Education Equity Episode 1

Is the American education system at a breaking point? In this inaugural episode of "The Politics of Possibility," co-hosts Dr. Ezekiel Dixon-Román and Dr. Sonya Douglass sit down for a candid, high-stakes conversation with two of the nation's leading voices in educational policy and research: Dr. Peggy G. Carr (former Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics) and Dr. Pedro A. Noguera (Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education).

Together, they confront a disturbing reality: an unprecedented federal retreat from educational leadership, the systematic dismantling of national data infrastructure, and the widening opportunity gaps impacting the country's most vulnerable students.

From international test score declines to the erasure of decades of statistical institutional memory, this episode exposes the systemic cracks in a high-spending but underperforming system—and challenges researchers, practitioners, and local leaders to build a new path forward from the ground up.

Advancing Educational Equity for the Social Good

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Episode Transcript

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Politics of Possibility, Advancing Educational Equity for the Social Good, a four-part webinar series where we seek to have thoughtful and engaging conversations with leading practitioners, policymakers, and researchers on today's threats to education and possibilities for educational transformation.

Given our focus and concern on educational equity and being situated at Columbia University, we find ourselves in a particular position to speak to and host these necessary conversations.

I'm your co-host, Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, Professor of Critical Race, Media and Educational Studies, and Director of the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Sonya Douglass: And I'm Sonya Douglas, Professor and Chair of the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, and founding director of the Black Education Research Center. I also serve as Vice President of Division L of AERA, and we'll be leading all four webinar sessions. Please RSVP to them. We hope to build a community through this series.

In today's session, which we're very excited about, we will talk about the current state of education in the United States, review its implications for education research, policy, and practice, and consider how, by working together, we might transform education, especially for our most vulnerable students.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Unfortunately, one of our panelists, Linda Darling-Hammond, will not be able to join us today due to a last-minute conflict, but it is my esteemed honor to introduce our other two panelists for today.

Dr. Peggy Carr, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics from 2021 to 2025, and Dr. Pedro Noguera, Dean of the University of Southern California's Rozier School of Education.

You can read more about them on our website.

And with that, let's move into our panel conversation.

With the ongoing and unprecedented assault on democratic institutions in general, and education in particular.

How would each of you panelists describe the current state of public education in the United States?

Pedro Noguera: Peggy, why don't you get us started? I'll jump in.

Peggy Carr: Well, you know, I… we have been just talking independently about the articles that have just been released today, Higher Ed, New York. New York Times, but… You know, that indicates that there is a lot of confusion and influx in the system. But I think your question is a larger one about public education in general, and I would say that we are in an inflection point. There are a lot of things going on - the pandemic, social unrest, demographic shifts. We look a lot different today than we did 10, 20 years ago. And then there's school choice, and all the legislation around that. And I would put all of that in the context of persistent inequities that sort of have kept us really worried about where our education system is and where it's going. I want to talk about 3 quick data points.

As evidence of my, my position here. NAEP, for example, when we released the data in 2022-23, we have not recovered from the pandemic. The gaps are widening, they're still declining, particularly the lower performing students. Higher performing students are actually holding steady or improving, and so that's an interesting state of affairs. The international data support it.

We are 28, for example, out of 37 of the OECD countries. These are our peer countries in Europe and Australia, Canada, what have you. And we're not doing well there, and… but yet, we are a high spending, system. We spend more than any other OECD country, on the average, about 40% more. And I'll end with this, because the pipeline doesn't start with… stop with, K-12. It goes on to a lifelong learning. And there's data there, too, out of the international PIAC study that shows that adult literacy - whether you're talking about just reading or numeracy - is also dropping and showing a weakness in our system. We are scoring lower, or similar, or lower in most cases, than other OECD countries. So, I think there's cracks in the system.

We are high spending, but it's not showing up in our outcomes for our students and for our adults.

Pedro Noguera: So, let me jump in here. You know, in many ways, we're seeing what Trump said he would do, which is to delegate, all responsibility for education to the states. And so, that's what's happening. That's where, if there's any guidance being provided at all to districts, it's coming from state governments.

And this really represents, I think, the total abandonment of leadership by the federal government in the field of education. And it's important, I think, for listeners to understand what that represents, because the federal government's role has always been one of protecting the civil rights of children. This is how we got into Title I, this is why special ed and the federal role is so important, and making sure that the education of children with learning disabilities is protected. Title IX, we can go on and on. The role of the federal government has been to ensure that the rights of children are protected.

Under No Child Behind, it went further. And we said, the federal government said, they want to play a role in ensuring that there's evidence of learning in schools. Ironically, Make America Great Again does not mean make America great in education. There's actually nothing at all in the way of leadership from the federal government about what they want to do to address some of the issues that Peggy just raised, about the lacking performance of students in many schools and many states across the country. So, I think it's important for us to understand that the ideology behind this, of abandoning responsibility, has direct consequences for children in red and blue states all across this country.

