Education Equity Series Episode 3

Can a curriculum change a life—or save a democracy? In this electric third episode of "The Politics of Possibility," co-hosts Dr. Ezekiel Dixon-Román and Dr. Sonya Douglass explore the revolutionary power of inclusive education. They are joined by a historic panel representing federal leadership, street-level practice, and youth-centered research: Dawn Brooks-DeCosta (Deputy Superintendent, Harlem Community School District 5), Dr. Limarys Caraballo (Associate Professor at Teachers College and Founder of Cyphers for Justice), and Dr. Miguel A. Cardona (12th United States Secretary of Education).

Together, the panel addresses the intensive, highly coordinated political backlash targeting Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CRSE) across the United States. Former Secretary Cardona provides vital federal context, emphasizing that true educational excellence cannot exist without equity, belonging, and an honest reckoning with history. From the classrooms of Harlem, Deputy Superintendent Brooks-DeCosta shares how culturally affirming practices directly elevate student literacy, emotional wellness, and academic achievement. Dr. Caraballo bridges theory and practice, demonstrating through her groundbreaking work with Cyphers for Justice how youth participatory action research transforms students from passive consumers of knowledge into active, liberated authors of their own narratives. This conversation moves past the media talking points to demonstrate why culturally responsive curriculum is an essential pillar of a free society.

Advancing Education for Liberation through Ethnic Studies and Culturally Responsive Curriculum

Listen as a Podcast

Meet Our Guests

Moderators

The Debrief - Episode 3

Episode Transcript

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Politics of Possibility. The Politics of Possibility, Advancing Education for Liberation Through Ethnic Studies and Culturally Responsive Curriculum. I am Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, Director of the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study.

And this is my co-host, Dr. Sonya Douglas, Director of the Black Education Research Center here at Teachers College.

Sonya Douglass: Ezekiel. We are so excited to introduce a stellar panel for today's conversation. First, we'll have Dr. Dawn Brooks-DeCosta, who is a longtime educator with New York City Public Schools, an alum of TC, and Deputy Superintendent, currently, of the Harlem Community School District with New York City Public Schools. Welcome. We also have Dr. Limarys Caraballo, who is an Associate Professor of English Education in the Department of Arts and Humanities and the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College. And finally, last but not least, we have Dr. Miguel Cardona, who served as the 20… the Connecticut State Commissioner of Education from 2019 to 21, and most recently as our 12th United States Secretary of Education. We are delighted to have you here, and ready to jump right into this very important conversation. Secretary Cardona, my first question is actually for you.

Tell us a little bit more about what's happening with the Department of Education. We had a conversation in our last episode about the dismantling, and as a former secretary, would love to know more about what this means for education and for our country. Is it a net loss or when? If so, for whom, or what?

Miguel Cardona: Yeah, thank you. First of all, thank you for having me here. I want to applaud the Teachers College for having these important conversations, and to my, The folks who are going to be on the panel with me today, thank you for sharing your time and sharing your expertise. So, you know, it's a loaded question, right?

We're seeing a dismantling of the Department of Education, and you know, In its most cynical form, it could be perceived as dumbing down our country in order to move folks in the direction that you want to move them. "A less educated population is easier to be manipulated", you know, and I know I don't subscribe to that notion, I do believe that the dismantling of it is a direct attack on public education in order to monetize K-12 education.

We saw what happened in the Trump 1 administration when higher education became, you know, unregulated, and for-profit, higher education institutions took over and really put a lot of first-gen people, a lot of veterans, in major student debt that we had to clean up when we got there.

So, I see that being the strategy. Let's… let's…Dismantle the Department of Education in DC so that the oversight And the support for public education varies and dwindles, and…Push vouchers at the same time so that we could have our public schools siphoning off much-needed dollars to independent schools, and then independent schools could choose which students they take.

So I see that becoming more of a, you know, taking a public good and turning it into something where people make money. Who gets hurt the most? Students furthest from opportunity. Students who now need the Office for Civil Rights to step up when their IEPs are not being met, or students who are marginalized and not getting the same access to quality programming. Typically, black and brown students in the history of our country are the students who are impacted the most. Students with disabilities. So, you know, everyone's gonna get hurt.

Not everyone's gonna get hurt the same. It's kind of like the pandemic, right? We're gonna see pockets of pain that are greater. I would argue rural communities are gonna get hit hard.

So, to me, the role of the federal government, and I'm talking now, Sonya, not just as a former Secretary of education, but as a lifelong educator. I was a 4th grade teacher. I was a school principal. So, you know, I could tell you the impact that are going to happen at the ground level from my experience in the ground level. And doing the important work of working with our students.

