She studies why anti-racist professional development in schools so often fails to change how teachers actually treat students — and what works instead. Dr Abby C. Emerson is an assistant professor of Childhood Education at Hunter College, CUNY, where her research spans anti-racist and abolitionist teacher education, restorative justice, and the critique of whiteness in educational spaces.
She's been named National Association for Multicultural Education's Critical Teacher of the Year, and this fall she releases her book, From Anti-Racism to Professional Learning for Liberating Schools, with Harvard Education Press.
Most schools running anti-racist professional development hit the same wall: teachers learn the theory, reflect on their own bias, update a unit — and the discipline data doesn't move. Dr. Abby C. Emerson studied schools across New York City to find out why, and she found the fix isn't another workshop. It's handing the mic to students.
📚 What You'll Learn
- Why the three most common anti-racist PD strategies rarely change discipline outcomes
- How one high school's student-led equity committee exposed teacher bias that surveys never could
- Why "call-out culture" undermines anti-racist work faster than it builds it
- How to communicate proactively with parents before backlash starts
- Why breaking curriculum change into small, sequenced steps outperforms sweeping overhauls
🔨 Breaking Down the Old Rules 🧠 Key Insight #1: Why Anti-Racist Professional Development Doesn't Change Discipline Data
- What's broken: Schools run PD on structural racism, individual reflection, and curriculum revision, then assume the culture has shifted.
- The shift: Track whether discipline outcomes actually move — not whether teachers can articulate the theory.
- Impact: Educators reported updating their curriculum while the same students kept getting pulled out of class for the same behavior, because the PD never reached school-wide policy.
🧠 Key Insight #2: The Student Voice Committee That Exposed Teacher Bias
- What's broken: Adult-only equity committees rely on surveys and self-report — data teachers can rationalize away.
- The shift: One high school trained students on its equity committee to collect, analyze, and present discipline data directly to staff, with no teacher in the room.
- Impact: Teachers only reversed their denial when white students said out loud that Black classmates were being punished for the exact same behavior they weren't.
🧠 Key Insight #3: Why Call-Out Culture Kills Anti-Racist Progress
- What's broken: PD that turns into "gotcha" policing — correcting language, catching mistakes in real time — makes people defensive and shuts the conversation down.
- The shift: Build the relationship first: one-on-one conversations, patience, and space for staff to say when they don't feel great about the PD.
- Impact: Principals who built trust before pushing change kept staff in the work, instead of losing them to resistance or resignation.
🗣️ DR. ABBY C. EMERSON QUOTES FROM THE RUCKUSCAST
"Racism is not just about a couple bad apples, but that racism is a systemic structural piece that impacts all of us."
— Dr. Abby C. Emerson
"Education and teaching can be used as a tool to really challenge inequality in all its forms."
— Dr. Abby C. Emerson
"That relationship piece is more important than calling people out."
— Dr. Abby C. Emerson
"That sort of policing of each other was ultimately really detrimental."
— Dr. Abby C. Emerson
"I really tried to get ahead of the conversation so families knew it was coming home."
— Dr. Abby C. Emerson
🧗♂️ Your Do School Different Challenge
Ready to implement? Start here:
- Tomorrow: Schedule one 15-minute conversation with a teacher who's pushed back on equity work, and just listen before you respond.
- This Month: Pull last semester's discipline data broken out by race and share it with your leadership team before your next PD session.
- This Semester: Launch a student equity or student voice committee that collects and presents its own data directly to staff.
⌚️ Episode Timestamps
- 00:00 - Cold open: the data that shocked teachers
- 02:47 - Introducing Dr. C. Abby Emerson
- 04:04 - The PD disaster that sparked her research
- 06:24 - Why teacher time is too precious to waste
- 09:35 - Three patterns in anti-racist PD across NYC schools
- 12:11 - How teachers respond to learning structural racism
- 16:31 - Why call-out culture backfires in PD
- 18:08 - Facing political backlash after 2020
- 23:37 - The hardest work: individual self-reflection
- 26:25 - Curriculum revision, one unit at a time
- 29:47 - Two critiques: discipline gaps and individualized PD
- 37:55 - How a student voice committee changed a school
- 42:47 - Rapid-fire: marquee message and dream school principles
🤝 Connect With Dr. Abby C. Emerson
👩🏻💻 Website: https://www.abbyemerson.com/
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abby-emerson-edd-4a387a55
📕 Book: (From Antiracism to Abolition: Professional Learning for Liberating Schools - https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895571170/from-antiracism-to-abolition/ )
🎧 Listen & Subscribe
Listen to Better Leaders Better Schools on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. If today's episode moved you, leave a review — it helps more Ruckus Makers find the show.
🧔🏻♂️ Your SelfMentorship Guide
Meet Digital Danny — your SelfMentorship guide. Always available, never forgets, and evolves with you. Think through your next leadership move at myprincipalcoach.com
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