Currently Promoting: Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership

About the book:

An incisive case study of changemaking in action, Stuck Improving analyzes the complex process of racial equity reform within K–12 schools. Scholar Decoteau J. Irby emphasizes that racial equity is dynamic, shifting as our emerging racial consciousness evolves and as racism asserts itself anew. Those who accept the challenge of reform find themselves “stuck improving,” caught in a perpetual dilemma of both making progress and finding ever more progress to be made. Rather than dismissing stuckness as failure, Irby embraces it as an inextricable part of the improvement process.

About the author:

Decoteau J. Irby is an associate professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and founding member of Derute Consulting Cooperative. His life’s work focuses on questions of how to create and sustain organizations that ensure Black people’s self-determined well-being, development, and positive life outcomes. His academic research examines how equity-focused leadership improves Black children and youth’s educational experiences and outcomes.

Dr. Irby uses design thinking and continuous improvement methods to help leaders and teams design and create organizations that affirm Black people. He volunteers in his neighborhood community garden, is treasurer for his local park advisory council, and spends as much time as possible outdoors with his children and partner. Finally, he is the lead songwriter-guitarist and performer for the band Decoteau Black.