So, you know, at the end of the day, I do think there is a strategy here to dismantle not only the department, but also public education. And I think the intention there is to make money off of it. Everyone's gonna be hurt, but students with disabilities and students that are marginalized are gonna be hurt the most, because part of the dismantling is either pawning off some of these departments to other agencies, or reducing the staff by 50%. So when you have the Office for Civil Rights shut down 7 out of 12 offices across the country, students' civil rights are going to be impacted. When the Office for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services goes to HHS, and now you have the least competent Kennedy overseeing it, the services for students with disabilities are going to be impacted. So, it's pretty bad.

Now, with that said, there may be some things there that states are appreciating, the fact that they're not going to have the federal bureaucracy or oversight that they used to have, and in some states, they're gonna do great things. But the variance between states is going to be greater now, so an education in one state is not going to be equivalent to an education in another.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: Thank you, Dr. Cardona. This is… I mean, part of what you highlight here is a really important, issue in relation to the… what's going to become an increasing… what was already differences across states, and what would be of public education. But what's going to be even more increased, and create even more greater inequalities and inequities in educational experiences. You know, I want to turn, actually, to, one of the efforts that is really trying to address and create more educational equity, especially through a culturally responsive curriculum. So, Dr. DaCosta, you have been at the forefront of implementing New York City's, PK-12 Black Studies curriculum in Harlem… in the Harlem Community School District 5. This is an exciting initiative, exciting, even, development, if you will, in New York City public schools. What has been the impact of this initiative on students and teachers?

Dawn Brooks-DeCosta: Yeah, so thank you so much. I appreciate what, Dr. Cardona said about policy, because we have been working around policy for as long as I've been in education and doing what's right for children, right? Despite the, whatever the administration is. But these challenges right now are real, and certainly across the country people are actually being prohibited to do the work that we do in Harlem, New York City, so I appreciate that our chancellor, that our Department of Education here in New York City has prioritized this work and protected the rights of students and families, but also teachers to do this work.

It works. We know that when students see themselves in the curriculum, they learn more. Their learning is deeper. They connect more when we're learning about ourselves, we're learning about others. It builds belonging, it builds understanding. We ask students to work in collaboration with each other. That is what it looks like in the classroom today. And when we don't understand one another, and we don't understand our histories, our commonalities, it creates barriers to instruction, right, in the classroom. So I appreciate so much having the Black Studies curriculum, understanding that as educators, we were not given this content.

Right? So, in many cases, our teachers and our principals are learning with the students. This is a journey that we're going on together.

But it is the truth, and we want to teach the truth, and we want to teach, multiple perspectives on history. If you see what's happening in society today, we are… there's so many that are susceptible to misinformation because they don't know the truth. And it's so important to arm the students with this information.

And Black Studies is not only for Black students. I think that's also, a misconception that, you know, in Harlem, Harlem is diverse, and Blackness is not one thing, it's not a monolith. There are Black people all over the world, from every country. And so I think that we need to understand that this is a world history, that all students, regardless of their background, benefit, and we see, certainly in District 5, the impact on academic achievement as well.

Sonya Douglass: Thank you, Dr. Brooks De-Costa. I want to now shift a little bit to some exciting work that is continuing through the first K-12 Latinidad curriculum. That is being developed in New York City. Dr. Caraballo, could you tell us more about that work? And from your research, why is ethnic studies and culturally responsive curriculum so important for students?

Limarys Caraballo: Well, thank you very much, for, the opportunity, first of all, to be here in conversation with all of you, and…as Dr. Brooks-DeCosta just, stated, it is so important for our students to have the opportunity to see themselves in the curriculum, and we know, as we've seen from the success, of the Black Studies curriculum, how important it is for teachers to be in a context where such an approach is welcome and the resources are available.

And as part of this broader policy context that Dr. Cardona has talked about, we see this opportunity in developing the Latinidad curriculum as building upon decades of research, in ethnic studies and culturally responsive teaching, what has been shown well and extensively is that this kind of culturally grounded teaching is really effective for all students, because we all learn by building upon what we know. So this is based on cognitive and social theory, and the important…

I think the most important thing that I want to highlight is that the public discourse that is being leveraged, in these culture wars to create, really, a manufactured crisis, where there isn't one, is by creating a dichotomy between ethnic studies and the curriculum around the basics. On one side there is the curriculum that is grounded in the disciplines, and then on the other side is ethnic studies over here. And ethnic studies is about centering a curriculum that brings in content that has thus far been excluded from the curriculum. It is by accessing ways of knowing and knowledge that has been obscured, marginalized, and in some cases, really explicitly eliminated from our historical knowledge. And so, making an explicit effort and attempt to bring that into the curriculum is part of what is important about ethnic studies, because it brings in this idea of belonging.

