Giving Compass' Take:

• Schools often begin racial bias training for teachers following incidents, but research suggests a range of results - from improvements to detriments. 

• How can philanthropy support the development and implementation of effective racial bias training? How can ineffective or damaging trainings be removed or improved? 

• Learn how corporations can address racial bias.

In mandating the training, Starbucks is entering a space that has been occupied by schools for many years. Just because schools have long been grappling with this work, however, does not mean they’ve always done it well.

“We carried out racial integration in schools before we did any other sector in society, without any kind of guidance or support on how to do it,” said Pedro Noguera, a professor at UCLA whose latest book is called Race, Equity, and Education: 60 Years From Brown.

Over the past decade, many educational organizations have pushed schools to embrace racial bias trainings as part of a larger commitment to what they call “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” or — because educators love their acronyms —DEI.

In April, following allegations, including of a white teacher stepping on a black student during a lesson on slavery and a Bronx principal banning black history lessons, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $23 million investment in anti-bias trainings for all city educators by 2021.

Jennifer Moore, a former middle school teacher who now leads trainings through her organization, Initiate Equity, said she’s often called when something bad has happened.

The notion that training can help alleviate unconscious bias is backed by some academic research.

But there are also many ways for such trainings to go wrong. For instance, when people hear that stereotyping is normal, they may do it more, according to Vanderbilt researchers.

More to the point, academics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Harvard, and the University of Virginia, examining 499 studies over 20 years, found very little evidencethat changes in implicit bias have anything to do with changes in a person’s behavior.

Read the full article about racial bias training by Brenden Lowe at The 74.