Peggy Carr: Yeah, it's showing up in the data. And consistently nationally and internationally, at all levels.

Sonya Douglass: So if I could pick up here, and I want to actually talk more about the consequences and this question of the biggest dangers and threats right now that we see, as it relates to the current policy and political landscape. What would you say are some of the biggest kind of dangers and threats that we should be aware of, given the shift in terms of the federal government?

As you mentioned, Pedro, abandoning its leadership, you know, what does this mean for schools and districts and people who work in these spaces?

Pedro Noguera: Well, what they have said is that many of the funds would be redirected from the Department of Education to the National Institute of Health for a while. So, that remains to be seen how this can play out, especially because the government is shut down, so we don't know. But we do know that most of the money, 90% of the funds for schools come from the state level anyway. However, the federal role is not insignificant, as we've been saying. It's one of oversight. And we can think about, the role that the federal government has played in, for example, elevating national standards, or ensuring that the rights of English learners or the rights of young women in schools are respected and safeguarded, and that is, again, abandoned. And, it'll be up to states, and I think we've all known that states are uneven in their… with respect to how diligently they enforce the law, and we have a long and ugly history of denying basic educational opportunities to kids in many parts of the country, so the absence of federal oversight, I think, is going to be significant.

Sonya Douglass: Thank you, Pedro, Peggy, and anything else?

Peggy Carr: Well, you know, I want to add, and if I can be candid, that the policy and political landscape that we're seeing today is disturbing. It's deeply troubling to me from my personal experience. I spent 35 years more as a federal statistical agent, working on behalf of the government proudly, on behalf of the government, and I've never witnessed a period like this in modern history for the federal education statistical community.

NCES, as you know, is the second oldest, statistical agency. It's the third largest out of only 13 in the entire federal statistical system, yet it was hollowed out in a matter of weeks down to 3 employees, and that really doesn't even include all the contractors, and there are thousands of them that lost their jobs that are now not part of the system. So I think one of the biggest dangers is that we're losing statistical memory of American education. So there are fewer eyes on the condition of schools, and this is what the dean just made very, very clear and very vividly. The data collections, and we had many data collections, we had over 60… 60 data collections at NCES.

Many of them have been significantly de-scoped, or just, stopped altogether. So how students are learning, or not learning, and what's working or not working, that we don't have eyes on that like we had before. And the safeguards that the dean is mentioning, well, they're not there either. Safeguards against misinformation. 

And I think the history that is being discussed here is also important. When the department was established in 1979, it really was to be the guardian of equity, of data, of opportunity. It really wasn't to replace the state voices or the local voices. And I also want to make this historical point, that NCES was established in 1867, even before the department, it was sort of, I'm gonna give air quotes, “the first sort of Department of Ed”, after the Civil War, to take a hard look at the states and the territories, to see what they were doing.

And, doing reconstruction, around their responsibilities for education.

The charge to NCES at the time was simple, but yet profound. Tell us the truth about American education. So the danger, I think, that we are seeing is that there's a possibility of Department of Ed will be dismantled. It's the responsibility of Congress to say what to do with the U.S. Department of Ed, but NCES has been there from the beginning, taking that truth, look at all of the United States and what is going on. And ultimately, I think you will agree that this is just a symptom of a larger problem that's associated with a sort of, a disregard for data, for science, for institutional expertise in evidence-based policy making. So that's the real danger that I think that we're all troubling with here today.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Peggy, I so appreciate you touching on this and speaking to what we might characterize as the erasure of literally decades of data that has been so deeply important for accountability, and even just for knowing and understanding what is happening

I've even, in some places, characterized measurement as a political act in and of itself, right? And even thought of data as, in fact, a form of vision, a form of actually visualizing what is actually happening, and also a form of not visualizing, so a way of not accounting for what's… what also is going on as well.

With that, I think this is a really great segue to… I want to raise this question around what is the most… what do you see as the most pressing concern or issues facing the research community? I mean, you touched on the concerns and implications to science, and even disregard for science.

I wonder if you all might have some things to say about what we might see as the most pressing concerns or issues facing the research community, as well as, of course, policymakers in the K-12 and higher ed communities.

Pedro Noguera: Well, I… if you're… I'm sorry, you wanted to go.

Peggy Carr: Yeah, yeah, no, I think you should go first on this one, Pedro.

Pedro Noguera: So, if you're the kind of scholars doing international comparisons, then basically you can't do it now, because that data doesn't exist in the United States, and that's a real loss. At the same time, most states are collecting some achievement data, so that… there is data available, hopefully, at the state level.

