Toward Continuous Improvement of Equity-Oriented Professional Development: Lessons from the Field

This article describes the development and implementation of a professional development (PD) series designed to grow educators’ knowledge of race, racism, and empathy (i.e., Racial Awareness and Knowledge Intervention or RAKI). The primary goal of the RAKI PD experience was to grow teachers’ racial consciousness and capacity to express empathy so that they might better steward discipline interactions with Black students. This paper foregrounds the utility of continuous improvement to optimize learning outcomes of equity-oriented professional development like the RAKI, and the policy implications of doing such work. Findings suggest that continuous improvement activities were essential to upgrading RAKI quality. The importance of policy to facilitate continuous improvement of PD like the RAKI is discussed, along with the tensions associated with iterating it to achieve intended outcomes.