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c-span2 as a public service. >> i got introduced to eric a few years ago, what if you go actually through mutual friends, and began a asking like what are you interested about writing? what are you studying?in what is it like to be you basically? that's usually how i start conversations. and through the conversation i got introduced a little bit to her scholarly work. i was really interested in bringing professor turner to a talk to the state of wisconsin so i invited her to in our leadership series through the state of wisconsin. and the conversation was very engaging, very relevant to the time a couple years ago and the relevant to today. and also, folks really resonated to the content, to the scholarly

questions and to your findings. some want to invite you to the space to talk a bit about who you are and to share the context ofu your book. >> thank you so much. yes, please applaud. [applause] >> are right. thanks so much, ananda. thank you, everyone for being here. i see colleagues and former students and neighbors and friendsha and children that belg to become so truly it's ro all of you here in one room. as ananda mention i'm currently ant associate professor at the university of wisconsin where i teach courses on education policy and politics. and my research over theer last5 years i've looked atle a school district leaders have responded increasing diversity and inequality in their schools. this work is culminated in the book that werey talk about toda, "suddenly diverse." the root ofro this project which is my dissertation at uc berkeley lies in the concern for

racial equityab in education. and a question about why people who profess to believe in equity and act in ways that undermined that purported conviction. perhaps this wasn't available -- was inevitable. i come from a black and a chinese-american family were education civil rights and urban development were regular topics in car right and dinnertime conversation. i began i thinking that equity n schooling when i y was about ten years old, just like that middle child over there, and poised to enter middle school in the late 1980s in san francisco. school d attended 30 years earlier, but when visited at this time, found that it was highly tracked with all the black students in the lower track classes were located in the school basement. the other the district at that time was under a court order to desegregate schools and part that order was that they would reconstitute low performing schools and in particular one in

the mission district, which is a predominant italy, mexican and central american neighborhood, and that had previously been underserved and now was had a new kind of more highly skilled with a social justice mission and what we would call now a culturally relevant curriculum the school was wonderful, but it raised for me a new question why had it taken a lawsuit achieve this in this purportedly liberal place? why were there that were still allowed to persist? these early questions for me years later, after i attended college, i became a middle school teacher, traveled with my husband and returned to the bay to attend graduate school. i started working with a professor who was studying decision making central district offices, and i'd been following discussions, expanding bilingual education in san francisco with a multiracial and multiethnic student population. i got really interested in what were the motivations around how the schools tried serve diverse student bodies. but then called in wisconsin.

and i started looking for a new project. indeed, like the multiracial multi-ethnic san francisco that i grew up districts across the country becoming more diverse in gentrifying central cities, in diversifying suburbs and in wisconsin, smaller, including two cities that i call mill town and fairview. that's not the real names. local newspapers there heralded the news. more kids of color and greater poverty. now the presence of people of color was not new in 2008, and either of these cities indeed, in wisconsin, indigenous have been here since time immemorial. but too many in leadership positions in these predominantly white and middle class communities. it felt suddenly diverse. and i wanted to know more about how school district leaders making sense, were making sense of and responding to these new conditions in their schools. why were they responding in particular ways? to find out, i started studying fairview in milltown.

milltown was a working traditionally manufacturing based wisconsin city with a conservative political orientation and anti immigrant politics. so when i went to milltown, for example, they had been kind of transitioning out of, well, paying manufacturing jobs that were being bought. those corporations are being bought up by global conglomerates, often do unionize. and then some people were getting higher paid manufacturing jobs and others were being filtered into newly. do unionized food processing work, which was very dangerous and also was part of what brought immigrant. then they recruited immigrant labor for that. but that was also a place then that generated an anti-immigrant politics. so they had anti de labor in laws and english only ordinances in the area. this was a district of about 20,000 students in fairview in contrast, it was a similarly sized but a relatively well-resourced community with more middle class population and a reputation for liberal politics, espousing values of

equity and inclusion. so, for example, that ordinance at city had an ordinance since the 1960s that that was to guarantee a nondiscrimination city services along lines of race class, gender, etc. starting in 2008, i began interviewing people in fairview in milltown including 37 school district superette assistant superintendent, central office administrators, school board members and the like. i also interviewed from across communities, including civic leaders, leaders of color and some school sites that i attended, about 107 hours, probably a little bit more of meetings, mainly school meetings, but also public meetings and meetings within these central offices of these school systems. i took a lot of notes. i ultimately collected over 270 documents, and later i analyzed those as well. and that was things like newspaper reports, local community reports, blog posts that were being generated in these places at the time.

