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Sonya Douglass

Teachers College, Columbia University, Organization and Leadership, Faculty Member

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Sonya Douglass is Professor and Director of the Black Education Research Collective (BERC) at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on the politics of race and inequality in education leadership, policy, and reform. She is author of The Politics of Education Policy: Possibilities for Democratic Schooling (with Janelle T. Scott and Gary L. Anderson) (Routledge, 2019) and Learning in a Burning House: Educational Inequality, Ideology, and (Dis)Integration (Teachers College Press, 2011).
Address: 525 W 120th St, New York, NY 10027

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Western Sydney University

University of Southampton

Syracuse University

Andrew W Wilkins

Goldsmiths, University of London

Nicholas D Hartlep

Berea College

Janelle T Scott

University of California, Berkeley

Stanford University

The University of Manchester

Patrick Blessinger

St. John's University

University of Trento

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Papers by Sonya Douglass

In Search of Black Teachers

Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers

Nevada English Language Learner's Summary

Parent and Family Engagement: The Missing Piece in Urban Education Reform

Parent and family engagement in the educational lives of children and youth positively influence ... more Parent and family engagement in the educational lives of children and youth positively influence student learning and achievement. While this connection may seem obvious, varying ideals of parent engagement limit the ways in which school communities understand, encourage, and benefit from meaningful school‐home‐community interactions. This is frequently the case in culturally diverse, urban communities where education reform has focused heavily on high‐stakes testing, teacher accountability, and school choice, but less on the fragile connections that often exist between schools and the families they serve. The purpose of this policy brief is to review selected research on parent involvement and expand existing understandings of parent and family engagement in ways that are culturally relevant and responsive to the diverse strengths and needs of families in urban communities. It concludes with specific recommendations for strengthening parent and family engagement.

A Nation (of Students) at Risk: The Political Rhetoric of Equity and Achievement in US Education Reform

Promoting Student Interaction in a Fully-Online Program: Toward New Rules of Classroom Engagement

The purpose of this presentation is to describe efforts to promote student interaction in a newly... more The purpose of this presentation is to describe efforts to promote student interaction in a newly-launched, fully-online graduate program in education leadership and student perspectives concerning such interactions in the online environment. In fall 2014, the Division of Education Leadership enrolled a cohort of 21 students in its first fully-online Master of Educational Administration (MEd) program, "a licensure program that prepares students to become school and district leaders and administrators." The program's introductory course, EDLE 620: Organizational Theory and Leadership Development, through the use of integrated multimedia technology, encouraged class and small group discussion, small group graded assignments, and a range of collaborative group activities designed to promote student interaction. Such engagement is particularly critical in this program, given the expectation that aspiring and practicing educational leaders can participate in, facilitate, an...

Badges of Inferiority

Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education, 2021

The Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative: A Community-Based Approach to Improving Educational Opportunity & Achievement

Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank the Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative community... more Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank the Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative community partners who participated in the original grant application process and attended numerous convenings and meetings without which this report would not be possible. Special thanks to the administration and staff of the Clark County School District and Southern Nevada Enterprise Community board for their leadership and support. Established in 2009, The Lincy Institute conducts and supports research that focuses on improving Nevada's health, education, and social services. This research is used to build capacity for service providers and enhance efforts to draw state and federal money to the greater Las Vegas community and highlight key issues affecting public policy and quality-of-life decisions on behalf of Nevada's children, seniors, and families.

School Resegregation in the Mississippi of the West: Community Counternarratives on the Return to Neighborhood Schools in Las Vegas, 1968–1994

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2013

Background School desegregation and resegregation in the Mountain West remain understudied despit... more Background School desegregation and resegregation in the Mountain West remain understudied despite the substantial impact the region's growth and demographic change have had on racial balance and diversity in schools. Home to the largest school district in the Mountain West and fifth largest school district in the country, Las Vegas's unprecedented rise in students identified as Latino, Asian, and immigrant English-language learners living in poverty, coupled with its legacy of racial segregation, reflect trends and conditions critical to national conversations around racial diversity and school resegregation in the post-Civil Rights Era. Purpose This article describes the events surrounding the Kelly v. Mason (1968) case, which led to Las Vegas's mandatory school desegregation plan and the African American community's request in 1992 to abandon the mandatory busing plan for a return to neighborhood schools. Its secondary aim is to disrupt a tradition of advocacy for...

