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.
- Disaggregate data on race
- Focus on impact
- Avoid a deficit mindset
- 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.
