Gathering Data

Finding out what is working and what is not is an ongoing process but also an initial stock-taking in a number of areas is essential. Those areas should minimally include the following:

1. Academic performance of students along racial, linguistic, gender, and class lines.
2. Drop-out and suspension rates among students along racial, linguistic, gender, and class lines.
3. Students' feelings about and assessments of their experiences at the school.
4. Faculty's and staff's assessment of strengths and needs of the school and their explanations of the source of problems and successes.
5. Parents' assessment of the way in which the school is serving their children and the nature of the relationship between themselves and the school.
6. The quality of the teaching.
7. The anti-racist nature of the formal curriculum.
8. The overall climate of the school.
9. The accountability system in the school.
10. The resources of time, personnel, finances, and organizational culture available to support such an initiative.All of these features may not be examined fully in the initial stock-taking but a partial sense of each of theses would be useful as the journey begins. There are a variety of ways of taking stock. Some of these include classroom observations, focus groups with constituencies, and analysis of documents.