what i learned actually really surprised you'd expect these two different places would do different things in response to a demographic change. yet they basically both come to a similar response. so in leaders in both districts were basically adopting business like practices as a means to respond their increasing racial and ethnic diversity and increasing inequality in their systems as a way to illustrate this idea, i'd like to share you a scene that i observed in milltown the more working class traditionally manufacturing and conservative school district. so i read from the book a little bit. it was about 8 p.m. in milltown just a few days before thanksgiving 2009 and retains was about to give the last principals report of the evening a school board member introduced him as a veteran of one trimester of edgar elementary, which had been a principal at the school for only a few months. in fact, he'd only been a

principal for a few months. the school board members seemed eager to hear how things were going rich, said i'm proud to be a new member of edgar elementary. i am not alone. challenges. we have eight new staff at edgar high socioeconomic status disadvantage, and we have a transient population. harriet, the board president him about this transients, he responded. we probably average 2 to 3 students a week at the end of the year. there are probably 20 to 30% turnover transients or transient. c were the terms people in the district used to talk about midyear student transfer in and out of the schools, often due to housing instability, racism, poverty, precarity at its roots. it wasn't just principal haynes's challenge. all three principals that evening presented to the school board about similar challenges. but richard lee said that his goal for the year was getting better at using data. we have have clear learning targets. that's my passion as we are starting to analyze our goals,

we are getting better at that, he noted. data showing numbers of students in special education. he called these the brutal facts, but he saw some hope in that data. rich noted that reading test scores for latino students and students i rich noted reading test scores for latino students and students identified as english learners have been improving each year. they all restored and a whole but each year they are closing a gap. now when you do to get what we're doing and how to bring this to the rest of our population. which explained he had applied forr supplemental grant to do this work. the board statenc another hour. there were student council reports to hear, a budget strategy to address and expected to get $8 million deficit report of us night worse in the country a buildable car school district to report all spending over $25. when meeting adjourned the school board members cheerfully wished each other happy thanksgiving and please with what it just transpired. they headed out into the night.

so what had just happened? i mean, my mind was like exploding at this moment. but it's also really mundane. she is like another school board meeting that was happening. stthe principles and then had jt recounted serious poverty and enormous turnover in the chance and see of predominantly low income children of color in their schools. they hated at a bed of challenges including funding, teacher turnover, unmet needs, and the school board discussion at the end of the night spoke to large and ongoing budget deficits come state, that was attempting to exert greater good over these school systems, making it harder for them to do their work. hearing the situation as i said for rich made me disturbed but they had left feeling at seemed pretty good about things. i saw them -- they saw the meeting as making progress against educational inequity.

they like many people there and elsewhere someone was happening at eliminating the achievement gaps. all over middletown school board members were doing something kind of similar to what i just kind described. they were adopting performancenc monitoring approaches that sought to collect and monitor and report academic performance data as a way to address the challenges and the circumstances they were facing. they were examining this through new professional development, kind of rated teachers or had them set goals based on standardized data and it were wl looking at the school-based data as groups kind of the schools and this is just truly common. so they were adopting these kinds of strategies as well as ones like marketing diversity and developing schools like international baccalaureate to meet new customer demand. but it wasn't just milltown.vi fairview, relatively well resourced temerity with wie middle-class population and a liberal values, they were doing

something remarkably similar, including evaluations of their strategic goals, district, edition programs reports of the state of the district and all sorts of new assessments. they were also planning to market their diversity. what was happening in fairview and milltown represents a broader phenomena that have been in school districts across the country inspiring these business inspired means of operating schools and giving these efforts as i think oddly new more effective means of addressing racial diversity and inequality in their schools. i call this broader phenomenon race invasive managerialism your race invasive managerialism is a way of leading public institutions like public schools that takes its cue from business come specifically corporate and entrepreneurial business models. so you might think about previous iterations of schools being modeled onn a factory model, right?

it's aan business, you can see a business becomes attractive in schooling but in this case or in this kind of iteration its corporate and entrepreneurial model of business in particular. so things like generic management skills, quantitative measurement of outcomes for decision-making, as well as competition and marketing as means for diving organizations. and these approaches again are common across different districts, not just these two. but i've been argued that and others haveoi pointed out that these kinds of approaches, when they do not address in fact, that they exist within an already an equal society are not explicitly designed to address that those approaches can allow existing inequities to persist, and may even amplify them. this is consistent with the common ways people think about racism today. sometimes called with people of

color as colorblind racism. so when we think about how most people think about racism today, they define as the aberrant views of a few extreme individuals rather than as a widely embedded social e or economic or political system. they think of racism as mostly something that happened in the past, and instead racial inequality is posited as a result or the result of racial inequality positive as result of individuals or groups deficiencies. so while enduring systemic racism is often minimized, people become invested in seeming like they are not racist. racist. and to think the best example of this is donald trump. donald trump is notably said that he is the least racist person ofli life, even as he is significantly eroded the rights and safety of people of color, disabled people, people living in poverty, immigrants through his words and actions.

