Growing and Sustaining White Racial Justice Allyship in Education

For AACTE’s first webinar produced for a “White Racial Justice” informal affinity group in our Combating Racism in Ed Prep series, an esteemed panel of experts who have dedicated their careers to the pursuit of equity in education will join us. Through their diverse background of experiences, the panel will introduce language, frameworks, resources, and strategies for the audience to use in their learning and reflection to be anti-racist educators and learn discussion and advocacy techniques to use in their professional and personal lives. This is an opportunity for anyone who considers themself an educator or education advocate to learn more about and/or re-energize and re-frame the conversation on creating equitable educator preparation programs that prepare teachers to enter our country’s schools armed with not just an understanding of how we got here, but also with strategies to be advocates for themselves and their students who may have less institutional agency.

Resources:

• Presentation Slides
• Toolkit for Local Advocates
• Promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Dr. Mary Earick
Dr. Earick’s scholarship, teaching, and service have focused on activist pedagogies and critical studies of Whiteness to support culturally sustaining learners, leaders and activists. She is Dean of the School of Education at New Mexico Highlands University. Previously Dr. Earick was Plymouth State University’s Holmes Center for School Partnership and Educator Preparation where she has developed a Problems of Practice Professional Development School model of teacher preparation. Dr. Earick is the author of three books: (1) Multiage Competency-based Education: No Grades, No Grades (forthcoming) (2) Political Literacy: Reading and Writing for Social Justice with K-8 Youth (forthcoming) and (3) Racially Equitable Teaching: Beyond the Whiteness of Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators. She holds degrees in Early Childhood Education, Urban Elementary Education and a Ph.D. in Language Literacy and Socio-Cultural Studies. Dr. Earick’s current research focuses on undergraduate retention in the geosciences (NSF), root causes of educational inequities (Nellie Mae) and the role of in-group messaging in student school success (PSU). Prior to becoming a professor, she was public-school teacher for 16 years where her teaching was featured in the documentary and book, Starting Small: Teaching Tolerance in the Early Years, produced by Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Dr. Kate Kedley
Dr. Kedley joined Rowan University in 2017 and is an assistant professor in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Education. Kate received a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa (Language, Literacy, and Culture), and M.A. from Northern Arizona University (English), and a B.A. from the University of Northern Iowa (English Education). Kate also holds graduate certificates in Professional Writing and in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Kedley is a former secondary English Language Arts and Drivers Education teacher in Iowa, Arizona, and the Central American country of Honduras. At Rowan, Kate teaches in the pre-service teacher program.

Dr. Kedley’s research centers around critical literacy and education, public engagement, LGBTQ and young adult literature, language education, and social and educational movements in Honduras. Kate has published work in various journals such as the English Journal, Sex Education, the eJournal of Public Affairs.

Victoria Kirby-York
Victoria Kirby York is the Deputy Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition. In this capacity she is responsible for managing the operational policies and efficiencies of the organization, strengthening the organization’s grassroots constituency engagement efforts, and leading the advocacy and action agenda.

Mrs. Kirby York most recently served as the Deputy Director for the Advocacy & Action Department at the National LGBTQ+ Task Force where she managed the policy, organizing, and faith team to queer (do differently) advocacy around faith, equity, and democracy. She has been organizing in a variety of capacities over 20 years regarding a number of progressive issues and candidates at the federal, state, and local level. She served as the Florida Director for Organizing for Action (OFA), the non-profit formed from the President’s electoral campaigns to support President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda. She has also worked in senior-level roles in gubernatorial and presidential campaigns in Florida, for US Congresswoman Kathy Castor, youth education nonprofits, and in the private sector.