School board continues to study about equity in education

NEW ULM — The New Ulm Public Schools’ Board of Education held its third work session to help the district create a more equitable district, Thursday.

The district recently approved a new three-year strategic plan. One of the key priorities of the plan is to create equitable education for all. In June, the board and school principals began working with the consulting group Longview Education to provide training in equitability.

During the July work session, the board focused on understanding the difference between individual, systemic and institutional biases and prejudices. As part of this training, the board viewed a video presentation from Ayo Magwood, a former high school social studies teacher who has specialized in teaching a pro equity school model. Her video discussed the difficulties of teaching the student about racism and the difference between individual and structural racism.

In general, individual racism comes down to a single person, while structural racism is driven by society.

This month the board and staff viewed another presentation from Magwood that further explained the origins of structural racism.

Magwood said structural racism and structural poverty are big structural inequities. The two often intersect. Students can face both. Other structural inequities can impact education, including structural sexism; structural homophobia; transphobia; ableism, xenophobia and ethnocentrism. Magwood said the presence of these other inequities varies depending on the region, but racism and poverty will usually have a larger effect.

Magwood described structural racism as a bias combined with power. If a bias is codified and put into law or protected through political movements it becomes structural racism. She said working to eliminate bias and create a friendly atmosphere for the race is good, but it alone will not eliminate structural racism.

In the United States, structural racism was written into the law. Slavery is an early example, but Magwood said the impacts of racist laws can be seen as recently as 50 years ago. Redlining was a practice in which banks refused to give a loan because of where an applicant lived. The U.S. government was also more likely to give subsidies to white families. White families received subsidized mortgages, Black families did not. The Civil Rights Act eliminated the racist policies, but the impact is still felt generations later. Much of a person’s wealth is dependent on inheritance, but also opportunities through education.

Magwood said “wealth accumulates over the generation, each generation does not start over. Wealth is passed down.”

The result is black families have fewer opportunities to economically advance. Many U.S. cities are still economically and racially segregated because of racist policies made generations ago. This influences education because most schools are tied to a district. In the United States the quality of a school district is often dependent on the wealth of the families in the district.

Access to wealth greatly influences a student’s education through access to enrichment programs, college opportunities and internships.

Magwood noted that structural racism does not require individual racism.

“Even if all individual racism disappears tomorrow, the system would still produce this inequity,” Magwood said. Structural racism is rooted in history; its effects were never dismantled.

After the video, Longview Education representative Bridgid Moriarty-Guerrero said in moving forward, the goal is to find solutions that can benefit everyone. This is called the curb-cut effect.

Curb cuts and ramps were designed specifically for wheelchairs, but these solutions also help others and do not harm anyone else. Automatic doors were originally designed to help waiters carrying plates pass through doors and are now at every grocery store.

The school district has a challenge to find these types of solutions to achieve equitability in education. The board will continue learning equitable education strategies at the next study session.

The next regular board meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, August 26, in the District Boardroom, 414 S. Payne St. The next study session is at 5 p.m. Thursday, September 9, in the District Conference Room, 414 S. Payne St.