Why Educators Should Learn APA style

I'm often asked why students should learn APA style, especially in a master's program. Doctoral students seem to be able to see a purpose for it, but MS and MEd students? Sometimes not so much. So, why do I require all written work to be formatted in APA style? Here are a few reasons:

1. APA is one of the major "languages" of educational research. Getting to know APA will help you be a better consumer of research. It will help you read research more quickly, more critically and it will make complicated studies accessible. Writing and reading APA means that you can be both a consumer and a contributor of educational research and ideas--it makes you part of a larger, historic and exhilarating conversation about improving education. Of course, it's possible to be productive and contribute great ideas without learning APA, but not learning it excludes you from many of the most important conversations. Note that APA is not the ONLY style used--for example, many of the best journals and books used internationally use Harvard, Chicago or other styles. Unfortunately, this is a barrier that can get in the way of us sharing our work and ideas across borders, but that's a post for another day.
2. Writing in APA helps an aspiring administrator (or educator) develop sound habits of mind. Writing in APA, you have to be disciplined, you pay attention to detail and perhaps most importantly you need to support your claims with evidence. While the first two I listed here are fairly obvious skills you develop writing in APA, the last is the most important. Educational research and practice should be informed by sound research. When you make decisions in a school--whether these are in the classroom or from an administrative position--there should be a reason. As educators, we all ask "why" but scholar-educators take it upon themselves to have a better answer to this question than "that's the way we've always done it," "that's what all the other schools are doing" or "because I said so." In APA, you must support your claims by citing relevant research that informed your perspective--this is something we should all strive to do in our practice and scholarship.
3. Writing in APA can improve your communication. The way you get better at writing is by writing--there is no substitution for lifelong practice. For some people, the most intense instruction they received on writing took place during their school years, and for some others during their college experience. Practicing APA, or any regimented form of writing for that matter, will have the residual effects of helping you as a public speaker, it will help you write better emails, tweets and blog posts, improve delivery to students, allow you to create better presentations to people in and out of your school and enable you to facilitate better group interactions. 

We all need to practice and improve our communication, both intake and output--working hard on being a better writer will help you be a better thinker and that can only improve you and your organization.

Racism and Education in the United States

Racism is alive and well in the United States. That sad fact is playing out in the nation’s public schools. Racism compromises the quality of instruction students receive (Collins, 2009; Delpit, 1995). Racism motivates many schools to adopt a culturally irrelevant curriculum to support that instruction (Ladson-Billings, 1992, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c, 1997). Racism undermines the fairness of assessments used to measure student academic achievement (Darling-Hammond, 1995). Racism erodes the quality of the formal and informal relationships students develop with peers and with the adult educators in their lives (Ogbu, 1978; Perry, Steele, & Hilliard, 2003). Racism is a potentially quantifiable phenomenon, measured through longstanding achievement gaps, gaps in disciplinary referrals, school (re)segregation, and a disproportionate number of students of color placed in special/remedial/lower tracked education. Racism is also a qualitative phenomenon—studied throughout the world as a violent and oppressive sociological, anthropological, political, economic, and educational phenomenon (Fordham, 1996; Hacker, 2003; West, 1998). Of course, even calling racism a “‘phenomenon”‘ is generous in that it makes abstract something all too concrete in the lives of too many Americans—at its core, racism is one person or a group’s expression of contempt, of hatred, of evil, of oppression toward another person or group of people—it’s important not to lose sight of that by over-intellectualizing the concept.

Teachers and educational administrators are among the nation’s best and brightest public intellectuals (Dantley & Tillman, 2006), but many of these people are also uncritical of deep-seated overt and covert racist values that shape who they are and how they teach or lead (Young & Laible, 2000).

Racism also undermines the quality of the professional and interpersonal relationships among these educators (Brooks & Jean-Marie, 2007), so it seems reasonable to suggest that the influence of racism on education is both direct and indirect. Racism comes through implicit and explicit institutions, it comes from people, from the home, from school, and from society, and most of us are part of its pervasive force by commission or omission (Brooks, 2007). Moreover, it means one thing to me and another to you; what I may think is anti-racist, you may view as the opposite. Racism is co-constructed by the oppressor and the oppressed, among oppressors and among the oppressed; and these relationships are mediated by a great many variables and factors that are constantly changing. So, in a way, no matter how hard we try, how thoughtful we may be, we are likely part of both the problem and the solution at the same time. Does it make you upset to think that you are part of the problem? Good. It makes me angry to think that I am part of the problem, too, but I accept it as part of my efforts to unlearn the racism I have been taught by society and school. 

This is an excerpt from the Introduction of my new book, Black School, White School: Racism and Educational (Mis)leadership. I am working to update my personal web site, which will have a dedicated page where you can learn more about the book if you are interested. For now, the Amazon link above is best because you can "look inside" if you'd like to read more.