But I do think it's important to keep this in mind. We know that when we are able to track disparities in achievement, it's an indication of disparities in opportunity, right? That's the key issue here. That is that the children who are not achieving are often the children who are languishing in underfunded schools, who are not adequately being served because

Throughout the country, it's still the case that wherever poverty is concentrated, we tend to see schools that are struggling, not because the kids can't learn, but because their basic needs and their educational needs aren't being met. So when you lose access to the data, you lose the ability to see what's happening, and I think we're seeing the same thing in other… because, you know, this administration's made a war against data collection, against focusing on disparities, as if by not addressing it, it disappears. Let me just quote Rod Page, someone I didn't agree with much, but when Rod was Secretary of Education, he once said, “I can end the achievement gap immediately if I stop collecting the data.”

And I thought, you know, ‘He's making a good point, because if you don't collect the data, you can't see the problem.’ And that's where we are now.

Peggy Carr: Yeah. You, you don't fix a problem if you can't measure it and see it, and be able to identify. Otherwise, it's just invisible. And we don't want inequalities and lack of opportunities to disappear from our vision, from our sight, and that is what I think is one of the biggest dangers here.

Sonya Douglass: Boy, I have so many questions, I'm gonna try to stick to the ones that we have organized. I'm teaching a policy and politics course right now, and I hope our students will make sure that they watch this, because we're providing such, I think, important historical context to, again, the significance of these associations and data collection and what we're losing in the current moment. And I just wonder, you've talked about - what it means to lose that role of the federal government by way of civil rights protections - and just providing the data that we need to be able to address problems and provide solutions? How might we think differently about the role of the federal government now? Or should we be thinking about maybe different responsibilities that they take on as we think about how we eventually come out of this moment. Should we be, maybe, advocating or thinking about different ways that the federal government and the states should be involved in or leading public education in the U.S.?

Pedro Noguera: If I can go…

First on this one, since you talked about the federal government, how about I jump in first? I think, when we think about the federal government, our mind goes first to funding and compliance, because that, you know, they got the money, and you have to abide by the rules, but I think the real value in the federal government should be thought about in terms of what it can do that no one else can do.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Hmm.

Peggy Carr: You know, it is a nation-building responsibility, sort of the backbone, if you will, of the education system in the United States. And I have some principles in my head I want to quickly sort of tick through that I think

Peggy Carr: Illustrates my point, some principles that are functional and important to keep in mind comparability. I'm gonna do… I'm gonna go with Nate, because that's what I know as well, the most. We got common definitions, common metrics and very rigorous sampling methodology. And it allows us to compare performance across entire United States, no matter where the child is in the United States. Here's a good example.

A fourth grader taking the reading test in Mississippi can be compared to the fourth grader taking the same reading test in Massachusetts. And we can be absolutely certain that we're making valid and reliable comparisons across these students. Standards and data quality is another area. The Evidence Act, and I think your readers should focus on this. The Evidence Act and Title III of the Evidence Act is about building trust, public trust, and that is very important. And yes, there's, text in there about privacy and confidentiality, but the real issue is building trust so that the public can see that we have viable, reliable, and defensible credibility that these data are credible. And that it's rigorous, and it has independent review, and that we can trust it.

That is something that the federal government does and does better than anyone I know. And then there's this long-term vision. The ability to be able to collect data and sustained data over decades, over years, time and time again, and that data can be used to reveal not just correlation, but causes - I'm going to hesitate because it's not an experiment. These studies are not experimental, but they do help us understand what a viable, plausible hypothesis might be about what is leading to what relationships are actually leading to one another.

And states, I think, can't do this.  And nor should they do this. This is a role, I think, of the federal government - building capacity.

Every state in the union, every territory has a state longitudinal data system, and these data systems are vast in terms of its scope. They start from pre-K to the workforce, and everything in between. And they really are very innovative, and they're being used to build systems to help states. So I think that that is something that the department, NCS has been doing that is out there that no one else could do. And then there's this one that everybody's been talking about, in this session today. equity, monitoring equity across the entire system. We have a moral obligation to monitor Opportunity gaps, and to call out inequities where they… where they exist.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Hmm.

Pedro Noguera: So, let me provide some historical context on this federal role that I think will be important for listeners and for your students, Dr. Douglas.

Great, here's the cleaned version of this section:

Pedro Noguera: So keep in mind, remember in 1957, a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas. to desegregate the schools, because, there was, that governor and a mob of racists were trying to block it. So the federal government actually took an aggressive role to defend the rights of children. Follow that with Lyndon Johnson, a Democratic president who had once been a teacher himself.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: On the southern border.

Pedro Noguera: enacting into law what is now known as Title I, the, Early Childhood, or the,

Sonya Douglass: Elementary.

