Equity

After half a century of work pioneering the field of multicultural education at the University of Washington College of Education, James A. Banks will retire in January.

Creating more equitable opportunities for historically underserved students isn’t just about what happens in the classroom — it also means deeply rethinking how school district central offices do their work.

“I can’t play with you because your skin is brown.”

When Caryn Park (PhD '10) heard one of her preschool students say this to his friend, she felt helpless. She knew what it felt like from her own experience as a child of color in the U.S. and knew that it wasn’t fair to have to feel that.

“I felt like I knew nothing,” Park recalled. “I felt like I had no skills with which to support these children.”

Park calls this her critical incident.

The struggle to reform higher education and kickstart social change in the South during the 1950s and 60s continues to hold lessons for those working for educational justice today.

A decade ago, it appeared the final bell would ring for Seattle’s Rainier Beach High School.

Three years into the pilot of Seattle’s subsidized preschool program, program quality is steadily improving and participating children are showing strong gains in learning and development according to recently released study co-led by University of Washington researchers.

School and community partners who joined University of Washington College of Education researchers in a long-term effort to lead equity-focused change in a Seattle high school discussed their work and its lessons during an Oct. 11 Facebook Live chat.

When Matthew Henley '13 came across an educational psychology course at the University of Washington, his response was, “That sounds interesting. I like teaching and I’ve been taking classes in psychology, but I didn’t know these things were combined as an academic discipline.”