Like, we are really making an effort to see, to incorporate, to include many diverse communities in the curriculum, and in such a diverse community… our very diverse communities, including our Latina communities, that's a really important thing to do. So that's very much part of our initiative, is that we're exploring Latinidad and what that means in all of its intersecting identities as part of developing the curriculum. And we're bringing in as many people and communities into the process to build the curriculum collaboratively, as we're doing it. It's very much part of the content and the process.

But the other thing that I think is really important to highlight about culturally responsive and ethnic studies, curriculum is that the reason why it's really helpful for everybody is that it helps us to address some of this that Dr. Cardona also mentioned about the broader policy context and the national discourse around education, where the battles that are being forged, around curriculum and who gets to make decisions about what is taught.

that's another level of manufactured crisis, and we… we have the benefit and the privilege of having more room and more support, for making our own decisions about curriculum in New York City, but that means that we have more of a responsibility to create those resources and to offer those curriculum materials for our colleagues and for communities even outside of New York City.

I've been watching very carefully how these battles happen, you know, take place, in hearings outside of New York City, and in one case, for example, the argument around ethnic studies curricula made by, in one of these hearings, in school board hearings, was saying that, students were being asked to take on ideological, political, activist positions, rather than learning neutral content, right? And that's a really dangerous dichotomy to set up around curriculum, because we really need to understand, that all knowledge is positional and contextual. And there is no such thing as, taking on a fully neutral position, especially when it comes to history, right? So part of what ethnic studies does is that it brings into front and center whose interests are served in any movement, in any situation. And I hope that that's really what we can continue to do with the Latinidad curriculum, by bringing in different ways of knowing, and different approaches to the same kind of content that maybe has been taught all along, but now we're offering a broader perspective, and we're bringing in additional voices and a more collaborative way of coming up with curriculum materials, to teach more about the communities that have made this city, what it is.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: So, I'm over here muted, but I'm over here doing the church, as you all are talking, so I'm… just giving, like, all that… the good old church response, if you will. But, you all are dropping some really important, just information, and, and, and I think, you know, in this moment of the banning of books in a moment of… where we have state curriculums that are literally re-narrativizing Black history to… in very problematic and questionable ways, right?

You know, I'm thinking, you know, Dr. Brooks-DeCosta, I'm thinking about how my son is in District 5…When I first learned that he was getting exposed to the Black Studies curriculum, and seeing the assignments that he has coming up, and how excited I was for him, and even the stuff that he's talking about as a result. Right? So, you know, similarly, I'm excited about the opportunity that he will have, and all of our students will have, in relation to being exposed to the Latinidad Studies curriculum as well. So… but this is New York City.

We are very privileged here in New York City, to have this opportunity, to have New York City Council and New York City Public School, to be daring enough to bring this forward, to do this work.

And I think, you know, there's a really important question. It comes back to the broader national, concerns about educational equity, and what… and the deep, significant variation of what students are going to be exposed to.

And so I want to… I'm gonna come back to, Dr. Cardona and ask this question around what national education organizing efforts are underway? Are there organizing advocacy or coalition building efforts that you feel deserve more attention? And what do you believe is needed? How can the listeners of this webinar even find ways of plugging in?

Miguel Cardona: Yeah, for sure, definitely. Thank you for that, and I just have to say, you know, I love hearing Dr. Caraballo and Dr. Brooks-DeCosta talking about what they're doing, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the federal government is doing as much as what you're doing. And I'm filled with, you know, as an educator, I'm filled with joy knowing that at the end of the day.

We're not gonna leave our watch. You know, we took a note, and we're gonna keep it even when it hurts. You know, I used to say I'm as American as apple pie and rice and beans. And I say that because the rice and beans is now… this is America. We are America. We're not going to be put in this corner. And there are a lot of revisionist history experts all of a sudden. But at the end of the day, I trust the educators that are at the ground level, realizing what is happening, what our kids need. That's the most important level, right? You know, and these manufactured division that is intended to break up public education is something that I love the fact that you recognize, and the folks here recognize. You know, I used to say that when I was secretary, every year they want to create a new boogeyman, right? At first it was masks, then it was CRT, you know, critical race theory, right? The real CRT is culturally Relevant Teaching, Gloria Ladston Billings, but people didn't want to hear that.

Then it was transgender. Then it was book banning, right? So every year, we're gonna create culture wars to divide us, and I think that was, well said, Dr. Caraballo, how… how you're, you know, we can't fall for that, right? You know, but the question that you asked me is really about, you know, what are the national efforts?

And I have to tell you, man, I'm not here feeling… you know, I don't want to be talking doom and gloom. I'm excited. I'm… this is the best time to be in education. This is the best time to get into the profession, the best time to lead because what you do matters even more than when I was secretary. And the… the sense of…you know, we're washing away complacency now. I finally… I see people saying, - we can't let this happen. I think we were lulled into complacency, and look at what happened, right? And what I see happening now is reminiscent of what happened in California, like, in the 90s, in the 2000s, with Prop 227, English only, right? So there was an underground group of people that said, wait a minute, this is bad.

