Race-Conscious Approaches to Closing the

Achievement Gap in Schools

Since 2001 more than 2,500 people have been trained in antiracist community building sites initiated by Institute for Democratic Renewal • Project Change (IDR•PC) to address a variety of race-based inequities. By the end of 2006, IDR•PC had raised and distributed more than $850,000 to Network partners, past and present.

This Educational Equity Network includes three year-round programs: JUST COMMUNITIES’ Institute for Equity in Education in Santa Barbara, CA, and The California Conference for Equality and Justice's Equity in Education Institute in Long Beach, CA, and San Diego.

Because the impact of our work is amplified when local partners are pursuing the same issue at the same time, the Network has recently decided to focus now and in the future on a single great challenge, the intersection of institutionalized racism and educational equity. Our aim is to tackle the race-related   decline in educational achievement of children and youth of color, which is exacerbated by the national assault on affirmative action and other race-conscious efforts to narrow the educational achievement gap. Our experience demonstrates that confronting institutional and structural racism in the schools with race-conscious and race-sensitive approaches is the primary way to ameliorate inequities and narrow the educational achievement gap.

IDR•PC is increasingly approached for technical assistance by still other projects seeking to capitalize on years of experience that IDR•PC represents, can broker, and provide.

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