Giving Compass' Take:

• Victoria Clayton shares how the North Clackamas School District closed the racial gap in graduation rates thanks to professional development focused on educational equity. 

• How can funders help spread this model to other districts? Where is the need for equity improvements the greatest? 

• Learn more about improving diversity, equity, and inclusion in education. 

North Clackamas School District Superintendent Matthew Utterback minds the gap. That is, the gap between white students and everyone else.

That’s why the 2017 National School Superintendent of the Year takes special pride in the details of his Oregon district’s 18 percent graduation rate increase.

“There’s now no gap between graduation rates for students of color versus white students in our district,” says Utterback. As recently as 2011, the gap between black students and white students in the suburban Oregon school system stood at a whopping 45 percent. It was 33 percent between Hispanics and whites.

What happened? Utterback attributes much of the progress to a professional development program: Coaching for Education Equity, which offered by the nonprofit Oregon Center for Educational Equity.

Six years ago, he made the training mandatory. Every district leader participates in a five-day retreat with the Oregon Center, and every certificated and classified staff member attends a similar two-day training.

Registration fees; hotels and substitutes; and whatever else is needed to support the training has been worked into the district’s PD budget. It’s worth every penny, Utterback says.

Read the full article about increasing equity in education by Victoria Clayton at District Administration.