Opens a window into stories of school transformation. Using the bestselling book Street Data as a frame for discussion, these inspiring hosts crack the world of education and data wide open. Through compelling interviews with thought leaders, administrators, students, and teachers, we hear how education can be transformed as we move beyond our fixation on big data as the supreme measure of equity and learning and toward data that is humanizing, liberatory, and healing.
Listen on:
Thursday Nov 03, 2022
Thursday Nov 03, 2022
In an emotional Episode 6, Alcine and Shane get real with author and educator Young Whan Choi, witnessing his personal story of marginalization in school and how it took another Asian man–during college orientation–to help him see himself for the first time in American history. Together, they explore ways of being and leading in education that truly center students. Young Whan implores us to “marginalize” standardized testing, or at least push it to the periphery, as he offers a vision of authentic, community-based, performance assessments that demonstrate what students know and are able to do. He exposes the irony that, while many new leaders evoke the principle of being “student-centered”, students themselves are often painfully absent from professional learning agendas, except perhaps as an aggregated data point. And finally, Young Whan helps us rethink where knowledge lives and where power exists within the system.
For Further Learning
Get a copy of Street Data on Amazon, Corwin Press, or from a BIPOC-owned local bookstore.
Get a copy of Young Whan’s book, Sparks Into Fire: Revitalizing Teacher Practice Through Collective Learning at Teachers’ College Press.
Read Shane’s recent Ed Week article on standardized testing.
Watch Awo Okaikor Aryee-Price, Wayne Au, Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian discuss the racist history of standardized testing and its impacts today in The Racist History of Standardized Testing
Thursday Oct 27, 2022
Thursday Oct 27, 2022
In Episode 5, Alcine and Shane talk to rural Kentucky district leader Melissa Biggerstaff. They hear her story about growing up in a district where your zip code and last name determined your opportunities. Lean in to hear about a conversation with a high school counselor that Melissa will never forget and that continues to fuel her moral imperative to this day. Finally, Melissa unpacks what it means to show up fully as a leader–to learn from and really listen to community members–and why we need to meet people where they are- especially physically- if we want to create radically inclusive institutions.
For Further Learning:
Get a copy of Street Data on Amazon, Corwin Press, or from a BIPOC-owned local bookstore.
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
In Episode 4, co-author Jamila Dugan is back and giving us the inside scope on equity traps and tropes. First, we dig into how this chapter came to be (spoiler alert: from a rant!) and the conversation shifts to the luminous landscape of radical dreaming, exploring, in Jamila’s words: “What does it actively mean to freedom dream and who am I dreaming with?” Shane, Jamila, and Alcine think about how to live a life of big dreams and abundance, and the ways that hustle and grind culture often dims our dreams. Jamila shares some brilliant tips, like reverse calendaring and–drum roll–taking the email app off your phone!
For Further Learning:
Get a copy of Street Data on Amazon, Corwin Press, or from a BIPOC-owned local bookstore.
Read Jamila's recent EL Magazine article on Radical Dreaming here.
Work with the Equity Traps and Tropes Inquiry Tool Jamila mentions.
Check out Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by Robin D.G. Kelley.
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
In this episode, Shane and Alcine get to talk with co-author Jamila Dugan and Denise Augustine, whose work leading Indigenous education in British Columbia (BC) forms the central storyline of Chapter 1. Together, they explore what folx believe we should be teaching and measure, other epistemologies (ways of knowing and being), and ways to heal and transform our schools in challenging times. Listen to Denise’s story of how her mom supported her to find her voice with a teacher when a science assignment pushed against Denise’s cultural values. Hear Jamila reflect on what it means to start owning her experience growing up in East Oakland and being shaped by “grittiness, real talk, hip hop, and hustle”. You’ll also learn about Truth and Reconciliation in BC, Jamila’s core beliefs around teaching and learning, and the educational experiences that have shaped these two incredible leaders. If you didn’t believe it before, you’ll walk away internalizing the idea that there are many “right” answers, many right ways, and many right paths along the journey to school transformation.
For Further Learning:
BC Competency-Based Curriculum
BC First Peoples' Principles of Learning
Teaching Each Other, Goulet and Goulet (referenced by Denise)
Wayi Wah! Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-racist Education, Jo Chrona (referenced by Denise)
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Join hosts Shane Safir and Alcine Mumby as they dig deep with Dr. Christopher Emdin around how to be a good ancestor, biomimicry as a guide to school transformation, burning the pedagogical sage, and so much more. This episode will change you. A must-listen for all new administrators and teachers finding their way in complex times.
For Further Learning:
Order Chris’s book Rathedemic at http://www.beacon.org/Ratchetdemic-P1703.aspx
Read Chris’s foreword in Street Data to make connections to the pod conversation
Order adrienne marie brown’s Emergent Strategy at https://www.akpress.org/emergentstrategy.html
Education can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead of the focus being on "fixing" and "filling" academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up—with classrooms, schools and systems built around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberatory and healing.
If you want to learn more about Street Data and get your hands on a copy of the book, visit Amazon, Corwin Press, or better yet, a local independent or Black-owned bookstore. If you like the show, subscribe and give us a 5 star review!
is a writer, coach, and facilitator who brings her expertise from nearly 25 years in public education – and her perspective as a white mom of multiracial children. Co-host Alcine Mumby draws upon her lived experience as a Black single woman and her 25 years as a national leader in redesigning assessment to center student-led demonstrations of learning. Together, they model new ways of being in conversation around challenging issues of race and equity.
is a dedicated educator who has spent that last 25 years teaching and leading traditional and charter public K-12 schools all over the country. She currently supports and coaches district and school leaders to develop high-quality performance assessment systems that center student-led demonstrations of learning and metacognition. Prior to coaching Alcine taught Humanities at one of the first small schools in the Bronx where project-based learning and portfolio defenses served as the foundation of instruction. Afterward Alcine became a founding principal of Envision Academy in Oakland an administrator in several small middle and high schools in Atlanta and DC and a leadership coach in DC Charlotte & Philadelphia.
Street Data is executive produced and hosted by Shane Safir and Alcine Mumby, and sponsored by Corwin Press. The senior producer is Maya Cueva.