This is bad. So you know what was born out of that? The seal of biliteracy.

So now, when we got out of the Prop 227, now we're giving kids honors and saying, you're multilingual, multiliterate, you have a, you know, you're special. And I'm proud to say that when we were… it was born in California, Arthur Chow and his team, as a result of the oppression that 227 provided for our schools, so something came out of it, right? Never let a crisis go to waste.

So they came out with the seal of biliteracy, and I'm proud that, you know, after we left the administration, all 50 states adopted that. So, my question to the folks listening now, is…you know, we're in the middle of a storm. What are we gonna do when we get out of here? How are we going to take advantage of the frustration and urgency and turn it into something good, and not just sit and be angry, right? So you ask, you know, what are some things that could come from it? I can tell you what I'm seeing. I travel the country and I do speaking, and I'll give you, like, two examples.

There's an Association for Latino Administrators and Superintendents, right? They're stronger now than they were 4 or 5 years ago, because people are realizing our students are being villainized, our communities, our cultures are being…villainized. And we have to come together. And there's a… there are alliances forming that are stronger. Next week, I'll be in New York, with the New York Alas.

Next week, I'll be in New York, or not next week, next month. Next week, the New York Association of Bilingual Educators are coming together. And their coalitions with other states are getting stronger. And I think sometimes what happens in our country and in our fields is that everybody's working hard, but not talking to each other.

What we need to do is do what California did during that time, and to kind of build shared alliances that cross culture, that cross different marginalized groups. I think we have to do a better job becoming allies outside of our comfort zone. It's easy for me to be an ally for Latinos.

Am I being an ally for the students who are LGBTQ that are getting attacked, too? I should be. So, stronger alliances are forming. I talked about ALAs. They're getting stronger. The Associations of Bilingual Education are teaming up with the ALAs. And they're saying, what do we want to see?

When we come out of this mess, rebuilding it to the way it was before is not good enough. Think about California's example with Prop 227. Alright? Another example that I'm really proud of is Californians together. They're saying, you know what? We're done talking about the benefits of bilingualism. We know that. Bilingualism is a superpower. But apparently, that's not enough for people to invest in it, so now we're gonna take it a step further, and they're coming up with a strategy for all of California that says multilingualism for all. Everyone. Why are we one of the few countries in this world that's proud about being monolingual? There's an economic imperative to teach language. So, they're stepping it up as a result of what's happening now.

I do see alliances happening within groups that are the same affinity groups, but I need to see more alliances forming across affinity groups. You follow me? I think that's a really important thing, and my message to the folks when I meet with them is, like, which one of you are drafting Project 2029? The plan to dismantle the Department of Education happened when I took office. They had 4 years to write it. We're down to 3 years. What do we expect when the dust settles and the storm has moved? Are we gonna go back to status quo, or are we gonna double down and say, now we expect all children to have exposure to curriculum that, introduces them to different cultures? Like Ruth Sims Bishop talked about, you know, windows, doors, sliding doors, and, and, mirrors, right? The curriculum should be a window into other cultures, a mirror so you can see yourself, see yourself in the literature, and a sliding glass door where you get to experience other cultures.

That should be the expectation everywhere, right? As Dr. Brooks-DeCosta said, Black history is not just for Black students. That's American history, right? So… I'm seeing some promise, I'm gonna be honest with you, but I wanna see more.

I think our coalitions need to be stronger, and then not just talk about it, be about it. Start writing the plan. And can you imagine if a group of folks like us maybe led by the students at Columbia, I don't know, I'm just saying, I'm just throwing it out there. Put together a draft of what we want to see multilingualism look like, what we want to see ethnic studies look like, what we want to see, you know, history. And then, when the transition committee for the next administration comes up, there's an alliance of people saying, hey, it's not perfect, but this is your starting point. This is what we want to see.

Who better than the people who are listening and who are presenting today? Who better than the educators in our classrooms who are holding the fort down despite the rhetoric that we're hearing? So, I'm seeing some promise, but honestly, I think we need to double down and really start forming alliances where we're part of something bigger than our current groups.

Sonya Douglass: Thank you, Dr. Cardona. Such an important call to action, and continuing the work, the important work that we're doing as educators. We have a few questions in the chat, and we encourage folks to continue to send their inquiries. I wanted to lift up one from Dr. Joyce King And, this is… so she's… she's… she's naming this kind of approach to or a multicultural approach, if you will, to diversifying curriculum, but kind of contrasting that with the pedagogical mission of Black Studies, which has a very critical component. And I'm wondering, maybe you, Dr. Brooks-DeCosta, can speak to that, in terms of criticality, given everything that we're confronted with in this moment, and again, trying to distill what the truth is and how we teach the truth. So can you speak to that and how the curriculum takes that up?

