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The My Brother's Teacher (MBT) Project led by Dr. William White, with project managers Elane Jones and Clare Juico, received a $20,000 donation from Amazon to support their project "Diversify My Library." With Amazon’s gift, the MBT team will donate a diverse set of early childhood education book collections in both hardback and digital literacy technology using Kindles to early learning centers across Seattle, Washington.

"Bureaucracies like school systems are designed not to be disrupted," says Meredith Honig, UW College of Education professor and director of the District Leadership Design Lab (DL2). "But we know inequities are systemic and that school district central offices are a key part of the ‘system.’ So how do you help central office bureaucracies engage in good disruption?"

It's no secret that being a public-school teacher is an incredibly challenging job. According to a 2017 study by UW College of Education researchers, Understanding Teacher Retention and Mobility in Washington State, about a quarter of new teachers change schools or leave the profession in the first five years, with this number being higher or lower depending on the school and whether the teacher is a person of color or not.

In 2019 the Washington Education Association (WEA) made a specific commitment to partner with researchers to address the barriers to educational justice that our state’s system of education presents for underrepresented and marginalized students. The organization also understood that to effectively fulfill this role required actions that explicitly further equity and anti-racism.