| Program: | Center for Educational Equity, Oakland, CA | | Contact(s): | Alan Hopewell, Director: (510) 834-9504 | | Purpose: | To assist schools and school districts in providing equal access and opportunities for all students, and to provide the latest information regarding effective practices for improving race relations | | Background The Center for Educational Equity (CEE) is one of 10 regional desegregation assistance centers funded by the U. S. Department of Education, Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, Civil Rights Technical Assistance Program. CEE assists public boards of education, schools, and school districts with the preparation, adoption, and implementation of plans that promote educational equity in the areas of race, national origin, and gender. CEE works with school districts in Arizona, California and Nevada, as well as other educational agencies, such as the U. S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, the Bay Region IV Diversity Coalition, the California Department of Education Committee of Practitioners (Title 1), and the Western Region Magnet School Consortium. Program Operations
CEE collects and disseminates information on issues and problems surrounding school desegregation, provides assistance on racial conflicts in schools, devises and promotes ways to increase parent involvement and empowerment, and assists in planning youth conferences. The CEE responds to requests for services by means of workshops, institutes and conferences, long term training courses, telephone consultations, on-site visits, and resource materials. CEE assists schools and school districts in accounting for all of the diverse student groups they serve when restructuring. CEE also helps to identify effective education programs and aids in developing, implementing, and evaluating magnet school programs for diverse student groups. CEE conducts institutes for district and school administrators on ways to overcome the tendency to group and track students by ability; a practice that has relegated many students of color to unchallenging curriculums. To help schools identify inequities in their policies and practices, CEE has developed an equity inventory that principals and teachers can use to monitor equity conditions at their schools. CEE also provides a set of equity indicators for schools to evaluate the classes students are taking and to determine why certain students are assigned to low level classes. CEE also responds to an increasing number of education-related gender and race equity issues that have arisen in its region. For example, CEE works to assist new immigrant families to understand the necessity of educating their daughters and preparing them for the workforce. CEE also provides these families with additional support to prevent teen pregnancy and dropping out of school. In addition, CEE responds to negative statistics regarding black and Hispanic boys related to dropout rates, juvenile delinquency, and disruptions in school. Since the negative attitudes of many minority boys toward school tend to begin in the early grades, CEE encourages positive teacher-student interactions, beginning in the primary grades and helps districts, and schools communicate with families on these issues. Outcomes and Significant Accomplishments Enrollment of black and Hispanic students in higher level math and science classes has significantly increased over the past four years as a result of CEE. CEE, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education/Office For Civil Rights, planned ways to provide the necessary support for students to enroll in school and succeed. CEE has also conducted an institute entitled, "Beyond Getting Along: Improving Race Relations in Schools," in which 85 percent of the participant evaluations were in the very good to excellent range. |