Pedro Noguera: Elementary and Secondary School Student Act. So what we saw in our past was the federal government saying educational rights are civil rights. that the federal government has a role in protecting those rights and ensuring that children are getting what they deserve and need. Now, we've never approached equity. We continue to fund schools based on property taxes. For the most part, which ensures a high degree of inequity in school funding, but The federal government's role was to ensure at least some degree of access and opportunity. Now we're seeing a total retreat, a total abandonment of that role. And so, again, I think listeners out there need to know, because, you know, I think the Trump administration sees education as a Democrat issue, not as an American issue. There are many, many.

Peggy Carr: nonpartisan.

Pedro Noguera: for white people who are dependent on their schools, right, throughout this country, for their children to get an access to education, to get a school lunch. You know, to get the basic opportunities that they need. And so we need to, stop, allowing this to be framed as a partisan issue. This is an issue that cuts across politics, and it affects our very future as a country.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: You know, I actually want to follow up with a question here, because you both lay out some really, really important and key issues, even historical points here. And this point, Peggy, that you raised about trust.

Peggy Carr: Yeah.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: I really would love to hear, especially given your… role for a number of years as the commissioner of NCES, and this question around the concern of the waning of trust as a result of this administration's actions of literally eliminating data, Literally terminating grants, Right? So, as researchers, how are we to have trust And going after federal grants now, that the government will stay… will stay, you know, will be reliable to them, right? I, I wonder…

Peggy Carr: Yeah.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Thoughts on this?

Peggy Carr: No, no, you know, I… what… people can complain a lot about IES, it was not perfect, or NCES as… as wonderful as it was, and I certainly… that it was my mission, in life. It wasn't perfect either, but no one was questioning the accuracy of the data. That's because we… Bent over backwards to dance on the head of the pen to make sure it was correct. Timeliness is something I think there are many issues why timeliness Was a problem and continues to be a problem, but people trusted the National Center for Education Statistics, because we did it by the books, and we were transparent with our methodology. our methodological reports, our training. People knew exactly what we did. We had statistical standards. I was working on psychometric standards when all of this was cut down. We were even working with OECD that surprisingly did not have the type of standards that the United States had for its assessments for PISA. So we were a leader in this field, not just here in the United States, but abroad, everywhere. And that is something we do well. Privacy. confidentiality. We never allowed any of that to seep in. It is so, disturbing to me that the people who know how to run that kind of organization, to build… to feel that kind of data, to curate that kind of data, are not there. And you can't do that with 3 people. Even the contractors, many of them lost some of their key people because they couldn't afford to pay them. They had to go when the scope of the contracts were… were cut back or just completely canceled. This is one of… we talked about dangers, earlier. This is one that really keeps me awake. at night.

Pedro Noguera: But let me add something, because I'm hoping that some of the researchers listening out there are thinking about, okay. eventually, the Trump's term will end. There will be a new president, there will be an effort to recreate some of what was there. I hope we don't just create what was there already. I think it was inadequate. I think that,

Peggy Carr: Yeah.

Pedro Noguera: to just report the disparities is not good enough. You know, so let me use an analogy. If we had a National Institute of Health that was doing its job, and we saw, oh, there's a measles outbreak in Texas, they don't just report, oh, there's a rise in measles, they then send out.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Public health experts to go and help deal with the problem.

Peggy Carr: Uncover it, yeah.

Pedro Noguera: that if we see kids in Detroit or Baltimore or in Arkansas are not reading, we then… the federal government says, we need to make sure that we are sending out specialists to go work with those schools to help those children. It's not good enough to report the data. Right? And I think too often that's what we have done in education, and we have left it to the educators out there to figure out what to do about it, and that's why we are still where we are. No child behind did not… left so many children behind, so I'm not gonna hold up that law as though it saved us. It exposed a problem, yes.

Peggy Carr: It did.

Pedro Noguera: Not solve the problem.

Peggy Carr: I couldn't agree more.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: I could take the next question if you want to.

Sonya Douglass: Yeah, we have a lot of great questions in the…

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Oh my gosh, this is… thank you. I actually think, Pedro, what you just raised is a nice segue to even a really important question of what you all might see as the bright spots. And most important… and most promising levers for change in policy and education.

Peggy Carr: Oh, the bright spots.

Sonya Douglass: Bright spots.

Pedro Noguera: Pedro, you go first.

Peggy Carr: I don't know, I gotta find my bright spots.

Pedro Noguera: I don't see any bright spot in the federal government right now, not in terms of their role in education, except for maybe You know, anyway. But there aren't… that doesn't mean there aren't bright spots around the country where we see progress being made. There are. You know, right where I live, not far from where I live in Los Angeles. Compton schools are making huge gains. They have surpassed their achievement levels pre-pandemic, particularly in math, and people are saying, what's going on in Compton? Well, we need to learn from districts that are making progress, particularly educating low-income children of color. And Compton's not alone. There are other places across the country that are doing this work and doing it well. And so, you know, in the absence of leadership from the federal government, we need states and local superintendents to get together to share what they're learning. We can't wait till Washington to lead us. We have many leaders across the country, and we've got to lead at the grassroots level and at the state level Given that the federal government has abandoned, their role.

