The topic this week is “reimagining schools” and Sonya Douglass Horsford provided two powerful and thoughtful sets of ideas about the central issue of racial equity in education.  Horsford challenges the conventional (and failed) approach that views integration as the goal and that conflates desegregation with integration.  She also challenges the reliance on white scholars (even those who are allies) as the authoritative voices on how children of color should be educated.

I appreciated her candor in calling out the reality that far too many schools do not value the intellect, culture, or humanity of students of color—and in arguing instead for “schooling with dignity in environments that value and want them” (VUE, 2021, p. 21).

In her Education Week Opinion piece (3/17/21), Horsford observed that “we must first deepen our understanding of the great battle we are in.”  This quote resonated for me as I reflected on Mitch McConnell’s very public statements this week lambasting and grossly mischaracterizing Critical Race Theory—and observing that it has no place in public education.  Horsford notes that reimagining a new system “begins with actually asking people of color what they want and need and then listening to what they say.”  For starters, perhaps we should listen to Derrick Bell and not to Mitch McConnell.

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