.. led official antifa racism, notions like inclusion, diverse groups, or eliminating achievement gaps that are framed as anti-racism but do little to nothing to challenge or deconstruct existing systems of oppression. giving their get so okay moment sorry. so they don't they don't. they do not get at the roots of the problem in other words. right. it's kind of a little bit like sometimes people call happy talk >> sometimes what people call happy talk. given these two different can places, their different resource, their different political environments, you might if expect that milton and fairview would have adopted fundamentally different approaches to racism and inequality. they generally did not. why was this? to find out, i traced policies in each of these two district, and i found that these kinds of approaches, the performance monitoring or the marketing and trying to attract new customers,

emerged as district leaders tried to navigate what were really increasingly untenable situations, especially if you had a large population of students of color or low income students. butts they usually tried to do this without confronting existing inequalities in their system. and that root, the actual educational qualities that we sometimes call the achievement gap. so they faced a lot of different challenges, including the changing demographics and growing inequality. remember, this was 2008, it was the great recession, right? so not only were many people out of jobs or financially precarious, but tate governments were also really ailing, and part of their response to that was to cut budgets within schools as well. but in addition to that, they were facing pressures from accountability systems, the place at that time was no child left behind, and open enrollment school choice policies.

accountability systems, what they were doing is they would say if you're not raising your test scores fore even of the groups within your w school sysm and and the more diverse you are, the more groups you have, each one has to be going up, and every year the bar's raising. three years your -- if three years your schools are not achieving those targets, they get increasingly serious sanctions including eventually being turned over or reconstituted. so this was one pressure. another one was open enrollment which is a form of school choice that we have in wisconsin that gets less attention than vouchers or charters, but it operates very similarly. it makes a market out of schools and certainly in wisconsin if you can transport your child to a different district, you can stay in your home, but you can send them out of state -- out of district. and when you do that, many from the defending district the gets transfer thed over to the receiving district. andsc in wisconsin we had kind f a safeguard on that, but that raised every fewye years. so at the time of this, the whole safeguard was going to come off, and then as many

students asld wanted could go. and a in lake jr. view -- fairvw they had tried to address this through a desegregation plan. but with the supreme court decision parents involved in community schools, they began to feel that that would be endangered, and so they could no longer rely on that as a way to staunch this concern about exit. so they wanted to deal with all of these challenges, but they wanted to do it without making people mad. and particularly, so this were being asked to do more with less. under these conditions they had, know, originally kind of early o 2000s, mid 2000 today tried to make somewhat deeper changes to thehe schools. so they put into new training -- put into place new training programs for teachers and that kind of thing, but they soon found resistance from

predominantly whitepr privileged families or from if their predominantly white teachers who were concerned about those changes and raised objections. over time the district leaders emerged, embraced instead these managerial approaches as solutions that appeared to help them aheave their equity gains -- achieve their equity gains in these difficult conditions but without upsetting teachers and these families. amand they didn't want to upset them not because they thought that they were right. in fact, they were very critical of them, and they thought both groups were basically racist. but they also felt that the schools were, had to respond because of the fiscal can and political support that the schools relied upon from those constituencies. so in adopting these race-evasive managerial approaches instead, they began to -- this is how t they tried o navigate through this kind of muddy waters. see.e

district leaders viewed these approaches as a way to address inequity while garnering and maintaining support for public schools, but i want to ultimately suggest that they did neither. race-evasive a managerialism undermines equity and also undermines public schooling. so let me speak to the racism first.t. first, you o can think of these kinds of approaches using language of diversity or reducing achievement gaps as ways to justify policies that perpetuate inequity. they leave the existing systems in place. but they also distract from other things that they could their timeoing with and resources, things that might have made a bigger difference in student lives. and perhaps most importantly, under this approach racial equity comes to mean raising test scores. it comes to be understood as promoting -- marketing comes to be seens as promoting diversity

or keeping public schools afloat rather than another approach. in other words, inec wety is reframed as equity, racism reframed as anti-racism. but they're also undermining public schools. so i would argue that they're doing this in a couple ways. first,t, managerial policies follow a logic of efficiency and customer service rather than a public service or of equity, but they also in moving to these concerns reflect their own center ising of the concerns and educational visions of their predominantly white and wealthier constituents, teachers and the families. and moreover, they also undermined the legitimacy of public schools. because as much as they are already systemically organized as in ways that the perpetuate inequality, they're also very much legitimized as places that should do just the opposite, that should be our kind of how we think of addressing inequity

