CYCLE’s executive director featured on NEPC’s April Interview of the Month

CYCLE’s Executive Director, Keith Catone, participated in a discussion on Educational Equity and Policy in the Midst of a Global Pandemic for the National Education Policy Center’s April Education Interview of the Month.

NEPC Researcher Christopher Saldaña interviewed a group of five educators and activists about their experience serving children, schools, and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The group discussed the unique ways that the pandemic has interrupted the normal interactions between students and teachers, administrators and personnel, and schools and communities and provided recommendations for how schools and communities can cope with the crisis and move forward. Keith explained that this moment can teach us about the value of public schools in times of crisis and contended that, in order for our recovery from the crisis to be strong, we must prioritize public schools and acknowledge their value as centers of democracy and community.  

CYCLE’s core value of “equity” is predicated on the belief that fairness is achieved when systemic disparities in opportunities and outcomes are recognized and eliminated. In education, the greatest disparities are race- and class-based, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made those disparities more apparent. Now more than ever, a focus on equity requires an explicitly anti-racist and anti-classist approach, which means distributing disproportionaly more resources to those with the greatest needs in communities of color and communities experiencing poverty facing massive job loss, increasing health risks, and exacerbated systems-driven vulnerabilities.

You can listen to the Educational Equity and Policy in the Midst of a Global Pandemic podcast here.