Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education
About Us
We are disheartened by the failure of urban schools to educate low-income youth of color in particular and alarmed at the system of tracking which may ultimately prepare many youth for low-wage jobs, the military, or prison. We need to rethink the fundamental tenets of public schools—their purposes, curricula, pedagogies, orientation to youth, families and communities, and the role of educators in those schools. In the context of growing economic, social, and environmental challenges on a global scale, our starting point is that urban youth of color are future social activists and leaders, and a central role of schools is to prepare them for those challenges.
A realistic understanding of an empowering education for all students is grounded in the recognition that it must include both high levels of academic competence and the knowledge to access higher education (pedagogy of access) and opportunities to understand how society functions to be enabled to affect it (pedagogy of dissent). Beyond academic excellence, students need critical analytical tools and a sense of their collective agency to change the unjust social conditions which they experience and contribute to society as a whole.
There is promising work that documents and theorizes the efficacy of these practices. Chicago is a key site for this work. CEJE works with, and studies, the practices of teachers and community members in Chicago who are consciously working to create social justice schools. Our collaborative work aims to support, document, and theorize the efforts of these educators to insert a new perspective in the national debate about urban education reform in tandem with community organizing for justice and equity in education.
Faculty & Staff
- Patricia Buenrostro | Graduate Researcher
- Aisha El-Amin | Graduate Researcher
- Rhoda Rae Gutierrez | Program Director
- Eric (Rico) Gutstein | Faculty Associate
- Pauline Lipman | Director
- Cynthia Nambo | Strategic Planning Coordinator
- Jackson Potter | Chicago Social Justice Schools Network Coordinator
- David Omotoso Stovall | Faculty Associate