be part of that leadership.


Lily Jones  24:31  

Absolutely. 


Decoteau Irby  24:31  

Yeah. One final thing comes to mind that I should mention is, you know, and I want to mention this because in this particular moment, teachers voices matter tremendously. So this is a, this is a tall ask, show up to the show up to some board meetings when a teacher has a testimony that a particular instructional approach. Approach or a particular book works well to give students what they need, that's golden. And oftentimes, at least what we see in, you know, the media and the sound bites put, you know, the most vocal people out front, and so one thing that teachers can do is to be more vocal. This is, again, another coloring outside of the lines piece, but being more vocal and going to school board meetings and going and encouraging to the extent that they're comfortable students to show up at school board meetings to provide testimonials to school boards and those sorts of things too.


Lily Jones  25:44  

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that framing of teachers as being kind of like the people who can elevate student voice too. And so being like, I'm going to go to this board meeting, and also the teachers are experts in this, right? Like we know, we know what works. We know what works with our particular students. And so taking that power of knowing what really connects with students and bringing it to the forefront, I think, is really, really important, and something that you know, again, it doesn't have to be perfect, right? It's just talking about your experience with students, what works for them, what's worked in your classroom, what hasn't worked, and making that more visible.


Decoteau Irby  26:22  

yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, you know, the challenge is, is that, you know, parents, I'm a parent, we get really passionate about our babies, you know, so, but it's a lot of it is my, my two children, teachers have, you know, a very important view around across a range of different children, depending on how long they've been in the classroom, depending on how many different schools they've been to. So they've been able to try things out multiple times and have a kind of different perspective that's that's really important, and that can influence how teachers think as well. I mean, they can influence how parents, pardon me, think as well, because, again, a lot of times parents are hyper focused on their own kids and kids that are very similar to their kids in terms of their social circles,


Lily Jones  27:17  

yeah, or their own experiences, Right?  So teachers have such a wide view often, and you're able to say with more authority, I think, right, like this works across this large swath of children, or this doesn't, or in some ways it doesn't, you know, but really leaning into the expertise for sure.


Decoteau Irby  27:36  

yeah. 


Lily Jones  27:36  

Well, thank you. 


Decoteau Irby  27:37  

I think it's funny that you brought up the, you know, the parents experiences too, absolutely right? Because people, you know, one of the interesting things about schools is they're an institution in our society that everyone is compelled to go through during the formative years of their life. And so we bring those experiences with us. And a lot of times you don't for don't forget those experiences. And so it's important that we we understand those histories and how we bring those histories and experiences with us into spaces and it creates conflict, which is what's supposed to happen in a in a democratic society.


Lily Jones  28:14  

Mm, hmm, yes. And like doing that critical examination of our own experiences as parents, as teachers, as students of what our experiences were like and what we want to bring forward and what we don't to. You know, I think having that reflective moment is so important for everybody.


Ann Ishimaru  28:30  

Yeah, I think one of the chapters that Teresa Lance wrote, the title of visit marathons, not sprints too, is just really, I think, helpful and important for us to keep in mind, as we think about, you know, what does it mean to do this work that it's not, you know, like we we often feel like we want to see immediate, you know, an immediate change. And there are sometimes small, immediate changes. And it is a marathon of across time. So we have to be, we have to be holding and thinking about that as well,


Lily Jones  29:07  

And in many ways, creating something that hasn't been created before, right? Like holding the vision and working towards it while also kind of building it as it's created.


Ann Ishimaru  29:17  

Yeah, for sure. 


Lily Jones  29:19  

Well, thank you. 


Ann Ishimaru  29:20  

If we knew how to do it, we'd be doing it, as some of the well known reformers have said,


Lily Jones  29:26  

yes, absolutely. Well, it's so inspiring to hear about both of your work, and thank you for putting in the time to write and research this book and talk to all these amazing people and create something that's so powerful, and I appreciate you all coming on the podcast. Can you tell people how they can connect with you?

Decoteau Irby  29:46  

Sure the best way to connect with me, a one stop shop, is my website. It's Decoteauirby.com I'm also on Instagram. That's where I'm most active. My handle is Decoteau Black You.


Lily Jones  30:00  

Wonderful. How about you, Anne? 


Ann Ishimaru  30:01  

you can find out about me on my website as well. Annshimura.com and you can often find me on LinkedIn as well.


Lily Jones  30:12  

Wonderful. Well. Thank you all so much. 


Ann Ishimaru  30:14  

Thanks so much for having us. 


Transcribed by https://otter.ai



Lily Jones