Dawn Brooks-DeCosta: Yeah, so this is a really important question, and I'm just excited about what I'm hearing today. You know, educators, we are, to Dr. Cardona's point, we're on the front lines, right? We're in front of children every day.

We are experiencing all kinds of things right now, post-pandemic. The divisiveness, of course, in a political context, but also a mental health crisis that we're seeing across our schools. We're, you know, trying to teach, trying to do so much, and I think that, the idea of criticality is so important, because that is a gift to be able to give our students, especially, like I was saying before, when you think about a society with revisionist history and misinformation. When you are able to think critically and investigate these topics with criticality, you are less likely to believe when you hear something that is not true.

And so this is a gift for our students. They are being bombarded with misinformation. What I'll also say is that education is the tool to either expand humanity or narrow it. And I think that there is a goal to narrow, what our students know to narrow mindsets, and it is our job as educators to fight that, right? We're on the front lines. I think that even though we're in New York City and we have the permission to do this work and engage in this curriculum.

There is also some self-censoring that happens even with us. Even in a community like Harlem, it is not as easy as you might think to get everyone to teach Black studies, even when they have a curriculum to follow. Because we have mindsets ourselves that impact how we show up in the classroom, how we teach, and how we lead.

But I do think that, this curriculum and having the scholarship behind it, and being safe enough to have the information, the resources there in front of us. Again, we're learning with the students, because this is not… Black Studies is not a part of pre-service teaching, preparation, and so we have to teach teachers how to do this work so that they don't cause additional harm. But it's important, and I think that it impacts every part of learning, not just Black studies, right? So that idea of thinking critically lends itself to every topic, every subject area that they may learn, right? To be able to investigate and question things that are happening in society, and just the last thing I'll say about that is just that this work needs to happen in collaboration with community.

And I think the opposition's message, is getting through because it's very straightforward. Be afraid of this, right? Because this is going to take something away from you to learn about others. Be afraid. And I think that we, as educators and even as researchers, need to be clearer about what this is.

What it's not, Dr. Caraballo talked about that, what it is and what it's not, right? So that people don't need to be afraid of students expanding and belonging, and not performative inclusion, but actual inclusion, inclusion into the curriculum that we're teaching students every day.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: So, I think that we have another really great follow-up question, I think, to, Dr. Brooks-DeCosta's response here, and much of what you're capturing here. And I would say, just, yeah, what advice do you have for educators who are doing this good work?

Or those who want to do it and are considering a career in education, but are under attack from community members or parents and caregivers. How do we support teachers during this moment? Also, how do we reach pre-service teachers to tell them, knowledge is not neutral?

Again, this comes back to your point, Dr. Brooks-DeCosta, that not all teachers are on board.

Dawn Brooks-DeCosta: Yeah, I would say, so first of all, I always believe that leadership matters. And the leader of those schools, set the tone for the schools. And we work in collaboration and in support and advocacy as a school leader. So I think that teachers should make sure that they work in a school that aligns with their philosophy.

Also, I think that doing your own research, and learning, and being open to learn, and also investigating your own beliefs about the students that are in front of you, and investigating what you believe about the community that you serve and whether you value it, whether you see it from an asset-based lens. Certainly in Harlem, we see Black studies as asset-based. Like, we're in love with Harlem, so we love everything about it. But I know that there are some places where the teacher maybe does not feel a kinship to the students that they serve, or the community.

Learn the community. Lift up the community, right? Know where you're working, know why you're working there. And, you know, just investigate the students' lived experiences. And that should be incorporated in everything you do, not just Black studies. The students should see themselves in math, they should see themselves in ELA, they should see themselves when they walk down the hallways, they should see beautiful images that look like them. They should learn about leaders that look like them. But I think we need to do our own work, do our internal work to examine our own beliefs, when we go into places where we may not be as connected to the community. Learn with the students. And I think we're on the front lines, and so we just have to work in community. We cannot do this work in isolation.

And when we don't value the voice of families, this is where you get the fear. Because you're telling me what you think is best for my child. And they need to be at the table, making decisions with us, along with student voice, student agency, right? They need to… they're the ones… they're receivers, right? They shouldn't just be receivers, they should be active participants. So do this work in community and collaboration with others.

Limarys Caraballo: Yeah, I… I think so many of the points, that you've just raised, Dr. Brooks-DeCosta, are…are so, are key in all of this kind of, curriculum work, that we are, that we're doing, collaboratively. Certainly in the Black Studies curriculum, it's evident, and it's been part, it's been at the core of the Latinidad curriculum. It's really important in response to several of the questions that have come in from people asking, what can we do to support pre-service teachers to help teachers who are doing the work, that, is really, sort of, supporting and keeping us kind of going through, these difficult times, even as we're waiting for some of these materials to be ready, but they're doing the work on their own, trying to put things together. How do we keep the motivation, and the support going to sustain them?

