Payne suspects that a school's inability to talk openly about race predicts its capacity for change¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r2 · q1
Currency · newest study 2005 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2010: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q1 i? Schools that cannot discuss race openly tend to be unable to discuss other difficult matters, making racial reticence a predictor of which schools can change. → Payne 2005

Evidence¶

Payne 2005¶

Payne, Charles. (2005). Still Crazy after All These Years: Race in the Chicago School System. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Illinois at Chicago. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-race-chicago-school-system

q1 · i? · theoretical · r2

Theoretical argument in a speech by an experienced school researcher, offered with no systematic data. Payne argues racial reticence is "a proxy for other things" and that schools able to move past racial discomfort may find other topics easier to broach.

"I suspect the inability to talk about race at the school level can be a significant impediment to change, or at least a significant predictor of which schools have the capacity to change."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Payne argues that color-blind ideology in schools precludes discussion of how outcomes and privilege are distributed by race — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Race is influential but not determinative in school change: it slows and complicates reform without dictating outcomes — related
• Social trust predicts which urban schools improve, and trust is built by reducing staff vulnerability — related