Social Justice for the Advantaged: Freedom from Racial Equality Post-Milliken

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2016

Background/Context In Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the U.S. Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional ... more Background/Context In Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the U.S. Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional a metropolitan-wide desegregation plan in Detroit that sought to achieve racial balance in part by busing white suburban students to the city's majority black schools. In a stark departure from Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), Milliken left the question of how, or even whether, to equalize education for black students up to local parents, educators, activists, school board members, state legislators, and other private and public community stakeholders. Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study In this article, I consider school desegregation as a form of social justice for blacks and racial equality for all, 40 years post-Milliken. Drawing from research on school desegregation as social justice and Bell's theory of interest convergence, I argue that integration and equality in the post-Civil Rights Era requires attention to the competing visions of social justice I describe a...

Black Women Superintendents

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, 2021

Research on Black women superintendents has focused largely on their racial and gendered identiti... more Research on Black women superintendents has focused largely on their racial and gendered identities and the challenges associated with negotiating the politics of race and gender while leading complex school systems. Regarding the underrepresentation of Black female superintendents, an examination of Black women’s experiences of preparing for, pursuing, attaining, and serving in the superintendency may provide insights regarding their unique ways of knowing and, leading that, inform their leadership praxis. Informed by research on K-12 school superintendency, race and gender in education leadership, and the lived experiences and knowledge claims of Black women superintendents, important implications for future research on the superintendency will be hold. There exists a small but growing body of scholarly research on Black women education leaders, even less on the Black woman school superintendent, who remains largely underrepresented in education leadership research and the field. ...

Leading While Black

Handbook of Urban Education, 2021

Making America’s schools great now: reclaiming democracy and activist leadership under Trump

Journal of Educational Administration and History, 2017

Trump's vow to 'make America great again' seeks to usher in a policy agenda reminiscent of an era... more Trump's vow to 'make America great again' seeks to usher in a policy agenda reminiscent of an era that served as a boon to the rich while devastating poor, working-class, Americans, particularly people of color. His education policy and budget blueprint prove no exception, signalling troubling priorities for those who value strong public institutions, civil rights, and investments in public schools. In this essay, I argue that the current political moment requires an educational leadership committed to making America's schools great now by reclaiming public schools as pillars of democracy through resistance, taking a stand on issues, and actively leading change. I conclude with calls to (a) resist efforts to dismantle education as a public good, (b) reclaim a vision of education grounded in equality, liberation, and justice, and (c) revolutionise how education leadership is conceptualized, practiced, and sustained.

Leadership Matters: Advancing Issues of Equity, Engagement, and Excellence in the Study of Educational Leadership

Journal of School Leadership, 2011

Second Chances Academy: Alternative School or Pathway to Prison?

Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 2016

This case considers the leadership challenge facing district officials in a mid-sized urban–subur... more This case considers the leadership challenge facing district officials in a mid-sized urban–suburban school district receiving negative media coverage for the overrepresentation of poor, Black, and Latino males in its alternative high school, Second Chances Academy. Many of its students also qualify for special education and English learner services. Local civil rights leaders have expressed moral outrage over the school’s abysmal graduation rate, describing it as a “pit stop” along the school-to-prison pipeline. Now that the third principal in 2 years has resigned, the district superintendent must not only manage public criticism and find the right person to lead Second Chances Academy but also confront the socially unjust practices embedded in his district’s alternative education program.

Leading and Learning in Diverse Educational Contexts: Advancing Culturally Proficient Leadership through Intellectual Teamwork

Toward a Political Race Project in Educational Leadership: The Case for Coalition-Building among Black and Latino Communities and Constituencies

Community-Based Education Reform in Urban Contexts

Urban Education, 2014

The top-down nature of school reform in urban communities has prompted educators, students, paren... more The top-down nature of school reform in urban communities has prompted educators, students, parents, and citizens alike to question the ways in which we hold public schools accountable for student learning and performance. Education research representing a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including history, sociology, political science, and public policy and interdisciplinary fields, such as leadership studies and program evaluation, has contributed greatly to our understanding of the role of schools, neighborhoods, and communities in urban education reform. Although research and policy discourses analyzing and comparing the effectiveness and drawbacks of reform, whether top-down or grassroots, are far from new, the knowledge base concerning how such efforts should take place, by whom, and the degree to which they are sustainable remain underdeveloped. This special issue of Urban Education presents a timely exploration of community-based reform efforts designed to improve student achievement and school success within the decades-long era of high-stakes, performance-based accountability. Given increased support for testing and standardization,