Peggy Carr: Well, you know, can I… can I just follow up on that? Because you make a really good point. When we released these NAEP data in 2024, there were two states, much to our surprise, that actually surpassed their pre-pandemic levels.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Hmm.

Peggy Carr: Alabama and Louisiana, I believe it was, in fourth grade. And we're like, you know, what's going on there? You know, so it… I mean, everyone is not stagnant. There are places where we're seeing some resilience. Regardless of what they are working with, they're able to shine. and pro… and progress. This is why I think it's important to have, like, a federal role in identifying where there are differences and disparities and where there are bright spots, where there are 90-90-90s that are going on. 90% poor, 90% proficient, but 90% Really, really showing, demonstrating what, what, what is possible. But I do think that there are other, bright spots, I think, and you kind of mentioned it earlier, Dean, AI, I think… NCS was not perfect, but I think NCS could be made better if it was reimagined as an AI-powered agency. We could be much more efficient in terms of our design, our sampling. our curation of the data, our ability to be able to go in, be more diagnostic in how we analyze and release these data, and be more timely. I would be excited if If, somehow, there is an opportunity for reimagining NCS, and perhaps even the other statistical agencies. as AI-powered statistical ones that can take advantage of where we are today.

Sonya Douglass: Commissioner, as a follow-up to that, because I am interested in where, you know, where we do go from here, who… where would we go to even begin to advance some of the ideas that we have? You know, who… is leading, I guess, in this moment, the way forward for education? I mean, what should educators, professors, research, faculty, individuals who are very concerned about what's happening, you know, I think A part of what we're wondering is where do we go, who do we turn to, and how do we then begin the process of, you know, building the types of systems, the type of databases, the type of research infrastructure that we know is important to advancing equity?

Peggy Carr: Well, you know, the education ecosystem is larger. It's actually larger than I thought it was. After all of this happened, I realized that there were sectors that were important. to, the system, even the media, I think. was more important than I think I had envisioned before. So there are lots of components, but you know, it's not just the IES and the Department of Education and the NCESs of the world that need to be reimagined. All of these smart sectors need to be reimagined. How can they be doing things differently? I'm going to pick on the think tanks. There are a lot of smart people in these think tanks, but they have been spending their efforts writing white papers that are sort of advocacy, you know, in nature. They, they could write white papers, or Or, pieces that focus in on truth teller. They understand these technical details of these studies as well as anyone, and they can help Consumers, laypeople, to really understand what these data are saying and what they're not saying. And… and there are others in this sector as well. The… the state and local partners. I think they need to get out of this space where they're just giving the government data because it's part of their compliance requirement. Why can't they be partners in helping develop And, curating national data, so that they're in it together, and they get, you know, it's a win-win situation. The, the… the universities, I think, I think have a role. We're gonna need more Pedro, we're gonna need more, data scientists, statisticians, psychometricians. Measurement analysts of all kinds, of all creeds. And I think that this is something that post-secondary institutions can help us do. And I'm going to pick on the R1 institutions in particular, because I know you can do it. And I'm gonna put it right out there at HBCU, Howard University, my alma mater, that recently became the first HBCU, with an R1 rating. They can do it, they need to step it up. So it's not just about accountability, it's about using these important data for learning and informing learning.

Pedro Noguera: So, I depend… Can I also suggest that those who are wondering what, you know, where to look while there's this vacuum in Washington, I say look abroad. Look to Canada, for example. Canada outperforms the United States. Look to Ontario in particular to see a high-performing system and how it operates. You know, Michael Fullen's written about this pretty extensively. The highest performing urban school system in North America is Toronto. Toronto's diverse.

Peggy Carr: Right? In Toronto, if a school is struggling, they don't simply publish a report and say, you have a failing school. They hone in on it.

Pedro Noguera: The province sends support to those schools, to assist those schools to address the issues. So there are many other countries And the data shows this, that do better. I was in Finland last year, many people say, well, don't look at Finland because it's small, it's white, it's not like us. Why not learn from a place that's high-performing? They are… they have a very strong connection between research on learning.

Peggy Carr: Yes, yes.

Pedro Noguera: the way it impacts kids in classrooms. We don't have that research, and so let me scold the researchers out there. Too often, researchers only speak to researchers. They don't work with practitioners. They're not bringing their research to schools. I've made this criticism of ARA over and over again. You know, the researchers talk to each other. Meanwhile, the practitioners are not even in the room half the time. And so, You know, we're publishing journal articles. Who benefits from that? How is that impacting learning for kids? How could it be that every year, thousands of researchers get together and our schools are still so stuck? So, we need to change the way we do research, change the way we connect research to practice, and change the way we use data to actually help schools help children, because that's not what's happening right now. More often than not, all we're doing is ranking schools, ranking kids. If you were to go to the doctor, let me give an analogy here. And the doctor does a bunch of tests. And then the doctor says, oh yeah, you're very sick, Sonya, we need to do something. You need to do something. He said, but doctor, what are we gonna do? He said, all I do is rank people here. You need to go somewhere else for help.

