The PD Mistake Making Racial Bias Worse in Your School

Anti-racist professional development often fails to change how teachers treat students. Here's the structural shift one school made instead. Anti-racist professional development is standard in many school districts, but most of it never touches how teachers actually treat students day to day. Dr. Abby C. Emerson, a professor at Hunter College, studied schools across New York City running this work and found the same pattern everywhere: educators learn the theory, reflect on themselves, update a unit — and the discipline gap barely moves. The fix isn't more training. It's structural. One high school built a student-led equity committee that surveyed peers, ran focus groups without teachers in the room, and delivered the findings back to staff themselves. The result: teachers saw their own punitive bias in the data, in their own students' words — and started changing how they lead classrooms, not just what they teach. THINK THROUGH YOUR NEXT LEADERSHIP MOVE: https://myprincipalcoach.com — your AI-powered principal coach, available 24/7. ⌚️ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - The data that shocked teachers 02:47 - Introducing Dr. Abby Emerson 04:04 - The PD disaster that sparked her research 06:24 - Why teacher time is too precious to waste 09:35 - Three patterns in anti-racist PD across NYC schools 12:11 - How teachers respond to learning structural racism 16:31 - Why call-out culture backfires in PD 18:08 - Facing political backlash after 2020 23:37 - The hardest work: individual self-reflection 26:25 - Curriculum revision, one unit at a time 29:47 - Two critiques: discipline gaps and individualized PD 37:55 - How a student voice committee changed a school 42:47 - Rapid-fire: marquee message and dream school principles CONNECT WITH DR. ABBY C. EMERSON: 👩🏻‍💻 Website: https://www.abbyemerson.com 🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abby-emerson-edd-4a387a55 📚 Book: (From Antiracism to Abolition: Professional Learning for Liberating Schools - https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/979889557... )  WHENEVER YOU ARE READY, HERE'S 3 WAYS TO HELP YOU DO SCHOOL DIFFERENT: 📬 Weekly newsletter: https://ruckusmakers.news/subscribe 📚 Monthly mini-books: https://ruckusmakers.media 🧭 Map your next 90-days: https://betterleadersbetterschools.co... 🫶 TODAY'S RUCKUSCAST IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: Most kids "think about" their future. They take a quiz, grab a brochure, and name three careers they saw on TV. That's not a plan. Orchard helps every student build a real, personalized career action plan, with an AI buddy named Orchie guiding the way. Explore careers. Compare paths. Take the next step this week. 🔎 Show your students what's possible https://betterleaders.orchard.careers/ ODP Business Solutions has been a trusted partner for schools for 30 years, handling everything from pencils to projectors so your team stops scrambling for supplies every August. They'll help you turn a tired computer lab into a STEAM innovation center, keep multiple campuses stocked and stocked sustainably, or upgrade from whiteboards to interactive displays — all through one supplier with access to cooperative contracts that simplify ordering and keep budgets compliant. 🔎 Visit ODPbusiness.com/education to learn more. IXL helps over 1 million teachers differentiate instruction in 20 minutes or less using real-time, data-informed insight — and gives Ruckus Makers a dashboard to track student progress and growth at every level, with reports you can customize to what matters most to your school. It's how data-informed decisions actually get made at scale, not just talked about. 🔎 Get started at ixl.com/leaders Kids First Education was founded by career educators and partners with Pre-K through 12 districts and schools to deliver instructional coaching, leadership development, and curriculum support built on collaboration and reflective planning. Whether you lead a single building or an entire district, they meet your team where they are with a relentless focus on what's best for kids. 🔎 Learn more at kidsfirst.llc