Call it DEI or don't, educators say outcomes for Black students must improve

While high school graduation rates for Black students in California have increased and suspension rates have declined, gaps in numerous learning outcomes continue to persist.

“I think the conversations have changed, but the outcomes haven't,” said Keli Redd, an English teacher in the Antelope Valley who’s worked as an educator for nearly two decades.

Redd and other educators are now working through how to improve outcomes for Black students as the federal government under the Trump administration seeks to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“We're not ignoring anyone,” said Pamela Lovett, Long Beach Unified School District’s excellence and equity coordinator. “We are setting high benchmarks for all of our kids, but we're committed and know that not everyone needs the same thing to get to the benchmark. We are going to have different approaches to make sure that we address student needs.”

Black children make up 5% of public school students in California, with nearly a third of those living in Los Angeles County.

Educators told LAist the keys to helping students succeed, regardless of their race or ethnicity, lie in examining data on mental health, test scores and other academic outcomes. They also include building programs that incorporate student and family feedback and showing students models of success they can relate to.

The educators we spoke with were a few of the 800 people who gathered in downtown Los Angeles for a conference this month about advocating for Black students. The College Board, best known for designing the SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) courses, has organized the A Dream Deferred conference since 2005.

Raising awareness about Black youth mental health

The suicide rate for Black youths is increasing faster than for young people of other races. In 2023, 1 in 5 Black youths reported they seriously considered attempting suicide.

“I feel motivated to spread awareness about the problem, but also what to do about the problem,” said Kimani Norrington-Sands, an L.A.-based licensed clinical psychologist. “I think that we can all make a change if we're all aware of what's going on.”

Norrington-Sands worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 13 years and her responsibilities included staff trainings on suicide prevention.

Kimani Norrington-Sands is a licensed clinical psychologist. She said her work is also influenced by her father's death by suicide.

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Courtesy Kimani Norrington-Sands

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Norrington-Sands offered these tips for schools:

• Train all school staff, from educators to custodians, to understand how trauma influences students.
• Create a process to identify students who are struggling with mental health.
• Provide support not only to students, but their and families.

“I see wellness as a form of resistance,” Norrington-Sands said. “This is how I'm resisting all the oppression, is to raise awareness and to help people all over the country.”

Listening to students, families

In recent years, the Long Beach Unified School District has turned to students and their families for feedback on how to address academic disparities between Black students and their peers.

“What shifted in the conversation is we need to stop thinking we know,” said Lovett, the district coordinator. “Because obviously, what we know is not working if we're still getting the same results and that we need to do a better job of listening.”

The district created a program that convenes Black students from throughout the district to discuss literature based on the community’s feedback.

Pamela Lovett is the excellence and equity coordinator at the Long Beach Unified School District and says interest is growing in the Black Literary Society program.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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The district’s Black Literary Society is based on 19th century predecessors, where free Black people gathered to discuss reading, writing and current events.

“The whole focus was learning ways that they can advocate for themselves, that they can improve their conditions, that they get help, not only themselves, but also those that were enslaved,” Lovett said.

In the program’s first year, about 70 students unpacked School Clothes, a book that examines the educational experiences of Black writers, political leaders and others.

“We had a diverse range of learners,” Lovett said. “Not all of our kiddos…were A students, not all of those kiddos were in our most advanced courses.”

Students who met at lunch, afterschool and on the weekends presented their learnings at the end of the year. A smaller group visited several of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that the subjects in the book attended.

“[The students] understood that if they set goals and helped each other, that they were going to be more likely to achieve their goals,” Lovett said. “[They’re] really mirroring the students that they were studying.”

This school year, Lovett said Black Literary Societies participation has almost doubled.

Changing the narratives about Black students

Jarvis Givens said he was disoriented by the Black education narratives he was presented as a student at UC Berkeley.

“They expected me to be familiar with the experience of feeling alienated in schools, narratives about the school-to-prison pipeline, and having terrible experiences with teachers,” Givens said. “That wasn't my experience.”

Jarvis Givens grew up in Compton, attended UC Berkeley and is now a professor of education and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. His work often highlights lesser-known narratives of excellence in Black education. “It's important for more than just how we think about the past,” Givens said. “It's about how we create opportunities for young people to become different versions of themselves and to have opportunities to see different versions of themselves in the present and in the future.”

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Courtesy Jarvis Givens

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Givens attended academically strong schools near his home in Compton where the majority of educators reflected the largely Black and Latino student body, including King/Drew Magnet High School in Watts.

Now as an author and professor of education and African and African American studies at Harvard University, Givens excavates lesser-known narratives of excellence in Black education.

One example from his book Fugitive Pedagogy, is Black schools that succeeded in the Jim Crow South despite the oppressive conditions.

“All of these schools that cultivated all these important leaders, like Angela Davis, Martin Luther King Jr.,” Jarvis said. “They all went to segregated schools. They were not leaders who just fell out of the sky.”

He also authored School Clothes, the book incorporated into Long Beach Unified’s Black Literary Societies.

“It's forcing [students] to think about their own experiences in the present day in more critical ways and realizing that they too are becoming something, someone,” Givens said.

Becoming a mentor, building a pathway to challenging classes

Keli Redd has been an educator in Los Angeles County for 17 years and has spent the last two teaching English at Palmdale High School.

She left the conference thinking about how her school might build a pathway to AP African American Studies, a course where students can earn college credit. (Black students are underrepresented in AP classes.)

Redd’s daughter takes the class at another high school.

Redd said she's started to hear her colleagues discuss the definition of equity more often on campus.  "Some of them start with quoting it or repeating it, or even mimicking the mantra, but that's how it starts to settle in," Redd said. "That you are literally giving students what they need, when they need, however long they need it."

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Courtesy Keli Redd

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“She comes home from this class and we spend an hour over dinner just talking about the things that come up in her class,” Redd said. Those topics have included the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, inequities in healthcare for Black women and Henrietta Lacks, whose tumor cells, taken without her permission, are a foundational part of medical research.

“Thinking on the spot, generating an idea on the spot, and then having to defend something that you have followed — I think it's a really cool way to infuse research outside of the English classroom,” Redd said.

Redd, who also serves on her school’s equity team, said that despite support from administrators, momentum has slowed; fewer of her colleagues show up for meetings and training.

“I can't tell you why when there is money behind this, when there is a whole district wide initiative — our principal is a major champion of equity,” Redd said.

Still, there have been victories in the last few years. Each member of the equity team is mentoring anywhere from two to 20 students outside the classroom. Redd meets with 15 students weekly to review their grades and connect them to resources like tutoring.

“I'm just a small part, but my voice, plus your voice, plus their voice, it adds up,” Redd said.