in our systems. so to undermine that is also to undermine if public schooling. a final story, i think, will help make this clear. and the way that these kinds of approaches can undermine equity and democracy in schools. so a respected professional and political actor in fairview, julio garcia, was known as an advocate for latino communities. i often saw him rushing in to political and community meetings after work still wearing a sport coat and tie or a sweater veas vest. for years julio, ap advocacy group he worked with had been involved with many parents, nonprofit leaders and local advocates in getting air school -- area school districts to pay attention to the growing .student population in their midst, the a latino students, many of whom but not all were immigrants. in particular, he was involved with efforts to promote bilingual education for spanish-speaking youth in fairview county. he call -- recalled the years it

had taken to get the first immersion bilingual program approved in the district. s now the situation was different though. with increased demandfo if for foreign language instruction for mono-lingual, english white families and a district desire to halt white flight, a school board decision to expand dual language immersion, bilingual programs to fairview schools came pretty easily. and julio said, unfortunately, you have heard it before, reflecting back on this earlier decision to expand the dli program, his voice turned to mock horror. oh, my gosh, 50% of the students in the district district students of color, we have to stop the white flight! he chuckled as the constant the school focus on white, middle class families, but continued seriously: there's always been attention there. oh, we don't want to scare the majority community. but the other side is, he said, we need to recognize this new demographic of kids iss entitled to a good education as anybody else, and we have practices that can help them.

julio recognized that fairview district leaders had hoped to use dual-language immersion programs to attract or retain predominantly whitete or middle class families to fairview, part of their efforts to market the schools as a positively diverse place. it wasn't his motivation, but he saw there were some strategic e benefits to his cause. we actually leveraged the voice of those who do what traditionally -- or have traditionally had a voice into giving us an opportunity to have a voice. it was unfortunate that it had to happen, he said, that way but the school board decision was made to expand dual language immersion not because we asked them, but because they asked him, julio said, emphasizing the influence of white families who wanted more dual language immersion programs and which had influence over school board members who didn't want to scare that majority community. if however, julio accepted pragmatically that unequal responsiveness was part of the racial politics involved in

securing these programs, and he hoped and expected that they would develop bilingualism, reinforcing latina students' cultures and offer english learners greater access to academic content in schools which is what the research suggests happened. this example could be seen as a win. seeing something good bring together these different strands of desires. it was also an perform of how school district leaders valued and responded to the desires of white middle class families as value ised customers only expanding those programs when it wast viewed as a model that was of interest to them. better educational programs for latina students and spanish-dominant children when it'sch on -- in other words, thy were only or mostly interested in it when it was on the terms of whatwh was acceptable and desirable for white families. in otherer words, it showed how this decision, beneficial though it may be, was also an example

of unequal voice and unequitable education opportunity in fairview. upbeat and happy with the outcomes as he was, julio garcia knew it. so as one of the first book-length kris call race analysis of a -- critical analysis access, i hope this book helps us recognize and understand race and inequality is very central to how we make decisions in school districts and to be able to think critically about what are the directions forward from here. thank you. [applause] [background sounds] >> i thought that was a phenomenal introduction about you and the navigation of learning the data. and often a times we think about data as numbers, and you made a

point to highlight the stories. as points of data. and then draw conclusions and and analysis. and you really got deep into the analysis part. i wanted to start this conversation with you, erica, lifting up the provocative title of "suddenly diverse." and for people of color, that's not what we would describe -- [laughter] >> yeah. >> --e happening. yet this phenomena of we we, we're, where all those people came from?th did they just move here? where did they live? we don't know who they are, it's a phenomena that i see -- i have definitely experienced that in madison, and i see that throughout the state. can you talk to us a little bit about the title, i guess i'm

going to lift up the term term incongruency which you bring a lot in the book, the incongruencies of people of color, immigrants of color and families of color as it relates to the title of the book. >> yeah. yeah, that's great. thank you for that question. andu so you can also chime in,i think, with what you've seen as a cool board member and and other -- school board member and other educator, in other positions. i actually kind of -- can i think i told you this, my editor wanted the book to be called "suddenly diverse," and i dud not want that. i said, it's not suddenly diverse. that's one of the points i'm trying to make in the book. and she said, well, sell some books and then the you can explain that. [laughter] so let me explain. basically, i think if you look back in both these city, and their histories are different and distinct. there are interesting thinkings that are different in the two place. both of them hadad histories of havingol students of color, it just wasn't really paid

