NEW: 2023 MnEEP State of Students of Color and American Indian Students Executive Summary

What does an education system look like when we honor and uplift the lived experiences of students who are People of Color and Indigenous (POCI)?

What do student outcomes look like when center students as whole beings in their racial, ethnic, and cultural identities—without attempting to alter their identities to conform to the goals of an education system that wasn’t designed for them?

MnEEP’s latest research, outlined in the 2023 State of Students of Color and American Indian Students Report, reveals how we need to move forward from simply acknowledging the deep disparities in educational outcomes for POCI students and work with urgency to design a new approach to education rooted in democratic principles that we know today’s diverse students need.

Through Culturally Validating Pedagogy and Leadership (CVP/L), we can build student-centered, liberating learning experiences that validate each learner, connect to their lived experience, and advance and support their values, needs, and strengths.

CVP/L specifies that students’ values and interests belong in the learning environment, instruction, curriculum, and policy. These tenets connect the students’ lived experiences to ensure their educational experience is progressive, democratic, and liberating, and lead to the purpose-centered outcomes POCI students deserve.

A solutions-based research approach

This Executive Summary of the 2023 State of Students of Color and American Indian Students Report details five case studies using the CLEAR Solutions Framework to demonstrate the effectiveness of centering Culturally Validating Pedagogy and Leadership (CVP/L) in delivering educational experiences and improving outcomes for POCI students.

1. Leadership
2. Student Voices
3. Teacher Diversity
4. Adult Multilingual Learners
5. Higher Education Investment

These key case studies provide critical evidence of how multiple and diverse evidence- and practice-based research perspectives can build our understanding of what it looks like to construct liberating racial and social education rooted in democratic principles.

This 2023 State of Students of Color and American Indian Students Report offers more than a passive, conventional description of summative educational outcomes for POCI students.

Instead, it offers a mixed-methods solution-based research approach for improving outcomes for POCI students and advancing racial equity by centering the needs, desires, and lived and cultural experiences of POCI students through CVP/L as a cornerstone of an educational system.

We hope you will read our Executive Summary and use it to reflect on current educational practices and the ways our education system can and must be redesigned by centering and advancing CVP/L for each student.