School System Responses to Racial Injustice. Technical Report

Over the past two years, there have been calls for racial justice in nearly every sphere of social and political life, including the field of education. As much of the nation reeled at yet another life violently taken at the hands of a police officer, education workers faced the challenge of responding to local and national demands for policy change at the school and district levels in order to better meet the academic, social emotional, and other personal needs of racially minoritized students. In this report, the researchers share data from our 2020-21 study of how schools in eight districts across the United States responded to racial injustice, as well as parents' satisfaction with these responses. Specifically, they ask: (1) How did school systems in different sectors (i.e. traditional versus charter) respond to heightened attention to racial injustice?; (2) How did these different organizational contexts or other conditions shape response?; and (3) How did parents experience this year of racial reckoning and system responses? [For "A Year That Forced Change: Examining How Schools and School Systems Adapted to the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Calls for Racial Justice in 2020. Policy Brief," see ED629490.]