So I just really wanted to add, for those of us who are teacher educators, that even while all of these initiatives are underway to continue to develop, important curriculum resources, these initiatives that we are engaging in right now, and the ones that we're building on have been in process and that we have grown from and been able to benefit from, there is this ongoing imperative in teacher education to really think about how we question and interrogate and think about our own assumptions. And you referred to this, as well, Dr. Brooks-DeCosta, in thinking about, you know, how do we think about our own knowledge, and how do we think about our own perceptions and our own perspectives? Sometimes that gets a bit lost, right? And when we were thinking, when you were talking about, Dr. Cardona, about our coalitions and our coalitional work within our own groups, I think that's really at the core.

It's gonna take a while for us to be really consistently, committed to questioning where knowledge comes from and whose interests are served. Like, if we really consistently put that at the core of our teaching, for a long time, we're gonna see it… we're gonna see it trickle all the way up from critical education in elementary school all the way through to higher ed, but it's going to take a really long time. And so I think we're going to need to see it now in elementary, in secondary, in higher ed, and in teacher ed. Because sometimes in teacher education programs, we don't really do this work with teachers - present a curriculum, and then teachers go into the classroom, and we don't really support this work of disrupting knowledge, even in the teacher education program. So, I think we need to do it at every level. Like, as teachers, we need to think about our own assumptions. How do we engage with issues when we are in the classroom and we don't know what the curriculum would say, we don't know how to respond to this situation.

We need to disrupt our own assumptions and use every single moment as an inflection point, right? And I think that would really help teachers handle the complexity of the moment, because there's gonna be issues where they don't know the answer, and where we don't know if they're gonna have support. They're gonna have to face a parent and that they're not going to know how to answer. And those kinds of things, we can't protect them from at every moment.

So I think teacher education programs can help, by addressing this complexity, from the beginning, and we can sort of infuse this idea of multiple ways of knowing all the way through to help build those coalitions across groups where we're not so comfortable and separate the idea of an ideological coalition from, coalitions across pragmatically, counteracting the effect of a political movement that's trying to take away our rights to do the curriculum work that we need to serve our students better, right?

And that's different from trying to only learn, you know, what works best for this particular political movement, right? There's a difference between teaching material that presents one ideological idea versus teaching material that presents all of the different ideological points, puts them in comparison to each other, and then asks a person to think, you know, whose interests are served in each one, and what's your opinion, right? That's a different thing, and we have to ` be able to trust that our students can make those decisions for themselves, right? Have… put all of the information in front for them and trust that they can make their own… they can make up their own mind, right? And we are faced with a political situation where our critics often don't want our students to be in that situation, they don't want students to have all of the information in front of them, necessarily, right? And make up their own minds.

So we have these different ideological, oppositional points that are creating a very difficult situation for us to have policy, to create curriculum, and to make pedagogical decisions, and it's all getting blended together, right? So I think teachers really need help parsing all of that out, and making their own curriculum decisions.

Miguel Cardona: Yeah, I would, also want to…remind folks that universities are getting hammered, too. I mean, I don't have to tell Columbia. And, you know, these teachers' colleges across the country are…they're sterilizing their curriculum because they're afraid they're gonna lose funding. And, you know, deans will be replaced.

So the teacher preparation programs are dealing with just as much, pressure to acquiesce what they know is right, you know, so…I'm gonna take the response to this from a different approach. You know, what do we say to teachers? What do we say to pre-service teachers? Give yourself grace.

This is a tough time to get into the profession, man, you know, this is hard. You know, this is civil rights work, right? So…Don't beat yourself up. You're already going into a profession that is being targeted by the federal government. You're already going into a profession that's 20… gets paid 24% less than other professions with similar degrees. You're doing this because you want to serve students, right? And…you know, if you're not putting on your oxygen mask before you put it on for others, you're not gonna last long.

So I think my message is more basic. It's more…you know, you know what you signed up for. This is the best time to get into teaching, because they need you now more than ever. But just remember how, you gotta be here for the long haul, and you gotta take care of yourself, you gotta take care of your colleagues, you gotta create a sense of community to support one another, because some days are gonna be tough, you know? Some days you're coming in thinking you're gonna do the best lesson. And you're getting hammered because there were things that were said that people don't agree with. And there's a culture now of second-guessing everything that's happening in the classroom.