Sonya Douglass: I went to the hospital.

Pedro Noguera: Well, that's what we've been doing in education. We've been ranking kids, ranking schools, as if that helps anyone. It doesn't help a damn bit.

Peggy Carr: Yeah, you know.

Sonya Douglass: We're here for it. Can I respond very quickly? I was on…

Peggy Carr: They pieced the governing board almost 10 years, and I saw exactly what is being described here. It's not just Finland, it's Singapore. is, Macau. There are a lot of higher performing OECD countries than… than the United States. And one of the common threads is that they are creating a culture of evidence-informed practice amongst their teachers and their practitioners. They help them to think about how to approach the data as learners themselves. They are interacting with the data because they're using their own professional development, their own qualifications, to ask good questions of the data. Not just what it says in terms of it's a score, but what does the score mean? What does it mean in interaction with the child? that they, they understand well of the classroom. This is not what we're doing in the United States. Our mindset is totally different, as just described. We need a culture of evidence-based thinking, even among our practitioners. I agree with this 1000%, and in fact, just to even give a shout out to, like, the Spencer Foundation, who has been focusing on trans… a transformative research agenda that is grounded and engaged in communities and with community institutions and practitioners, as well as the William T. Grant Foundation, as well.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: I think, you know, these foundations are really helping to try to shape and lead the way, and trying to get at precisely what I hear both of you speaking to, especially Pedro, in relation to Yes, the research, not even speaking to the very communities, the very institutions, and the very practitioners that actually need the data, need the research, need the evidence in order to do the work. I want to raise another question related to this, and it's really… I'd like to ask this question around what resources do you recommend For those who are interested in resisting the attacks on public education, and seeking to build or support transformative educational opportunities, especially for our most vulnerable students.

Pedro Noguera: So the question is, what should Hu do?

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Well, what resources do you recommend, for those who are interested in resisting the attacks on public education and or seeking to build or support transformative educational opportunities?

Pedro Noguera: Well, unfortunately, I mean, it's all political now, you know, so it, you know, I hope you all were out there on Saturday at the No Kings March, because you need to be involved, right? You need to.

Peggy Carr: Yeah.

Pedro Noguera: Not just, wait for, you know, 3 years and hope that things get better. I think, you know. I would say this is a very… this is a political fight that we're in, and You know, in my opinion, education should be nonpartisan. It should be… shouldn't matter who the president is. You know, educating kids is so important. But everything is politicized, from healthcare to education to energy. So, that's the situation we're in now, and we're gonna have to, figure out how do we do good work? You know, what I try to focus on now is what we can do locally, here where I live in Los Angeles, what we can do in our states. But I know that means that there are lots of folks out there who, you know, they live in a red state, and the education of their students are left to the whims of their state legislature, their governor, and that's a very sad and dismal situation.

Peggy Carr: Yeah, you would think that Pedro and I had a conversation before. talk, but we did not, but I was gonna say the exact same thing. I think that, we need to call upon the teachings of the Civil Rights Movement.

Sonya Douglass: Yes.

Peggy Carr: Martin Luther King. I even went and I looked up one of his quotes that I think has always helped me think about struggles of this nature. The arc of the moral universe is long. But it bends towards justice. Then he quickly added, but it ain't gonna happen on his own.

Sonya Douglass: You're gonna have to help it.

Peggy Carr: You're gonna need collective, coordination across those who care, who have courage, and who have knowledge. There is power in numbers. We need a collective voice, just like we saw all across the country this weekend. We need to put our shoulders to shoulders. I think that the civil rights movement has also taught us that it's alright to be passionate. That's good. Do that. But don't do it without evidence in your pocket. You need dashboards, you need tables, you need figures to tell the stories about what is happening. You need to enter this conversation with stories and numbers to defend and to show exactly what is happening, the inequities that are happening across, many, many communities. You need to be able to reach the heart and the mind. You need to be able to speak truth to power. This is what we've learned from the civil rights movement. We need to talk to the state boards of education, the school boards, the local school boards. We need to talk to those in Congress who are conducting hearings, but we need to talk with the… Stories that will… Really illuminate the data, not just with passion.

