This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 178 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast.

In this episode, we will be talking about an approach to making schools more equitable

that is dramatically different from what we have tried and what has failed in the past.

The approach is called street data.

We're living in a time in history when awareness of educational inequality has risen to what

seems like its highest point ever, and many good resources have emerged to help us attack

the problem from multiple angles. Antibias training, book studies, restorative practices,

culturally responsive teaching, improving representation in our classroom materials,

the list goes on. Unfortunately, many of these resources only chip away at the problem,

and many are only being consumed by individual teachers or served up as one-off trainings

whose impact ultimately fades after a period of time.

These efforts, while well-intended, often don't make enough of a difference because we're

trying to make them work inside a system that's a terrible fit for them.

What's been missing is a whole school approach, something that completely shifts our focus

and creates a path forward that is radically different from what we've done before.

Earlier this year, a book came out that I think fills that void.

It's called street data, a next-generation model for equity, pedagogy, and school transformation.

Written by Dr. Shane Sefeer and Dr. Jamila Dugan, the book outlines an approach to school

improvement that focuses on a completely different kind of data analysis.

Instead of looking at grades and test scores, attendance and graduation rates, the street

data method looks at data from the ground up, where educators and school leaders act as

ethnographers to gather stories, artifacts, and observations from the margins.

...