So my message to the teachers is to give yourself grace. And recognize that success is nonlinear. You know, you're gonna have setbacks. You're gonna learn and grow, and that's all part of the process. So give yourself grace, and then give grace to others. This is a topic that I talk about a lot, you know, it's easy for me to Monday morning quarterback. I asked this question once, and I'll say it here because, you know, I didn't talk to anyone at Columbia, but I was…I was at, I think it was Yale University, speaking to students at Yale, and said, you know, but this is about a year and a half ago, who did it right? Columbia or Harvard, when standing up to the… to the federal government, you know?

And you never want to ask Ivy League schools to pick another Ivy League school as the ones that did it right, so I was just kind of messing with them. But then the next question that I had was, raise your hand if you were ever the president of Harvard or Columbia.

It's easy to judge from a different perspective. And I tell you this respectfully and humbly, because I knew there were times where I was challenging the White House, because I wanted to go further. And I couldn't: Or there were times where I felt like it was going in a direction, and, you know, everyone, their job is to be in that position to stay there, and there are times where you have to really go push, you know, get into that good trouble, as Congressman Lewis talked about, and challenge and manage up.

But there's also the situation where sometimes people are just like, I need to hold it together, because I want to be here tomorrow for these students, because I could be replaced by someone that doesn't care about my students. So my message is give yourself grace, Give grace to others.Continue to learn about how you can do better, and how you make this something that's positive. You know, the ability to embrace different cultures and celebrate what makes this the best country, regardless of what's happening at the top right now.

You know what I mean? A country where an ELL, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged kid could go on to advise the President of the United States, that's… this is America. And they, too, had that opportunity, and there's more that unites us than separates us. So, what I would say is give yourself grace, give grace to others, make this a joyful journey while fighting the civil rights fight of this generation, the fight, in my opinion, fight for public education.

So…You know, that's my message, is, yeah, we could burn, man, we could be a kamikaze tomorrow and die with our cause or be replaced. But just, you know, be here for the long haul. Our students need us, not only today, when things are really bad, but this storm will pass.

And why do I come from that frame?

Because about 6 years ago today, I didn't want to be the Commissioner of Education in Connecticut. I was like, I gotta reopen schools, we don't have vaccines, we don't have tests, I'm gonna have blood on my hands. I didn't want to do it.

My wife said, have faith. Entrust the people around you. And, you know, I stuck with it. And it was the biggest blood… I needed to go through that storm to get through to the other side, because when I became secretary, I was prepared by that storm.

You see what I'm saying? So, to the people that are going in the storm right now, the storm will pass, and you're gonna be needed after the storm. So take care of yourself, take care of your community, learn about yourself, and remember that you're gonna be needed for the long haul.

Sonya Douglass: Dr. Cardona, thank you so much for just sharing that personal leadership reflection. I think it probably resonates with so many educational leaders across the country, and one of the things that us in higher education, researchers, faculty, and graduate students, people, students who are actively pursuing dissertation studies, what would you tell them, this goes to the entire panel, about how they could contribute to a 2029 vision? As reference for education, and what structures are being built to bring them into the work. So how are we planning and building for the future?

Who would like to take that?

Dawn Brooks-DeCosta: So, just really quick, I've always felt like there's a disconnect between practitioners and researchers, and it's such a missed opportunity for us to collaborate. I think that, you know, very honestly, there's been a deficit mindset coming from researchers about what we do every day. So again, we're on the front lines, we're in front of students, we're in front of parents on good days and bad days, and it can be demoralizing to only hear about what we're not doing. And so that's what I hear a lot of times coming from academia. We want to hear what's working well. And just to Dr. Cardona's point, this is joyful work.

Doing this work is not only about oppression. And even when it is about oppression, it's a story of resilience and joy. And so I think we need to see it in a joyful way. But I do think that researchers and those that are writing find out where this is working and uplift that.

Uplift that. That's what we get inspired by as educators, is seeing where things work. Seeing districts where it works. How did they implement it? What did they do? How did the students feel about it? How do the parents feel about it? How about teachers? Those are the stories that inspire more to do that work.

Miguel Cardona: Yeah, yeah, thank you. I often ask folks when I'm in different rooms, I'm like, okay, what happened on January 20th, 2021. And people are like, hmm, you know, they're like…Oh, that was the inauguration of President Biden.

I said, yeah, what else happened? That was when the first draft of Project 2025 was being written. They had 4 years, right? And I say that to folks, and I'm like, you know, what's your contribution?

Yo, scholars, you're the experts in… whatever. What is your contribution of what health… mental health supports looks like? Moving forward, when we get a chance to not rebuild, but reimagine what the federal role is, right?

So, and when I say that at different places, people, you know, I'll get an email, or I'll get somebody reach out to me, like, okay, I'm interested in writing, where do I start to write 20? And I'm like, it's not like I'm, you know what I mean? But I mean, I guess if folks are here, you know, thinking about what is their niche, what is their area of expertise.

