Exercising Creative Courage: A Conversation with LaShawn Chatmon

After the murder of George Floyd last summer, America took another step forward in its long overdue reckoning on racial inequality. The impacts of that moment have been far reaching, starting with a reignited conversation about police brutality and then moving toward everything from diversity in the workplace to the education system. One year later, what’s changed?

That’s what Raikes Foundation Executive Director Dennis Quirin set out to learn in his conversation with LaShawn Chatmon, executive director of the National Equity Project and longtime partner of the foundation. LaShawn’s deep expertise in education and systems-change work give her a vantage point on America’s ever-evolving understanding of race that few have. As leader of the National Equity Project, she’s helped school districts, government agencies, nonprofits, and foundations reimagine themselves in service of a more just future for children and their families. Dennis and LaShawn’s conversation, lightly edited for clarity, is below.

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Dennis Quirin: I wanted to start with this moment in time. We are at a big turning point in philanthropy. Movement work focused on anti-Black racism undeniably started to grow after 2014 and Ferguson, but last year was an incredible moment and experience where, because we were all sharing the experience of COVID as well as the protests following George Floyd’s murder, things felt like they were really moving. What do you see as the real challenges and opportunities at this moment?

LaShawn Chatmon: It would appear that we are in a watershed moment. The country is at a crossroad where we have a choice to make about who we are going to be. I think a year ago the very public execution of George Floyd removed plausible deniability of who we had become. We had seen video before, but there was something about the unapologetic, audacious nature of Mr. Floyd’s murder and the looping over and over again that we couldn’t look away from. That moment catalyzed many people to stop pretending that we didn’t see what we saw, and led to organized demand for justice and change — to not default back to normal. The shared but differential experiences of the pandemic also fostered a similar commitment to not unsee the unequal realities and outcomes we have normalized. There’s been a lot of conversation about not returning to normal. I think the challenge of this moment, particularly in education and with education philanthropy, will be about exercising creative courage to actually break through what have been long-standing, status quo approaches to change. Will we do what it takes to actually interrupt and address the structural inequities we saw unfold across so many of our systems?

I think George Floyd’s murder forced a collective witnessing of the inevitable outgrowth of racial inequity and systemic dehumanization of Black people, and then the pandemic offered us a lesson in how structures, i.e. housing, health, schools, employment work together to confer benefits to some and burden on others. One of the things that this moment is allowing is an opportunity for us to look more closely at structures and their disparate impacts and not just at our intent. I believe one of the challenges will be for philanthropy to not begin and end this work with awareness building and consciousness raising about race and racism — that is the pre-work not the full assignment.

At the National Equity Project, we believe that acknowledgement of all the historical antecedents that led to something like the murder of George Floyd being possible is important. But that’s really the first step. We support foundation colleagues to not be worn out by this first step. The consciousness raising, drawing connections, seeing the system and understanding historical contexts — how things got to be the way they are — work cannot be the first and the last step that people take. We have to use that awareness to begin to engage differently and to take a different set of actions.

It will be easy for philanthropy to get caught doubling down on things that feel like they’re going to be a quick fix. So, we would caution philanthropic partners to avoid the tendency to look like they are doing right, look like they are doing good and not actually being good. This is going to be a protracted struggle, there is not a straight line or reliable predictions that can be made about social change, and there’s a danger in folks letting their foot off the pedal, stopping or turning away when everyone stops shining the light on racial injustice. I worry about philanthropies’ real commitments to making long-term shifts in approach, strategy, and giving.

The late scholar and researcher Asa Hilliard used to say, “there are no pedagogical solutions to political problems.” We have an opportunity to reimagine and transform public education, if we are not just talking about reading programs and the science of learning and development — we’re not just talking about the latest innovations in practice. What we are trying to do is ensure the right of every child to experience meaningful, identity and culture-affirming learning environments in which they can learn, develop, thrive, and belong. That is a political endeavor, and it has been since the inception of public schooling.

Education philanthropy’s commitment to catalyzing changes in youth outcomes and experiences will require acknowledging and addressing the effects of racism and systemic inequity on the decisions we make and conditions we design for those young people from the classroom to the school boards. Transformation will also require leadership and courage from philanthropist to help grantees navigate political resistance and backlash when it comes. Progress will not be neatly or easily measured in one year or in two years. It will take a long-term commitment if we truly understand that we are trying to actually interrupt and transform 100 years of inequitable and exclusionary educational systems.