Promise Neighborhoods

Urban Education, 2014

The purpose of this inquiry is to consider how the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighbo... more The purpose of this inquiry is to consider how the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods (PNs) program can improve persistently low-achieving urban schools by making their “neighborhoods whole again” through community capacity building for education reform. As the “first federal initiative to put education at the center of comprehensive efforts to fight poverty in urban and rural areas,” we frame our inquiry according to PNs’ intent to build capacity in high-needs communities in ways that provide high-quality educational and systematic support for children and families. We begin with an overview of PN, followed by a discussion of community capacity for urban school reform. Next, using descriptive case study methods, we present the case of the Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative to illustrate the ways in which a low-capacity community in the American West engaged in community capacity building activities to improve selected urban schools, albeit unsuccessful in i...

Putting thePublicBack in Public Education: Community Advocacy and Education Leadership under the Every Student Succeeds Act

Journal of School Leadership, 2017

In this article, we argue that ESSA provides a unique policy window for district-level leaders to... more In this article, we argue that ESSA provides a unique policy window for district-level leaders to advance an equity agenda by working closely with local community advocates. Drawing from a larger qualitative, multiple case study on the role of school boards in three U.S. Mountain West school districts, we focus on community advocacy committed to expanding educational equity and opportunity for underserved Black, Latinx, and English learner students Guided by community equity literacy as an organizing framework grounded in the literature on school–community relations, partnerships, and collaboration, we find that community advocates, who in some cases became school board members, identified educational inequities through various forms of knowledge, and then took deliberate actions to dismantle inequities in their respective school districts. We conclude with recommendations for how district-level leaders might leverage community advocacy and education leadership at the local level un...

Black Education in the Wake of COVID-19 and Systemic Racism: Toward a Theory of Change and Action

This report presents findings from a research study the Black Education Research Collective (BERC... more This report presents findings from a research study the Black Education Research Collective (BERC) conducted to better understand how the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism have impacted Black education from the perspectives of Black parents, teachers, students, educators, and community leaders. Findings underscored the historical and systemic nature of trauma in Black communities as a result of racism in U.S. institutions, including schools and school systems. Participants expressed concern over the fact that schools are ill-equipped to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of their children and that COVID-19 and increasing racial violence have revealed further their lack of capacity or willingness to meet the educational needs of Black students or expectations of Black parents

In Search of Black Teachers

Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers

Nevada English Language Learner's Summary

Parent and Family Engagement: The Missing Piece in Urban Education Reform

Parent and family engagement in the educational lives of children and youth positively influence ... more Parent and family engagement in the educational lives of children and youth positively influence student learning and achievement. While this connection may seem obvious, varying ideals of parent engagement limit the ways in which school communities understand, encourage, and benefit from meaningful school‐home‐community interactions. This is frequently the case in culturally diverse, urban communities where education reform has focused heavily on high‐stakes testing, teacher accountability, and school choice, but less on the fragile connections that often exist between schools and the families they serve. The purpose of this policy brief is to review selected research on parent involvement and expand existing understandings of parent and family engagement in ways that are culturally relevant and responsive to the diverse strengths and needs of families in urban communities. It concludes with specific recommendations for strengthening parent and family engagement.

A Nation (of Students) at Risk: The Political Rhetoric of Equity and Achievement in US Education Reform

Promoting Student Interaction in a Fully-Online Program: Toward New Rules of Classroom Engagement

The purpose of this presentation is to describe efforts to promote student interaction in a newly... more The purpose of this presentation is to describe efforts to promote student interaction in a newly-launched, fully-online graduate program in education leadership and student perspectives concerning such interactions in the online environment. In fall 2014, the Division of Education Leadership enrolled a cohort of 21 students in its first fully-online Master of Educational Administration (MEd) program, "a licensure program that prepares students to become school and district leaders and administrators." The program's introductory course, EDLE 620: Organizational Theory and Leadership Development, through the use of integrated multimedia technology, encouraged class and small group discussion, small group graded assignments, and a range of collaborative group activities designed to promote student interaction. Such engagement is particularly critical in this program, given the expectation that aspiring and practicing educational leaders can participate in, facilitate, an...