And to the researchers, as was mentioned before, you know, the biggest conundrum for my almost 30 years in education is the gap between research and practice. So, let's close that. And what are the best practices around mental health supports. We know children are 6 times more likely to get it within a schoolhouse than outside of the schoolhouse, right?

So, how are we framing what we do moving forward, right? Multilingual education, there's… I call it an economic superpower, because you're more likely to get careers in a globally competitive market, right? But why is… the majority of our schools in this country are monolingual. So, what does that look like, researchers, if it were to be ideal. And then how do you build those coalitions, as I talked about before, you know, across… interdependent with different disciplines to say, you know what? This… these are some priorities that the next, leadership, whether it's, you know, Governor Hochul or at the federal level, these are the… what we know is best for children. Where is that on your agenda? Or as people are thinking about running who's, who, you know, student agency, we talk about student agency a lot. Who's advocating at the early onset to say, you know what, no, I want a system that is multilingual for all. Or I want a system where all students have access to, mental health, or meals. Let's go basic, meals. You know what I'm saying? So…for me, Researchers have a really important role.

Because, you know, you've done the research, you have the reviews, you have the meta-analysis of what works. How are you having that influence what the advocacy looks like, so that when there's a new administration being transitioned in, there's a playbook of what they should be thinking about, or at least a starting point. And quite frankly, I think some of those researchers and practitioners who are contributing to Project 2029 should be at the table, if not being the leader, being part of the team that's ushering in that leader. Who better than the people on this call? Who better than the audience to say, we're done, we're gonna take a more active role? That's… that's how I would respond to that.

Sonya Douglass: And if I can, just quickly, I want to kind of echo Don's sentiment, Dr. Brooks de Costa's sentiment, in that I do think there are some things working in the research community, one of which is our Urban Education Leaders program, and that's a doctoral program, where we have students who work as practitioners who are conducting research, and I think, again, it's a nice example of how you can bridge that, and we can do this work in solidarity.

Limarys Caraballo: Yeah, I think… I think that these, these ideas and these partnerships that we're… we're working in solidarity are really, really important. I mean, I appreciate, Dr. Cardona's message about grace, and about thinking about the things that… that keep us coming to work every day, and that bring us joy, and how that's so important in getting through difficult times. I've been talking with my daughter and with my son, particularly about an interview I watched with, Dolores Huerta in Jimmy Kimmel, that was so inspiring. Just thinking about how someone who has been in activism throughout for so many decades, and who finds inspiration, and who finds energy and is able to be… remain optimistic, even when it's so difficult, and right? And if somebody like that can be such a light, then, of course, we can do it too, right?

So I think that for thinking about vision, if we focus on grace, and if we focus on the things that motivate us and that keep us going, we can also have that guide us when we think about the questions to focus on, and the projects that we can work on together. So those kinds of scholarship and practice, collaborations, I think, can guide the research. I think they are interdisciplinary, they are grounded in things that matter to multiple groups. They tend to be focused on things that really matter to young people and that matter to communities, so projects that are intergenerational, projects that are collaborative, they help to de-center this idea of who's expert and who can, again, whose knowledge matters and whose knowledge counts, it helps to get a sense of whose interests are going to be served in an initiative. So these are all things that are because they're participatory and collaborative, they help keep us centered, they help to manage the idea of who's in charge, and they help to keep the focus on things that will also help multiple groups.

So I think it helps the coalition building, which I think is really, really important in not only being, having more grace, and having broader coalitions, but in also helping us, be more vision-driven in ways that help us, create, a future that is centered in the needs of our students, rather than on a particular agenda, right? Which is always going to be contested. And if we expect that, I think that we're more likely to have the energy and, the…and be sustainable, sort of as teachers, as activists, as leaders in the work that we've chosen, which is so important that we want to continue doing it.

Ezekiel Dixon-Roman: So, we are approaching time here, and I just want to say, this is such an energetic, such a rich conversation. I mean, we could keep on going the rest of the afternoon and try to resolve and address all of the issues, but also exciting things that are happening in education across the country, and I have to say, here, right here in New York City.

But listen, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brooks-DeCosta. Thank you, Dr. Caraballo. Thank you, Dr. Cardona, for each of your rich, important, and significant contributions here. I know our audience members are taking a lot from this. The Q&A was pretty, pretty live, and there's so many questions that are, I'm sure, that are still out there that we just, obviously are not able to get to. But, thank you all, and I'm gonna, pass the mic over to my colleague, Sonya Douglass.

Sonya Douglass: Thank you, yeah, I just want to thank all of you for a wonderful conversation, and for you, just engaging and sharing some of your personal experiences, along with your professional work, on how you are helping us teach the truth, and to speak the truth to power. And we hope that everyone will join us for the next discussion, of the Politics of Possibility webinar series focused on coalition building and educational advocacy for the social good.