attention to until it got to t about 40 or 50% of the student population in each place. and also until accountability policy pressures made them pay anticipation. but there -- attention. but there had been communities of color in both places for a long time. district leaders, who were predominantly white, were not from these community, and they basically weren't't paying attention. and they say this. like, before this we didn't really realize, we didn't pay attention to it, we didn't know. mean, communities of color knewt that their students were not being served well, and there's a lot of data in the documents where they talk about this within their media or in their communities the way that students were being underserved. in fairview specifically, african-americanan students, but in both places. and ik think, you know, why is this? i mean, part of it goes to, speaks to who was in charge of the schools. part of it is how demographic change is happening in the u.s. even so. we have been a predominantly white country in these places, they were predominantly white

cities, and because of birthrights and movement in the schools -- the schools were the first places to see some of this growth. if you weren't associated with the schools, you might not mow about it because the schools were more diverse than the general population. and ii think this is important because who votes and who grews toy pay more fun for the schoos is different than for who's being served in the schools, right in and that is what the -- they need those who vote and voted and who pay property taxs to continue to do so. but these inequities were not new and, you know, it's telling that they did think -- there was a second part to your study -- question though, and -- >> no. i have other questions. [laughter] what you just shared. because you in your shareing of parts of the book and just now, you mentioned this word majority which i associate to a math

analysis, right in we're really talking about 511%. 51 percent. but that's really not what we're talking about. because we were talking -- we're not talking about numbers necessarily, we're talking about influence, which is what you speak to. you reference bodies of work of the hoarding and the influence of white families that tend to be large wily -- largely predominantly connected to the political aspect of education, which all of it's political, but they'll be the loudest voice, the majority of votes, the people that are driving the money because they will say to you in your face i will leave this, i'll relieve the district. and i'm like, oh, okay. [laughter] >> that happens all the time. like anytime families -- and so it's interesting, because they know k this. so, and you can tell they know it because they're threatening to do it. >> yes.

>> and so i think that district people, superintendents, school board members would say that all the time, welsh they're threatening to leave. that's why it was a concern for them. and they, you know, i think -- [laughter] a good question about whether white flight is actually a real concern that they should have or not for a number of reasons, but that was kind of a power that was being wielded. and i think to your point, i think, i like to think not so much about because with i actually don't agree with the, like, notion of white flight so much, and i don't think the historical record shows that to be the case, but i think what it signals is who has power in the system, and that's where we should really be paying attention to. because it could be, it could be privileged families that are people of color too that could be doing this, and there's a history ofy that in various places as well. so what i mean by that is if we think about how our school districts are set up, and this is the case for both of these places, you often havect a city district, and it's surrounded by

other districts. each of those has it own governance structure but,im more importantly, its funding structure. and that funding is based upon where people live. and so, therefore, how much money is available to your schools very much is reflecting how much property wealth there is in that place. and when people who have money move to a different place, not only do they take the enrollment money that comes with students being enrolled in that district, but they may also be affecting property wealth in different places. actually, it's sometimes more important than really housing prices, is corporate taxation. i think that's important to distinguish too. so that's why i kind of say this notion of white flight is not exactly the thing i want people to focuswa on. and the idea of, like, i think white families just being racist which was very convenient for destruct leaders like as a target to -- district leaders like as a target to argue against, but what is the system that enabled them to wield their power in that way to get what they wanted. and that was not available to low income families or families

of color. and that was usually not who was representing them on the school board. the school members who talk about when i see so and so in the grocery store or my neighbors are getting on my case about this, well, who are they living next to, and who do they know and see in the grocery store, right, is not evenly distributedd across those people who have kids in the school. >> wow. okay, we're going to have to be here all day, y'all, because this was a lot. [laughter] i really appreciate, i'm just going to stitch from your last comment, and i want to take us up to -- doing the right thing, right? you mentioned here, you mentioned in the book. and the leaders that you interview were also talking about that. one of the things that when i was on the school board and my colleagues would say the community wants this, the community wants that,s i would just always, like, raise my hand and be, like, which community are we talking about? by -- who are we talking about? because if we're talking about your community, a white, middle

class, upper-middle class, working in corporate wisconsin, you know, like if you're talking about your community, then i can understand your concerns of your community. because that's not what people having concerns in my e community. i have recently, this is a real story, y'all where. i haveha recently heard state leaders sharing their concern about getting sued. and when i hear about that, which is connected to the web site, i hear about white people suing the state, white people suing the district, white people suing the schools. what i don't hear is the fear of brown, black and indigenous families and the organizations they're soarted -- associated and suing. so much so that when we see brown and black families leaving, we criminalize that. we say, how dare you black