Sonya Douglass: So, I do want to ask, maybe, and maybe it's a provocative question in a way, but I think it's tied to, again, us learning from the Civil Rights Movement, as well as recognizing the racism, right, that is really driving and motivating, I think, a lot of the decisions. So, when we talk about the federal government not playing a role. I wonder if we could recast it, though, as them playing a role in advancing patriotic education, advancing a particular agenda where certain subjects are being taught. We know the textbooks are being revised right now, and they look very different in different states. So I'm just thinking about, like, the active role that the federal government is playing in some way, outside of dismantling the department, but still using, kind of, that platform to determine what the history of this country is and will be taught to children, and just the long-term implications of that. And I'm just… I'm wondering how we address You know, that… that unique… history, in the United States, particularly for African American students. I mean, I can't kind of not, as the director of the Black Education Research Center, lean into this question of the ending of DEI, anti-CRT, I mean, the labor… the workforce, the number of Black women that have been displaced, and just how all of that also fuels kind of our path forward, and just wondering if you have thoughts about that, given the history And again, the examples of how we've overcome, but some of the things that we really do need to think about in this moment. for a new movement, and how we organize, and organizing around, you know, is it only around education issues, or are we looking at social policy broadly? Because as you invoke, you know, Finland and Singapore, I can't help to think about some of the other… the social infrastructure that they also have in place. That has implications for education, so I just wonder if you have any thoughts about… about that. If there's a question in there. Sure.

Pedro Noguera: I would say, K-12 right now, I'm seeing more leadership. from K-12 educators, particularly in large urban districts, than I am from higher ed. They have been more willing to go out there and defend their work around equity, around justice, around DEI, than higher ed has. Higher ed strategy's largely been, let's just hope they don't attack us. Or they are going along with the whims of the administration. I think what… I've seen this in New York, I've seen it in LA. They're taking a stand against ICE, they're taking a stand against the attempts to whitewash the curriculum. They're defending their special ed children. This is bold leadership I'm seeing at the K-12 level. And, and I… my hope is that, the researchers out there will work with them. to, continue to expose what's going on to, both the good and the bad. And I hope that higher ed will be moved to, you know, get some backbone and stand up to the administration. I'm glad that the university I'm part of stood up with respect to this compact. And as did several others. But the Compact, which was an attempt to get special favors from the federal government if you agreed to a bunch of their policies, which is crazy, that you would ask these institutions to sign a loyalty oath To get, contracts. What you should want, the federal government should want, is good research that benefits people in this country, not special deals for ideological allies. So we need a lot of work to figure out how do we resist this agenda, because, you know, we're in the midst of a real challenge here, and I don't want to pretend that it's going to be easy. I can't even figure out yet how we counter some of the damage that's been done.

Peggy Carr: Well, it's gonna be multifaceted, for sure. I'll start teaching a course at University of Maryland. In the spring, and I've been thinking about my curriculum and what Needs to be said. on a policy level, the interaction between policy and measurement, and I think there, some of the truth needs to be told and shared with those who are going to be carrying on the message. So, one of the things, Sonya, I think we might want to think about, what are our curriculum what are our curriculum looking like? What should they look like in the future? And what should the archives of these universities be thinking about storing? And preserving, and teaching to their students so that they can carry on and have this information readily available. When someday, hopefully, things will be different in the pendulum, swings, and this information, this important statistical, educational information has not, been lost. So I don't know if I have an answer, I just know that it's multi… multifaceted, in nature.

Sonya Douglass: Thank you, we'll take that.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Oh my gosh, we could have a conversation all day. I have other questions that I want to ask in relation to your last point, Peggy, about the future of curriculum should look like with AI, also placing AI in conversation with that. But that's a whole seminar, webinar on its own. Let's segment to some of the questions that we.

Sonya Douglass: We've got some great ones in here.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Yeah, So, one of the questions that we have here, from one of our audience members, is, I appreciate the perspectives shared here. A lot of these conversations seem to focus on preserving or repairing after this administration. The existing systems educational that have always presented a number of challenges slash inequities for our most vulnerable communities. How do we begin to reimagine learning environments that can serve children and young people and prepare them to become informed and active global leaders? Should I re… repeat, repeat it, or…

Pedro Noguera: No, I mean, I think it's a good question, it's the right question. The good news is there are places that show us, that are doing that work of reimagining. It's not like you have to wait. There are schools, I can name many, in various parts of the country where kids of all kinds, including kids from poor families, Black, Latino, Native American, are all getting good education. We need to highlight those places and elevate them so people see it, because I think one of the problems with the way we frame the issues for so long is that it reinforces sometimes the narrative that something's wrong with the kids. not with the environments we've placed them in. And that's what we should be focused on. How do we change the learning environment to, bring some joy to learning, to bring out some excellence in our children, so that we can show that under the right conditions. Success is possible. Education can open minds and challenge the stereotypes that are out there. We need to… I can't say enough about the importance of elevating the places where that work is happening.

