Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls

"Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls demonstrates, from our own lived experiences, the multifaceted and continued need to look critically at the historically and present day exclusionary policies, practices and structure of US education that serve to predetermine our success. This anthology pushes us all to dig deeper into the organizational intent of learning as a transformational and liberatory practice, and to cast aside its role as indoctrination."

Clarice Bailey

Faculty, Organizational Development and Leadership, Saint Joseph's University

"What an amazing collection of essays! What a profound acknowledgement and powerful testament of the lives, histories, brilliance, beauty, and perseverance of Black women and girls. For too long, others have tried silencing, dis-empowering, and erasing Black women and girls within inequitable educational systems. This collection brings to light these realities while placing needed attention on mattering for Black women and girls who will never stop working for our liberation, freedom, justice, and wellbeing."

Valerie Kinloch, PhD

Renée and Richard Goldman Dean & Professor, School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh

"Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls centers the significant challenges Black girls and women face in schools and society while simultaneously bringing forth the beauty in them being their "full selves." It is a timely book that provides educators, leaders, and policymakers -- across the educational pipeline -- yet another chance to provide schooling experiences worthy of Black girls, their magic, and their brilliance. Perhaps someday soon they will get it right"

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, PhD

Associate Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

“This book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding race, gender, and equity in education. The text pushes our understanding of Black women and girls beyond the stereotypical model minority myths of magic. The authors unpack the complexities of experiences that includes injustice and resilience within education and across intersecting systems. This critical resource positions Black women and girls at the center, which is where they belong, in postsecondary research and beyond.”

Tiffany Jones, PhD

Deputy Director of Measurement Learning and Evaluation for Postsecondary Success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“In the powerful essays that make up Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls, Black women and girls are listened to, appreciated and valued in recognition of the unrelenting challenges to our existence in a world that continues to be committed to stifling our voices. What these authors know intimately is that such stifling is not because what Black women and girls are saying isn’t important: It is precisely because it is.

This book names the challenges Black women and girls continue to experience as we pursue our education and offers implications and recommendations for practitioners, teachers, administrators, and policymakers. [It] needs to be read widely and deeply studied as much for its formations and beautiful representations of Black women and girls as its recommendations. It is the truth-telling we need today and a groundbreaking resource we need today and beyond.”

from the foreword by Cynthia B. Dillard

(Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana), Athens, Georgia; and Cape Coast, Central Region, Ghana