Badges of Inferiority

Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education, 2021

The Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative: A Community-Based Approach to Improving Educational Opportunity & Achievement

Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank the Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative community... more Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank the Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative community partners who participated in the original grant application process and attended numerous convenings and meetings without which this report would not be possible. Special thanks to the administration and staff of the Clark County School District and Southern Nevada Enterprise Community board for their leadership and support. Established in 2009, The Lincy Institute conducts and supports research that focuses on improving Nevada's health, education, and social services. This research is used to build capacity for service providers and enhance efforts to draw state and federal money to the greater Las Vegas community and highlight key issues affecting public policy and quality-of-life decisions on behalf of Nevada's children, seniors, and families.

School Resegregation in the Mississippi of the West: Community Counternarratives on the Return to Neighborhood Schools in Las Vegas, 1968–1994

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2013

Background School desegregation and resegregation in the Mountain West remain understudied despit... more Background School desegregation and resegregation in the Mountain West remain understudied despite the substantial impact the region's growth and demographic change have had on racial balance and diversity in schools. Home to the largest school district in the Mountain West and fifth largest school district in the country, Las Vegas's unprecedented rise in students identified as Latino, Asian, and immigrant English-language learners living in poverty, coupled with its legacy of racial segregation, reflect trends and conditions critical to national conversations around racial diversity and school resegregation in the post-Civil Rights Era. Purpose This article describes the events surrounding the Kelly v. Mason (1968) case, which led to Las Vegas's mandatory school desegregation plan and the African American community's request in 1992 to abandon the mandatory busing plan for a return to neighborhood schools. Its secondary aim is to disrupt a tradition of advocacy for...

Social Justice for the Advantaged: Freedom from Racial Equality Post-Milliken

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2016

Background/Context In Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the U.S. Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional ... more Background/Context In Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the U.S. Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional a metropolitan-wide desegregation plan in Detroit that sought to achieve racial balance in part by busing white suburban students to the city's majority black schools. In a stark departure from Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), Milliken left the question of how, or even whether, to equalize education for black students up to local parents, educators, activists, school board members, state legislators, and other private and public community stakeholders. Purpose/Objective/Focus of Study In this article, I consider school desegregation as a form of social justice for blacks and racial equality for all, 40 years post-Milliken. Drawing from research on school desegregation as social justice and Bell's theory of interest convergence, I argue that integration and equality in the post-Civil Rights Era requires attention to the competing visions of social justice I describe a...

Black Women Superintendents

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, 2021

Research on Black women superintendents has focused largely on their racial and gendered identiti... more Research on Black women superintendents has focused largely on their racial and gendered identities and the challenges associated with negotiating the politics of race and gender while leading complex school systems. Regarding the underrepresentation of Black female superintendents, an examination of Black women’s experiences of preparing for, pursuing, attaining, and serving in the superintendency may provide insights regarding their unique ways of knowing and, leading that, inform their leadership praxis. Informed by research on K-12 school superintendency, race and gender in education leadership, and the lived experiences and knowledge claims of Black women superintendents, important implications for future research on the superintendency will be hold. There exists a small but growing body of scholarly research on Black women education leaders, even less on the Black woman school superintendent, who remains largely underrepresented in education leadership research and the field. ...

Leading While Black

Handbook of Urban Education, 2021

Making America’s schools great now: reclaiming democracy and activist leadership under Trump

Journal of Educational Administration and History, 2017

Trump's vow to 'make America great again' seeks to usher in a policy agenda reminiscent of an era... more Trump's vow to 'make America great again' seeks to usher in a policy agenda reminiscent of an era that served as a boon to the rich while devastating poor, working-class, Americans, particularly people of color. His education policy and budget blueprint prove no exception, signalling troubling priorities for those who value strong public institutions, civil rights, and investments in public schools. In this essay, I argue that the current political moment requires an educational leadership committed to making America's schools great now by reclaiming public schools as pillars of democracy through resistance, taking a stand on issues, and actively leading change. I conclude with calls to (a) resist efforts to dismantle education as a public good, (b) reclaim a vision of education grounded in equality, liberation, and justice, and (c) revolutionise how education leadership is conceptualized, practiced, and sustained.

