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MISSION
The mission of MSAN is to understand and change school practices and structures that keep racial achievement gaps in place. Our goal is to ensure racial differences in achievement are eliminated while improving the achievement of all students.
VALUES
- Eliminating the gap is not only the right thing to do, but it is essential to ensure the future of our democracy.
- Because achievement is not innately determined, children will achieve when they are effectively taught how to learn.
- All children come to school with a variety on individual strengths; our responsibility is to discover and build upon these strengths.
- While recognizing the crucial roles that parents and community groups play, we need to focus on what schools can do.
- Schools that concentrate on how their practices affect students will be more productive than those that blame students, families or poverty for underachievement.
- Each individual staff member must examine his or her beliefs and change practices to counteract the contemporary and historic impacts of racism and discrimination.
- Schools should be considered excellent only when students of all racial and ethnic groups are achieving at high levels.
GOALS
- Implement, monitor and evaluate changes in what we do that improves student achievement.
- Develop in teachers, students and administrators the leadership skills and beliefs that are necessary and critical for change.
- Synthesize, interpret and contribute to research that informs practice and that combines the wisdom of researchers and practitioners.
- Contribute to the policy debate on "The GAP" at the local, state and national levels.
CORE PRACTICES
- Engaging in collaborative research in which practitioners and researchers are equal partners in designing, conducting, and publishing research.
- Sharing procedures for gathering and reporting disaggregated data.
- Conducting evaluations of programs intended to raise the academic achievement of minority students.
- Conducting training and professional development activities for district teachers and administrators relative to the MSAN mission.
- Create opportunities for students to guide the work of the organization.
- Disseminating results of Network activities among MSAN districts and the larger educational community.