In 2008, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) invited a team of researchers, including the authors, to study schools within the city, including elementary schools that were, like those profiled in High Schools for Equity, achieving strong educational outcomes with low-income students of color. The authors sought to identify schools in San Francisco that could be used as models for district and school leaders in achieving the district’s three goals: access and equity, achievement, and accountability. The research, conducted throughout the 2008-2009 school year, was guided by the following questions: • What practices, structures, and policies allow these schools to increase “academic productivity” and close achievement gaps? • What replicable characteristics do these schools share that could be used to promote a more equitable education in other schools?
Elementary Schools for Equity illustrates that creating a system that supports the learning of all students is not an impossibility, but it does take clarity of vision and purposeful, consistent action to create, systematically, a web of supportive elements that are mutually reinforcing.