Leadership Matters: Advancing Issues of Equity, Engagement, and Excellence in the Study of Educational Leadership

Journal of School Leadership, 2011

Second Chances Academy: Alternative School or Pathway to Prison?

Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 2016

This case considers the leadership challenge facing district officials in a mid-sized urban–subur... more This case considers the leadership challenge facing district officials in a mid-sized urban–suburban school district receiving negative media coverage for the overrepresentation of poor, Black, and Latino males in its alternative high school, Second Chances Academy. Many of its students also qualify for special education and English learner services. Local civil rights leaders have expressed moral outrage over the school’s abysmal graduation rate, describing it as a “pit stop” along the school-to-prison pipeline. Now that the third principal in 2 years has resigned, the district superintendent must not only manage public criticism and find the right person to lead Second Chances Academy but also confront the socially unjust practices embedded in his district’s alternative education program.

Leading and Learning in Diverse Educational Contexts: Advancing Culturally Proficient Leadership through Intellectual Teamwork

Toward a Political Race Project in Educational Leadership: The Case for Coalition-Building among Black and Latino Communities and Constituencies

Community-Based Education Reform in Urban Contexts

Urban Education, 2014

The top-down nature of school reform in urban communities has prompted educators, students, paren... more The top-down nature of school reform in urban communities has prompted educators, students, parents, and citizens alike to question the ways in which we hold public schools accountable for student learning and performance. Education research representing a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including history, sociology, political science, and public policy and interdisciplinary fields, such as leadership studies and program evaluation, has contributed greatly to our understanding of the role of schools, neighborhoods, and communities in urban education reform. Although research and policy discourses analyzing and comparing the effectiveness and drawbacks of reform, whether top-down or grassroots, are far from new, the knowledge base concerning how such efforts should take place, by whom, and the degree to which they are sustainable remain underdeveloped. This special issue of Urban Education presents a timely exploration of community-based reform efforts designed to improve student achievement and school success within the decades-long era of high-stakes, performance-based accountability. Given increased support for testing and standardization,

Promise Neighborhoods

Urban Education, 2014

The purpose of this inquiry is to consider how the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighbo... more The purpose of this inquiry is to consider how the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods (PNs) program can improve persistently low-achieving urban schools by making their “neighborhoods whole again” through community capacity building for education reform. As the “first federal initiative to put education at the center of comprehensive efforts to fight poverty in urban and rural areas,” we frame our inquiry according to PNs’ intent to build capacity in high-needs communities in ways that provide high-quality educational and systematic support for children and families. We begin with an overview of PN, followed by a discussion of community capacity for urban school reform. Next, using descriptive case study methods, we present the case of the Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative to illustrate the ways in which a low-capacity community in the American West engaged in community capacity building activities to improve selected urban schools, albeit unsuccessful in i...

Putting thePublicBack in Public Education: Community Advocacy and Education Leadership under the Every Student Succeeds Act

Journal of School Leadership, 2017

In this article, we argue that ESSA provides a unique policy window for district-level leaders to... more In this article, we argue that ESSA provides a unique policy window for district-level leaders to advance an equity agenda by working closely with local community advocates. Drawing from a larger qualitative, multiple case study on the role of school boards in three U.S. Mountain West school districts, we focus on community advocacy committed to expanding educational equity and opportunity for underserved Black, Latinx, and English learner students Guided by community equity literacy as an organizing framework grounded in the literature on school–community relations, partnerships, and collaboration, we find that community advocates, who in some cases became school board members, identified educational inequities through various forms of knowledge, and then took deliberate actions to dismantle inequities in their respective school districts. We conclude with recommendations for how district-level leaders might leverage community advocacy and education leadership at the local level un...

Black Education in the Wake of COVID-19 and Systemic Racism: Toward a Theory of Change and Action

This report presents findings from a research study the Black Education Research Collective (BERC... more This report presents findings from a research study the Black Education Research Collective (BERC) conducted to better understand how the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism have impacted Black education from the perspectives of Black parents, teachers, students, educators, and community leaders. Findings underscored the historical and systemic nature of trauma in Black communities as a result of racism in U.S. institutions, including schools and school systems. Participants expressed concern over the fact that schools are ill-equipped to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of their children and that COVID-19 and increasing racial violence have revealed further their lack of capacity or willingness to meet the educational needs of Black students or expectations of Black parents