families go to take your kid to a private school. how dare you, brown and black family, take your child, create your own school. how dare you do that, right? and i want to stitch to this conversation about doing the right thing, because i do believe that a majority of educators have that in their minds, in their hearts. they do want to do the right thing. and they're doing the right thing or they're pursuit of doing the right thing is in the racialized context of their school district, state, what not. you mentioned the tension of racial equity within the structures, the inability to change those structures or the influence, right, the incongruence says of changing those structures and how little we see the change when

everything, other organization is still the same if you haven't seen it in schools like this idea of looking at data is just really, really common. and i'm not against that. i mean, that's my job is to look at evidence and research. but there's a lot it doesn't actually tell you that you want to know here, but you might be able to for different i mean because mostly the data that people are looking at is standardized test data in math and reading. so you're learning on particular data what students kind of know or don't know. you know, it's just it's very fraught, though, like as a parent. so i think that's limited because it doesn't tell you what you should do instead.

right. and that's a point about managerial approaches. there's no professional educational knowledge that comes with looking at data. i mean, you could have that, but it's not required. and that's why it's also sometimes attractive to administrators. oh, sorry. that's that's why it's sometimes attractive to administrators, because you don't actually it can kind of you a role, even if you know anything about education. so, you know, and so this like just in madison, we see this more and more tests and that kind of thing. and i, i really feel a little conflicted about it because on the one hand, like it's kind of a waste of and that's my like that's my take away around a lot of this performance monitoring. is there be a certain amount of it that's useful but mostly when people get that information don't actually do anything different. and even if they did something different, what basis? right. because the data doesn't tell you what to do. and so we've got our kids and they're taking all these tests

and they could be learning other things. they could be learning something right rather than how to take a test. but, you know, a lot of times it's not that particular teacher's fault. teachers also may object to it. and these are the pressures that coming down. so i think in some ways that's you know, but what the leaders are also kind of facing. so, you know, i think what to try to think about is like, what's the bigger picture here beyond just this particular day or this kind of thing? and what is it that i want could probably send in like in these districts, like, for example, in middletown, what they would do is the suburban districts were also losing population and student population. and so what they were doing is they had started advertising to students to get students to come from middletown down into the suburban districts. right. it was a market what the what the policy allowed it facilitated that even more so already existed. and then would offer that your kids could take gifted and

talented classes everybody i forget what i call a prairie town could be gifted and talent was pleasantville right? and but that was their way to get families there. and it was, you know, a a calculation that was no, but i think. is that what we really care about and want for what our learn. and for me that's kind what guides it is not just like my own children, but thinking more broadly about like public education, why i in it, why i study it is because i think it's really more about our society in the kind of place we want to be. and so i'm not thinking as much. also, my children are do wonderfully. you do all do very well in school and i'm proud of you and you read a lot but i think also because you know we just that's that's the that if the test scores are not how i measure what's a good school i want see like not only that my own children are doing well on those kinds of things, but more broadly are they're learning to be kind of good people citizens. do they know about history so they can understand what's happening in our world today and those kinds of things as well.

well, do they know about history. right. that is a that's an important and somewhat controversial conversation. think. but yes, in 2023, i want us to move to the race this evasiveness terminology that you introduce in the book. i mean i've heard different folks different scholars talk about that i don't think that we talk enough about that about that term. i don't think people understand deeply, in particular a historic echo in institutional context. context of that terminology. but what i really appreciate was your analysis is to parallel to a managerial business, a corporate framework like the competition, the marketing, the outcomes the in what it was, what i find it to be interesting

in particular to your last comment around we know that data but we're not changing anything because corporate world they know that data they will do things otherwise they become irrelevant. in fact, when one of the most common questions that i got the two times that i ran for office was what are you going to do about voucher schools? and i said, i'm not going to do anything about voucher schools. like i'm not a state. what i want to do about the schools to ensure that brown black families don't leave and no other child, the school district is to make the school district better for everyone. right. and so but that's not what's happening. we have the data even in majority brown black school district like madison is that decisions are not there. so can you talk to us a little bit about the business model? what was in your findings? how you navigating that and how our leaders navigating that? because part of the business model is the dehumanization of

people and including the educators. i mean, you know, there's a chapter that's not written or it's kind of written, but it's not in the book. and that was just because the book had to be published. but it it talks about there were places in each of the districts where there were people who really in these central offices, but also some, you know, school leaders in different teachers. it wasn't a policy, but they were really trying to make connections to families to have families have a voice. and especially families of color or marginalized families have a voice in the way things were done. but the managerial approach is antithetical to that. the managerial approach puts the decision making power in the hands of the manager who is not a professional educator or doesn't have to be and is in a family with, a child with a stake in it. and so you know when i was just giving a talk about book on i guess it was yesterday in