Dennis Quirin: We’ve been in the education framework for a while now where standards, teacher quality, measurement, and accountability took up the most oxygen. That seems to be shifting now. How do you see that from your vantage point?

LaShawn Chatmon: I don’t know if I’d argue that we have fully burst through the long-standing paradigms about how we measure or define success. We believe there is room to expand our understanding about the purpose and therefore the outcomes of a good education. That doesn’t mean all the traditional measures are unnecessary, but we are bearing witness right now to the fact that the traditional metrics — attendance, grades, standardized test scores, etc. — are woefully insufficient as measures of the healthy development, learning, and talent of young people in a diverse society.

What we need to commit to measuring is the extent to which we are creating good conditions for young people to learn, develop, and thrive, and not just continuing to hammer on the measurement about whether or not children can be persistent enough or have enough grit to somehow navigate their success in systems that were not designed for them to actually be successful in the first place. We do think there’s a lot of room there. I think part of this moment is an opportunity for us to truly commit to closing not the alleged achievement gap but closing the knowing-doing gap in education.

If we hold that what gets measured, gets done, then we should be busy building and using new measures for what we really believe all children need and deserve to thrive. Research shows tells us whether students experience conditions like teacher caring, meaningful work, affirmed cultural identity or classroom belonging lead to increased engagement and success. We have some very serious work to do because our current system is being driven by a narrow set of outcomes that have not prioritized the well-being of young people and school communities and as a result has left the system itself largely unexamined and unchecked.

Dennis Quirin: That makes me just think about the role of philanthropy. Philanthropy has an outsized amount of power and influence, as we know. Do you think our sector has learned to use that power in more productive ways?

LaShawn Chatmon: I feel like we’ve seen a more reflective stance from philanthropy, trying to take a pause, understand its own role in perpetuating inequity in the system, and a really strong desire to do something that is going to be of use, to do something meaningful and important in our work toward educational equity. That is promising.

But it will not be enough for education funders to give soft nods to current criticisms of overtly unjust and harmful policies, they must listen too, and commit to not perpetuating inequity under the guise of objectivity, standards, and measurement! It is time for philanthropy to really look around at what’s unfolding and literally ask themselves, “What is the joy, experience, safety, love, resource, confidence, critical independent thinking, and wellbeing I want for my child?” Then close their eyes and literally imagine that every child is actually deserving of that too! Period, full stop. No buts or excuses about how hard you worked on your job to get your kids in your neighborhood school. “No” to the idea that it is the fault of families who live in communities where schools have been perennially underperforming for “living there.” What if we seriously understood that this public good is under attack and divested in precisely because the overwhelming number of children languishing under its often joyless, mediocre, uncurious structures are Black, Indigenous, Brown, Filipino, and Southeast Asian people?

I have some empathy having supported several large funder organizations. They are highly visible so there is aversion to risks and politics, I get that. But this moment is calling for all of us to actually act with greater courage and humility — internally and in our public-facing roles. Nobody is expecting philanthropy to answer or solve this problem for us. They cannot and they shouldn’t be expected to do that. But they do have a role to play in partnership with communities in which they invest. You are actors, influencers, and catalyzers, use your outsized influence to increase our shared commitment to equitable education for everybody’s child.

Dennis Quirin: Do you see the education system as having a key role in driving civil society? After all, this is a system that everybody has a relationship with. What is the role of our education system and what could be the role of our education system in strengthening our sense of common cause and in strengthening civil society?

LaShawn Chatmon: There is a vital role our public education system can and must play in helping our young nation realize a more just, meaningful, inclusive, free democracy. And the simple truth is we need each other, and we need to be in respectful relationships to one another across all forms of difference and in a different relationship to the planet if we are going to survive. But the education system will not be a conduit for collective well-being by accident. We must create and build with principled intention new designs and expanded outcomes for the next generation. We must be willing to listen to the stories and experiences of our young people. We must be willing to co-create and design with our communities, leveraging the research and knowledge about human learning and development. We must understand the historical roots of inequity and racism and purposefully abolish their harmful effects. We really, really cannot afford to keep going this way without questioning some of the fundamental values and principles that we have privileged in the current system. We’re going to have to wrestle with those outdated ideas or we’ll keep paying for it. This is not a moment for practicality, as James Baldwin said in a 1963 speech delivered to teachers, “we must be prepared to go for broke!”