Friday, July 2, 2021

Explainers: "Is Your Continuous Improvement COLORBLIND?"

Sarah Fiarman, Kristen Kyles-Smith, and Alison Lee's "Is Your Continuous Improvement COLORBLIND?" is a helpful, relatively quick read that could be helpful for school administrators and researchers in schools; however, it also clearly communicates how racial bias impacts a school's ability to help its students. So if you're working in a school, the topics discussed in the article probably affect you. 

Fiarman, Kyles-Smith, and Lee identify the colorblindness with which many schools approach continuous improvement and problem-solving, and offer a framework to help teachers and administrators work towards equity these tools focus on race, but could be used to address many different kinds of discrimination. 

  1. Disaggregate data on race
  2. Focus on impact
  3. Avoid a deficit mindset
  4. Identify root causes & ways to change
Unfortunately, this article is not easily accessible via open access; however, if you are a student or faculty at GVSU, you can read it after copy-pasting the title into the library's main search function. You can also find open access readings on continuous improvement in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. 


Fiarman, S., Kyles-Smith, K., & Lee, A. (2021). Is Your Approach to Continuous Improvement COLORBLIND? Educational Leadership, 78(6), 16–21.


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