michigan to two educational researchers and that makes educational people in the department of public instruction or federal government, you know, kind of complicit because we actually benefit from all of the focus on the numbers. because that's our job. and we can get grants from it, and we can study -- i mean, this is not what i do, but just in that area. so i think that's kind of -- you have to understand that's part of what's driving it, is that there are people whose to be job it is to do these things or who gain from being a part of that. but that, giving that or recognizing the expertise of other actors including teachers and families is a way that kind of challenges that. and there was that in places. but if you're always trying to do what's most efficient, right, how to raise test scores the fastest or how to just attract the most customers, it will always reinforce the existing inequalities because the fastest way to raise test scores is to attract kids who have hire test

scores. you see that in new orleans. when they had this, like, fully market-based school system, and what they do is they try to attract students with higher test scores. they don't try to actually improve theirth schools which is the theory of how it would work to have school choice. so, you know, i think that, that approach will never get used there. because -- and so it's with the marketing, the marketing the test scores are highly intertwined actually. >> wow. okay. we don't is have time to get too much deep into that, because i do want to hear from you all. and this isll how we're going to do that. i'm going to ask one more question, and while i'm asking that question, i'm going to invite you all to think about what question you want to ask dr. erica turner, and i want to ask you all to not upon tiff candidate. i know ang you have -- pontific. i know you have amazing opinions about what we're talking about, but we're going to stick to the question. i was given permission to kindly are interrupt you, and i will use that. [laughter]

erica, what is your vision for educational equity? [no audio] more attention to, i , especially after covid. but it didn't start then with organizing people, organizing against prisons like prison

abolition and the movement for black lives and what those people have to do because they really want a different system, especially prison abolitionists. they have to think really differently about what that looks like and think about. so what are you actually going? and so i think there's actually really great ideas in some of those movements about what it could, how things could look otherwise. so, you know, for example, when you think like i think community care actually, which we talked a little bit about before, is a great idea for rethinking what in part we're trying to achieve in some other work with a colleague, alex freydis, at the university of connecticut. we've kind of been thinking about like from that idea of integration, which was really prominent, especially in fairview, as a way to achieve equity, kind of before managerial approach. but that often was about moving kids around in practice and in in about achieving. but there's other things, as you were mentioning before. so beyond kind of the numbers or the resources, what do schools

offer, w so beyond kind of the numbers or the resources, what do schools offer? whose knowledge is valued? what kind of learning do we want to have? that, i think, has to be part of what we thinkings e aleck bity is. whose cultures are valued and that there's actually equal statusd accorded to those. and if there were, you would see parents of all different groups would be welcomed into schools and seen as positively contributing to their kids' education. and you would see thatou the curriculum itself would reflect that. and right now largely it doesn't still. and the other thing, i think, is that participation piece, that everyone would have an equal say. everyone who had a stake in that way, right, which is actually all, of us would have, you know, equal power to affect what that lookss like. so now when i do more of my research, i mean, i don't know if these e people -- none of these peoplese are actually stil in their offices, which is another interesting thing. i think within five years almost aseverybody was gone.

and, but would they ever let me in again in no. but i think the thing that actually holds promise for me a lot more is thinking about how parents and families and communities organize and push against this because theyy ultimately have the most stake in having things change. others have a lot of stake in keeping it the same. >> well, that's an amazing way to wrap up. the conversation that we're having and transition to questions if from folks around who has that stake to make change, right? and the energy. especially when we think about folks leaving the buildings, living -- leaving the district and leaving the profession altogether. i will say this one thing as a woman of color working for the state of wisconsin, i've been working for the state for six years, and i'm one of the veterans, women of color. and that's scary to think. because six years is, like, one

administration, right? so, okay. who's ready to ask their question? and i want to ask you to use your educator voice, and i'll repeat thet question. yeah, go ahead. oh, there's a microphone -- >> there's a -- >> look at this. we're ready here. thank you. >> [inaudible] >> all right. we're going to turn the microphone on, but the question was around voucher schools, right? are, is a voucher school a bad policy in. >> i mean, it fends what your goals -- it depends what your goals are for schools. if your goals are to siphon money into private hands, 9/11, yes.s. it's -- then yes. you want to know more about it e, you should really -- it's also a segregating, resegregating factor. i'll be introducing at 4 p.m. today cara fitzpatrick who is going to talk about her book, i think t called the death of

