A Racial Justice Approach to Teaching: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction

By Andre ChenFeng

“We are more than test scores.” That was the refrain I heard from my social sciences colleagues in the teachers’ lounge protesting our school’s focus on standardized tests. The middle school was located in a poverty-impacted community with over 95% of students of color. In 2009, I was finishing my fifth-year teaching and recall asking myself, “Why are the standardized tests such an evil thing? Don’t we need assessments to measure what the students are learning?” (ChenFeng, 2009). 

One of the signature education policies in my early career was the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002. Teachers have different opinions of NCLB, but most educators and policy makers would agree that NCLB brought upon a culture of “over-testing and one size fits all mandates” (Duncan, 2015). During the 12 years I taught middle school math in Los Angeles, not once did I examine the intersection of white supremacy and education policy in my own classroom instruction. Overwhelmed by the high-stakes testing environment, and with a roster of 130 students, I was not aware of the impact of federal education policy on my teaching beliefs and instruction. In retrospect, I upheld color-evasive ideology and believed in a pedagogy that promoted the myth of meritocracy (Bonilla-Silva, 2017 as cited in Diem & Welton, 2020). In other words, I did not consider how race and racism shows up in the classroom or the ways I was complicit in perpetuating the false notion of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps.

Power and Privilege in Education Policy

Making the Case for Critical Theory as a Theoretical Framework for a Liberatory Policy Agenda

By Andre ChenFeng

In 1963, Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” 

As a first-time attendee to the AACTE’s Holmes Policy Institute, I was met with theory, practice, and a new appreciation for civic engagement. My key takeaway from the Holmes Policy Short Course was for scholars of color to bridge education policy with critical praxis[1]. In other words, we are to unapologetically interrogate the role of white supremacy and whiteness in our education policies with our dissertation research questions. 

During the course, Weade James, AACTE director of development and research, reminded the Holmes Scholars that “part of being an effective education leader is being an active participant in the public policymaking process.” I was inspired by her leadership and vision to create the Holmes Policy Short Course for scholars of color—a space to train and equip advocates for education policy to navigate white supremacy in our political institutions.