I became familiar with EdTrust—West earlier in my career, and I remember coming across reports from the organization that were notably more accessible and action-oriented than many of the other policy reports I’d read. Much of my graduate training and experience was in qualitative research, and while EdTrust—West’s work pulled in qualitative work as well, the value for me was that it helped make quantitative data and research accessible and actionable. I’ve always found it important to make sure this work doesn’t just sit on a shelf – that it can be picked up and used right away to help make students’ experiences better. So I also appreciated how EdTrust—West focused on engaging in systems change work directly with practitioners across the state. In my previous role, I got to expand that practitioner-focused work, starting the organization’s first formal advisory board of educators – the Educator Advisory Council.

I’ve also found that even in the education equity sector, conversations and policy work can still lack an explicit focus on racial equity. The way EdTrust—West recognizes and reaffirms the need for race-specific equity work is a big part of what I find most fulfilling personally and professionally here.

Question: How did your own experience in school and college in Southern California shape your understanding of our education systems and the equity issues in them?

I always loved school, I lived in Baldwin Hills – at the bottom of the hill – and went to my neighborhood school up to 2nd grade and I remember thriving. Around that time I learned the power of social capital, even if I didn’t have the terminology for the concept yet. A neighbor in our apartment building told my mom about a neighboring – and so-called “better” – school district, Culver City, where she should enroll us. Going to this new school I felt different for the first time. I quickly learned that there were socioeconomic differences between what my school mates had access to and what I had access to. This new school had a language immersion program where multilingualism was embraced and celebrated. We were pushed, sometimes it felt excessively, to achieve academically. Somehow this new school was “better” even if it didn’t always feel that way as a student. In fifth grade my family moved to Southeast LA and I was enrolled in the nearby neighborhood elementary school. I remember somehow knowing I was ahead of my peers, mostly in English Language Arts as some of the books that were assigned I had already read in my other school the previous year. My parents decided to send my sisters and me back to Culver City schools once we entered middle school and through high school. There we had access to many electives, extracurriculars, AP courses, sports, and technology opportunities, along with teachers and counselors who supported my academic success. At this school going to college was expected, college visits were organized, and we had access to college counselors and admissions officers.

After high school, I attended Long Beach State, which helped shape my identity as an educator and vision for educational justice. Long Beach State is where I acquired the language to be able to articulate the inequities I would witness as a high school English teacher in one of the largest school districts in the nation. And it’s where I learned to advocate in community with my students and fight alongside them for a more humanizing educational experience. When I became a teacher in LAUSD, it became blatantly clear that I had a very different K-12 experience than my students in Southeast LA. AP classes were sparse, teachers didn’t really talk with students about going to college. The infrastructure to support students’ academic success was lacking. There were teachers who were supportive, but most spoke about students in deficit ways. The combination of my own school and college experiences – some incredibly beneficial and supportive, others alienating and disheartening – plus being a teacher myself, allowed me to see beyond the surface of things, and to understand educational equity issues and disparities in a very tangible, and often infuriating way. And I’ve also been able to see how much we can achieve and how much we can improve the experiences – not just of students in K-12 schools, but also for college students and particularly for students in educator preparation programs.

Question: The disparities we see in educational outcomes are so tied to deeply rooted, longstanding patterns of inequality, racism, and classism. Unwinding those roots and reversing those patterns will take time – but shouldn’t take forever. What do you see as some of the most promising opportunities to positively impact students at early learning centers, in schools, and on college campuses in Southern California today/right away?

I think even within the immediate opportunities we have, we can’t lose sight of the need to unwind the ways long-rooted inequities exist in our policies and practices. Investments in California State Preschool Program and Transition Kindergarten, for example, are promising efforts and show that the state is prioritizing providing families the early learning and care services they need. But even as we applaud and implement these investments, we can’t lose sight of the need to address inequities in the early learning and care workforce so that the predominantly women of color workforce is supported and paid what they deserve.