public schools, and it's trying the trace the public voucher movement. she would be aac great place, in your -- if you're interested in that, to look more at it. vouchers is that thing, and the evidence is really abysmal about theed educational atapement of students in those schools as well -- attain. i mean, just on that basis, i don't think it's a good use of money in voucher schools, but you are taking money that -- i mean, most of the people in wisconsin, for example, that are taking advantage of school vouchers already had their children -- they either never had their children in school or already had. their children in private school. so it's essentially sub city etizing private school attendance. the idea early on was that it would be used to help low income kids. that's really not how it works right now. so, but i think there's other mechanisms that don't work that differently. and the one that i'm pointing to in the book is around inter-district open enrollment,

okay? especially with virtual schools. now you can essentially send yourr child to any other school district, and so some of the districts -- especially those who need funds -- have started these virtual schools. virtual schools are really bad. on the whole the evidence for, like, just students learning anything is abusinessal mall. part of that might be -- abysmal. it may be that the school already is not working for that kid, but with in general really bad response rate. and so it's kind of like a little better perceived as a way to make money for certain districts. but kids don't get an education. and this then can take away districts who might need it more. >> do we have time for one more question? one more question. because you know i can be here all day, y'all. yes. she and i wanted to do that.

i could tell. [laughter] sorry, i was trying to help you out. >> you mentioned that your title for the book, i would like to hear more about your title and not the editor's title. [laughter] why did you chose that one -- whyul did you fall in love with that title that you couldn't name the book? >> actually, i'm horrible at titles, and i didn't have a good alternative. this is a person who's good at their job,he and they know what they're doing, and i can explain it. i didn't have a a good they wer, but i was uncomfortable with put out there because so much of whatt i'm writing about, it's important how we talk about thingswi and, you know, many people will never read this book, most people will never read it -- [laughter] and i think, you know, so i didn't want to kinddi of put out this idea that these places were suddenly diverse which is not actually what i think. but i do spend a chapter, good part of a chapter explaining how wexp get the diversity. it's not just is like people coming from chicago which is often how the story was told in

these two places, but really about global movements of people to the united states more broadly because this is the happening, it's abou' changing age cohorts, like, giving birth, etc. it's about -- and then there's other things. economic changes are not just -- like, people thought about it often as or poorer people are coming here, but it was the great recession and also wisconsin has been a stronghold forr middle class manufacturing jobs. and at that moment those were largely being bought up by international global conglomeratess and deunionized. so those good paying jobs were no longer good paying. it used to be, like, six out of the top ten middle class communities, the majority middle class were in wisconsin. and that's not true anymore. that's not just a wisconsin story, but it is particularly evident here. and so the things that people were thinking about was about those people coming here as opposed to these broader kind of trends and processes that were

underneath that and that weren't about, like, individual families or kids. i. mean, individual families and kids were coming and experiencing this, but -- so is i just worried that, and i think, you know, the other thing that i spend quite a bit of time is key teaking the notion of diversity -- critiquing the notion of diversity as what we should think about happening as opposed to equity or justice. and so, but, you know, now there's much more critique out there about, like, there can be a kind of certain -- [inaudible] to these notions like diversity that don't get to it. so i think it makes sense to people now to question that. but i didn't want -- the argument is somewhat difficult. i didn't want it to be misunderstood. and my hope is it does attract people who may see those things and then they kind of think differently about it. and all my work is trying to do that, trying to help us think about, like, contribute to

policy knowledge, contribute to how we think about what are the problems of equity or what are the problems that we're actually trying todd address. because i think if we get those wrong, then we don't know how to move forward in the right way. >>in that's incredible. i want to wrap our time with challenging the folks here and folks that are listening to this recording to say when we talk about people with influence and people with power, it's us, right? and so, please, do purchase 5-10 copies finish. [laughter] of this book and share with your colleagues, share with parents, share withwi the school district whether in madison or wherever you grew up. or, you know, districts across the state are hurting financially and could really benefit from this ine credible donation. lastly, i want to thank the public librarynk for all the organizers, the volunteers, the leadershiphe here at the wisconn

book festival to the amazing recording crew that's here, the media crew that's here and to all of you that came to join this amazing conversation. thank you to you, professor erica turn ther e, for -- turner, for writing in this book with, for your courage with this book and then being here with us. thank you, everyone. [applause] >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories. and on sundays, booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including sparklight. >> the greatest town on earth is the place you call home. at sparklight it's our home too, and right now we're all facing our greatest challenge. that's why sparklight is working round the clock to keep you connected. we're doing our part so it's a

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