Peggy Carr: You know, this conversation is reminding me of some data that we've been releasing over the past 5 or 6 years that are Really telling us a bigger story, and I haven't quite figured out what… what it's saying. But they, civic data. and U.S. history and civics, And geography, they're… they're also declining. We're also seeing a decline in just an understanding of what rural order means, what civic participation means, and these are just fundamental principles and values that we as Americans want to instill in our children. Why is it they don't know these things? There's, there are history items in there about you know, Native Americans, about… The civil rights, movement. These children are getting wrong. So, I… I think one of… there's a lot of things that need to be fixed. But let's not leave out those, that don't… appear to us as just the core things. I mean, just reading.

Pedro Noguera: Math and science, yes, but there's also civic.

Peggy Carr: education and engagement. Mike Foyer, Dean, here at GW, is doing some work in this area, trying to sort of reimagine what civic education should look like, and he thinks it's a multidisciplinary Discipline, and that we need to sort of rethink it totally. The, global competency measure put out by OACD is another sort of way of thinking about the interaction between science and and health, and our responsibility in the world. So I… I think there's some fundamental principles that we also need to address, not just the core skills, and we need those as well. We need to be able to read and do math.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: And understand science, but there's some other, values and principles that I think.

Peggy Carr: That need to be addressed.

Sonya Douglass: I'll pull another question from the audience. One is around, you know, again, this question of what safeguards or alternative data systems can prevent the erasure of disparities when federal data sources are dismantled. So just kind of leaning into what school… states and districts should do in filling the gap. At this moment. Any thoughts about that? How do we kind of step in.

Peggy Carr: Yeah, I am worried about what, dissertation students, your students, my students, others. will do when they are concerned about putting race in as a variable. You can't put race in as a variable. You have to put language in as a variable. There's a technical reason why you have to have technically representative data in terms of the validity and the viability of your data. So we've got to rethink how to do this, help our students, help, up-and-coming, researchers, and… because we can't leave these variables out. Maybe the vernacular needs to change for now. I'm not exactly.

Sonya Douglass: Sure, but it is important for us to continue.

Peggy Carr: What we know is rigorous design, rigorous study, moving, moving forward.

Sonya Douglass: Thank you. We have lots of work to do.

Pedro Noguera: But, you know, I would say this, one of the ironies of this moment is most states still collect data based on race. Right? They haven't stopped. And so you can see, I mean, to the degree that they are collecting good data, I know in California, there's data, you can still see the disparities. So… You know, I'm not sure if there's any state that has now said, we're not going to collect data based on race. The question is… so, that's the irony. Can we use that data to do something about the disparities, but you can see the disparities in the state's data?

Peggy Carr: We have a… the government passed before all of this happened. an O&B, OMB Directive 15 on how to collect data moving forward. Pedro, I'm not sure you know about this, but it requires anyone collecting data for the government or by the government to, use a single question. So you can now… you will be, in the future, once this is, final and the plans are in for all of the, agencies. you will be able to say every race or every ethnicity that represents you. So you can be multiracial, multi-ethnic. So this… this attack on being Black, or white, or Hispanic, or whatever. That's going to eventually go away, so we're going to have to rethink this. You seem to know a lot about the international world. You know they don't do this in the international world? I know. I remember distinctly, even Puerto Rico, we had race on the NAE assessment. And we went to Puerto Rico, and we realized that they weren't checking the race variable. We said, well, what is… wrong here. They said that, well, we don't think about ourselves as Black, white, or any of that crazy stuff. We're just Puerto Ricans. We're just Puerto Ricans, that's all. We're just people, here together, and we have the same culture. So I think that we need to… we need to sort of get with the global understanding of… or the lack of reliance on race as, available in the way that we have been… have defined it here in this country. It's gonna go away, whether we like it or not.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Again, a whole other webinar. racial, as a global logic and even global phenomenon in and of itself, I think is a really… is a really important and huge topic on its own. But, you know, this, I just want to say thank you. This is really exciting, really invigorating, and just really informative. I mean, I learned some… a number of new things here from being in conversation with you all, and I just want to thank… thank you for joining us. And we will be back on December 3rd at 3 p.m. Eastern Time to discuss implication for schools and universities in the post-civil rights era. with Professor Carrie Sampson, Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria, and Professor Jonathan Collins. We'll share the replay link of this episode after the webinar, and also, we want to encourage you to follow us on social media, on LinkedIn, Instagram. And also, if you will be in the New York City area. Tomorrow, please come see us. Come see the performance, I should say, by, in conversation with poet, musician, filmmaker, actor, and intellectual, Sal Williams at the Schomburg Center, co-sponsored by the Gordon Institute, Columbia Center for the Study of Social Difference, and Barnard Center for Research on Women. And finally, please mark your calendars for the 12th Annual Distinguished Gordon Lecture to be held on December 9th at 5 p.m. at Teachers College Film University. Again, thank you all for joining us. Thank you, Pedro. Thank you, Peggy.